This car, Lot 128, sold for $2,205,000, including buyer’s premium, at RM Sotheby’s Coral Gables, FL, auction on March 1, 2024.
The 1960s were a period of extraordinary change and evolution both for automobile racing in general and for Porsche. Starting the decade with its 718-series RSK, Porsche ended it with the utterly dominant 917, growing in the process from under-2-liter racers on skinny tires to fire-breathing flat-12-powered Le Mans winners. The 906 was an important step in that evolution and is a good story on its own.
Plastic fantastic
Having success with the RS 60 and RS 61 models, Porsche decided to build a production racer and fast street model named the 904 GTS. Based on the 4-cam 356 powertrain and built with a folded-steel chassis and a bonded fiberglass body, it was successful in the early ’60s, with excellent results in road racing, rallying and street use. With the initial production run of 100 cars sold and encouraging prospects, Porsche proceeded to order another production run of suspension, brakes and wheels in anticipation of a second run of 904s.
Porsche’s reverie was shaken when it realized that Ferrari, normally only interested in the 3-liter classes, was building the Dino 206 SP to invade the 2-liter prototype class. The aging 904, though strong in the production class, wasn’t going to win line honors, which mattered for publicity. Porsche initially tried solving the problem with horsepower, installing both the 8-cylinder Formula 1 engine and the now-dependable flat-6 from the early 911, but it was obvious that a completely new design was required. Ferdinand Piëch, scion of the Porsche family and its racing wunderkind, led the project that would be called 906.
The platform chassis of the 904 had proved too heavy and flexible, so Porsche went back to a full tubular chassis, similar to the Elva Porsche Mk 7 sports racer of 1963. An entirely new fiberglass body was designed, carefully optimized for both light weight and aerodynamic slipperiness. There was one big concession, though: Having bought an entire second production run of 904 suspension and wheels, Porsche felt obligated to use them up. Thus, the 906 ran with 904 uprights, brakes and 15-inch wheels. Though a bit of an anachronism in a world that was quickly adapting to smaller rims and wider tires, the combination worked well.
The engine looked just like a production 901-series 911 motor but was in fact a very different piece of machinery. Basically, anything that had been cast from aluminum was now magnesium alloy, and anything that was steel was made in titanium, with the result that the 901-20 weighed 119 pounds less than a street 901 engine, even lighter than the four-cam flat-4. Porting was improved and a twin-plug design helped raise output to about 210 hp at 7,500 rpm. The 906 was homologated at 1,235 pounds, so the power-to-weight ratio was excellent.
Short but sweet
The 906 proved to be a great success right out of the box, finishing 6th overall and 1st in the 2-liter prototype class at Daytona in February 1966. It was homologated in time for Le Mans, where it ran both as a production car with standard bodywork and as a prototype with long-tail bodywork. Everyone remembers that Ford’s 7-liter GT40s finished 1-2-3 at Le Mans that year, but Porsche’s 2-liter 906 took 4th through 7th. It would have gotten 8th but for a late engine failure, still finishing eight laps ahead of the first Ferrari, a 275 GTB/C. Ferrari’s Dino 206 was more sophisticated and did well on twisty tracks such as the Nürburgring, but it only ran as a prototype. Porsche 906s owned the prototype class on fast tracks, and the production class everywhere.
The 906’s professional life only lasted one year. For 1967, Porsche concentrated on the new 3-liter championship formula with its 907 and 908 8-cylinder cars. It also built a short run of 910 racers, best thought of as the 906 that the engineers really wanted to build. With 13-inch wheels, titanium suspension and a fuel-injected engine, it was quicker than the 906, but never intended for the championship fight. It was more of a hillclimb and short-event car for international racing. The 906 remained competitive in club racing, particularly in the U.S., for years, and is particularly well suited to vintage racing today.
For track use only
There are a few myths about the 906 that should be put to rest, primarily that it was Porsche’s last combination road/racing automobile. It’s not. Anyone who thinks that a 906 can reasonably be run on the street hasn’t worked with one. The suspension is brutal and uncompromising, and the body does little more than keep the wind off the driver. Anyone over 5 feet, 7 inches and 150 pounds will never fit comfortably. The noise is insane, and the engine makes its horsepower between 5,000 and 8,000 rpm. Oh yeah, and it is impossible to see out the back or in the mirrors. This is emphatically not something to take to the grocery store or on anything like a public highway.
These cars are, however, gorgeous, a joy to race (if you fit), and collectible. Current values range from around $1.6m to $3m, depending on the normal motorsports collector variables: history, originality, restoration quality, correctness, international (FIA) acceptability and competitiveness. Most of these are self-evident; the best examples are the highly original factory team cars, particularly the long-tail prototypes.
A strong result
Our subject car has both good aspects and less-desirable ones. On the good side it is very shiny, has a lot of competition history and has all the right restoration thumbprints. (Gunnar Racing does great work.) On the not-so-great side, it is pretty much your grandfather’s axe: rode hard, put up wet, broken and fixed innumerable times as an ordinary weapons-grade racer. How much original 906 is really there is questionable, as the car has a replacement body and a non-FIA-legal 2.3-liter race motor. An original (not “the” original) engine comes along on a stand, which is good. It is clearly built for the American market; this would not be an attractive car in Europe.
The good news is that there are a lot of American Porsche collectors with money, and they lust after the 906. There were 65 cars built, and many — if not most of them — have ended up in Europe, so the U.S. market is thin. They don’t often become available and most sell privately rather than at auction. RM Sotheby’s did an excellent job of marketing this car, and my sources suggest that the excitement of the auction and its presentation might have produced a better result for the seller than it would have in the quiet rationality of a broker’s office. On the block, the bright shine of this car apparently blinded bidders to its lack of originality. It sold well for a weapons-grade 906 in excellent condition. ♦
(Introductory description courtesy of RM Sotheby’s.)
