1964 Porsche 904 GTS Coupe

If you want to do any serious competition, you’ll need a 2-liter, 4-cam four, and that’s a $100,000 project

by Thor Thorson

Having axed its expensive Formula One program at the end of 1962, Porsche turned once more to sports car racing as a means of improving and marketing its road cars.

The Type 356-based Abarth-Carreras had flown the Porsche flag in international racing during the early 1960s, but an entirely new design was now deemed necessary to meet the strengthening opposition. A minimum of 100 road-usable cars had to be made to meet the FIA’s homologation requirements, a stipulation that made a complex spaceframe design like the Type 718 RSK a non-starter, so Porsche’s Technical Director, Dr. Hans Tomala, started with a clean sheet. In creating the legendary 904, Tomala opted for a chassis comprising a pair of steel, cross-braced, box sections, to which the fiberglass body shell was bonded.

Designed by Ferry Porsche’s eldest son “Butzi,” the body was manufactured by the Heinkel aircraft company and is widely recognized as one of Porsche’s most elegant, while...