Mysteries of modern times - the Porsche 959 built in 1992
07/30/2016
As a car historian, we are used to uncertainties arising when researching production figures in the 1920s or 1930s, and the output of British or Italian small-series manufacturers in the 1950s or 1960s always raises questions.
But when it comes to a well-known German manufacturer such as Porsche and the eighties or nineties, when computers had long since brought order, it should always be clear how many cars were produced at what time. Should be. Exactly.
There are a surprising number of questions surrounding the extremely innovative Porsche 959, as Chris Perkins elaborated on Road & Track in May of this year.
According to official figures, Porsche is said to have built 294 959s with comfort equipment and a further 29 sports models between 1986 and 1988. However, Jürgen Barth ("Das grosse Buch der Porsche-Typen") only comes up with 235 cars in his table, and that even includes the factory prototypes and racing cars.
However, it is at least certain that Porsche ended production in 1988, not least because it had to pay extra for each car. Homologation in the United States was even waived so that sales contracts could be canceled and the car did not have to be delivered. Porsche was doing badly at the time, sales figures were falling and it made little sense to produce cars that were already running at a loss.
So far so good. But now, in 1992, when Porsche was in an even worse financial situation, six or eight more cars (four red, four silver) are said to have been built, ordered by a businessman in Macao. He is said to have paid around twice as much per car as originally stated in the price list. These cars are not documented anywhere, Porsche apparently treated them as retrofitted 88 models, after all they were also made from leftover components from back then. Whether there were six or eight retrofitted cars is also not entirely clear.
In any case, the additionally built vehicles still exist, and some of them are apparently still in new car condition in the USA. Sooner or later, one of these exotic cars will surely turn up at auction and perhaps shed a little more light on this mystery.
