The My Hangar blog
Long-form answers to the questions behind the quiz: generations, model codes, names, racing and the cars that changed the company. Every fact is checked against at least two sources, listed at the end of each article.
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Engineering
The 993, built until 1998, was the last air-cooled 911. The 996 of 1997 switched to water cooling because the four-valve heads needed for emissions rules and more power could not be air-cooled reliably.
· 6 min read
Engineering
Ferdinand Porsche showed a hub-motor electric car in Paris on 14 April 1900. Porsche's first electric production car, the 800-volt Taycan, premiered on 4 September 2019; the Macan and Cayenne followed.
· 6 min read
Motorsport
Porsche has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans outright 19 times, more than any other manufacturer: from the 917 in 1970 to the 919 Hybrid in 2017. Here is every winning car, crew and entrant.
· 7 min read
History
Porsche sold about 23,000 cars in 1991/92 and lost money. Lean production, the 1996 Boxster sharing its front half with the 996 911, and the 2002 Cayenne built in Leipzig turned it around.
· 6 min read
History
The 356 "No. 1" Roadster got its road permit on 8 June 1948 in Gmünd, Austria. About 52 aluminium cars followed there before Zuffenhausen built some 78,000 356s up to 1965.
· 7 min read
Generations
There have been eight 911 generations since 1963: the original 901, the G-model, then 964, 993, 996, 997, 991 and 992. The first four were air-cooled; since the 996, every 911 is water-cooled.
· 7 min read
Motorsport
The Porsche 917 was a flat-12 sports racer homologated with 25 cars in April 1969. It won Le Mans in 1970 and 1971, set a distance record that lasted until 2010, then dominated Can-Am with turbos.
· 6 min read
Models
From 1976 to 1995 Porsche built front-engined transaxle cars: the 924, 928, 944 and 968. Porsche figures add up to about 386,000 cars, with the gearbox at the rear for balance.
· 6 min read
Motorsport
The Porsche 956 of 1982 and its longer 962 successor won Le Mans six years running from 1982 to 1987, again in 1994 as the Dauer 962 LM, and set a 6:11.13 Nordschleife lap that stood for 35 years.
· 6 min read
Models
The Porsche 959 began as a Group B study at the 1983 Frankfurt IAA, won the 1986 Paris–Dakar and reached customers in 1987 with 450 PS, sequential twin turbos and electronically controlled all-wheel drive.
· 6 min read
Models
Most Porsche names come from racing: Carrera from the Carrera Panamericana, Targa from the Targa Florio, GTS from the 904 Carrera GTS, RS from Rennsport, GT2 and GT3 from racing classes.
· 6 min read
History
Porsche showed the car as the 901 in 1963, but in October 1964 Peugeot objected: in France it claimed rights to three-digit names with a zero in the middle. So the 901 became the 911.
· 6 min read