Rare sports cars spanning six decades are heading from Germany’s Porsche Museum to the 2011 Phillip Island Classic Festival of Motorsport from March 18-20 to celebrate Porsche’s 60th anniversary in Australia.
The headline act of the collection is the 935/78 coupe nick-named ‘Moby Dick’ by Porsche race mechanics because of its large and extended ‘whale tail’.
Based on a production 911 body shell to Group 5 regulations, Moby Dick was with climax of 935 race car development. Powered by a 621 kW (845 hp) turbocharged 3.2-litre six-cylinder development of the production 911 engine, it reached 366 km/h at Le Mans in 1978.
Perhaps the most recognisable of all Porsche racecars – the famous 956/962 which won the Le Mans 24 Hour seven times between 1982 and 1994 – is also part of the exclusive collection that will be seen at the Phillip Island Classic in March.
The car secured for Australia is the Rothmans 962 raced to victory in 1987 by Derek Bell, Hans Stuck and Al Holbert.
From the 1960s comes the eight cylinder 908/02 Spyder that won the 1969 Targa Florio and the 718 RS 60 Spyder that won the 1960 Daytona 24 Hour race.
Other special Porsches in the collection include the lightweight 911 SC raced by Walter Rohrl in the gruelling 1980 San Remo rally and a V10-engined Porsche Carrera GT road car from 2003.
The Porsches will all be demonstrated at the Phillip Island meeting, which has again attracted a huge entry of more than 500 sports, racing and touring cars for the third consecutive year – more than 30 of them from overseas.
Another highlight of the 2011 ‘Classic’ will be the 30-minute sports car race on the Sunday that will see at least three Porsche 956/962 sports cars, up to four Porsche turbocharged six-cylinder 935 coupes, a V8 Sauber-Mercedes C9, an ex-Le Mans JCB Chevron-Cosworth V8, a GT40 Ford, and a number of V8-powered Lolas from the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s compete over 20 laps of the 4.55km Phillip Island Grand Prix circuit.
Other races on the program will include events for Historic Group N and the later Group C and Group A touring cars, an event for sports 2000s, and races for historic racing cars.
The meeting will also mark the 40th anniversary of the Falcon XY GT-HO and the 50th anniversary of the E-type Jaguar with a number of these vehicles amongst more than 250 special cars on display.
The 2011 Philip Island Classic Festival of Motorsport is organised by the Victorian Historic racing Register and will again be supported by Shannons, CoolDrive and Penrite.