Original vintage 1967 print advertisement for the Porsche 911, on a dirt mountain road - "...it would be terrific on a journey through rugged mountain country."
Dimensions: 7.5 inches wide by 11 inches high.
"The more I drove it, and the harder I made it work, I had no doubt at all that this was a car from the brains of Dr. Porsche and his men, and could not possibly have come from anywhere else, and I was continually saying to myself, 'Why don't all manufacturers make cars like this? It can't be so difficult...'"
The Porsche 911 is a two-door 2+2high performance rear-engine sports car introduced in September 1964 by Porsche AG of Stuttgart, Germany. It has a rear-mounted flat-six engine and originally a torsion bar suspension.
Porsche’s first production automobile, the Porsche 356 was a sports car first produced by Austrian company Porsche Konstruktionen GesmbH (1948–1949), and then by German company Dr. Ing. h. c. F. Porsche GmbH (1950–1965). Production started in 1948 in Austria, where Porsche built approximately 50 cars.
On 8 June 1948, the first car to bear the Porsche name was road-certified: the Porsche 356/1 Roadster produced in Gmünd (in Carinthia, Austria). The "Gmünd Roadster" was powered by a 1.1-liter air-cooled flat-four engine from Volkswagen. The engine's power was increased to 35 hp for the 356. The roadster weighed just 585 kilograms and reached speeds of up to 135 km/h (83 mph). In 1950 the factory relocated to Zuffenhausen, Germany.
General production of the 356 continued until April 1965, well after the replacement model 911 made its September 1964 debut. The original price in 1948 for the 356 coupe was US$3,750 (equivalent to $47,600 in 2023) (official general USD inflation), and of the 76,000 originally produced, approximately half survive.
The 911 has been continuously enhanced through the years but the basic concept has remained unchanged. The engines were air-cooled until the introduction of the 996 series in 1998.
The 911 has been raced extensively by private and factory teams, in a variety of classes, and is among the most successful competition cars. In the mid-1970s, the naturally aspirated 911 Carrera RSR won world championship races including Targa Florio and the 24 Hours of Daytona.
The 911-derived 935 turbo also won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1979. Porsche won the World Championship for Makes in 1976, 1977, 1978, and 1979 with 911-derived models.
In a 1999 poll to determine the Car of the Century, the 911 was fifth. It is one of two in the top five that had remained continuously in production (the original Beetle remained in production until 2003). The one millionth example was manufactured in May 2017 and is in the company's permanent collection.
