A race car turned into a road car that barely even touched the road
The 964-generation Carrera RSR 3.8 sits apart from other rare 911s. Porsche built only 51 examples, and these weren't lightly modified street cars, they were turnkey competition machines meant to go racing straight from the factory. But two of the 51 cars took a different path. A Porsche VIP commissioned a pair of "Strassenversion," or road-going, RSRs. They were still built on the full race chassis, but given full interiors and made street-usable.
This Polar Silver car, chassis WP0ZZZ96ZPS496107, is one of the two, and sat in a collection for the better part of two decades. The result? It sold for $4.7 million at RM Sotheby's earlier this year. And perhaps that's the strangest part of this whole car. Porsche built the 911 Carrera RSR to be driven as hard as possible. This particular example spent most of its life doing the exact opposite.
Race Hardware Under a Luxury Interior
RM Sotheby's
Calling it a "road-going RSR" undersells how extreme the spec really is. Both Strassenversion cars got the uprated, twin-ignition Le Mans-spec 3.8-liter flat-six, a 120-liter fuel tank, a full air-jack system, and a 40-percent locking rear differential. The goal wasn't comfort; it was a genuine motorsport race car made slightly more livable without losing what made it special. This wasn't a normal 911 made faster. It was a race car that Porsche reluctantly made usable on the street.
Inside, the original buyer went further still: Guards Red leather covers not just the seats but the steering column, center console, door panels, and even parts of the roll cage and air-jack system. Gold brake calipers and Speedline RS wheels with Amethyst Metallic centers round out the bespoke build. The same customer ordered four Turbo S Lightweights alongside the two RSRs. It was a six-car commission unlike anything Porsche would normally build for one buyer. There's just one catch: the owner barely drove any of them.
Twenty Years in Storage
RM Sotheby's
Though built in 1993, the car wasn't delivered until March 1996, nearly two years after RSR production ended. It then went straight into storage as part of a large private collection, staying there for almost 20 years. When it resurfaced in 2015, it had covered just six miles and still wore its factory Cosmoline protective coating, original tires, matching-numbers engine, and original Getrag gearbox. It changed hands again in 2017 and 2023, but the odometer never moved beyond that. After all, when Porsche builds you one of only two road-legal RSRs in existence, apparently the hardest thing to do is actually drive it.
from Autoblog News https://ift.tt/Kk72GuW
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