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The Porsche Rennsport Reunion IV and 2011 Porsche Race Car Classic

It might be a bit of a step for European Porsche aficionados, but every fan of the marque should put 14-16 October in their diaries: for three days this autumn, the Monterey Peninsula plays host to some of Stuttgart’s finest racing machinery, together with the men who drove it.

The annual ‘Porsche Rennsport Reunions’ have long been occasions where rare and exotic machinery has been coaxed out of private collections and exercised on the track. This year, the weekend’s racing activities will centre on the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, while in nearby Carmel, at the luxury Quail Lodge Golf Club, Sunday 16 October will see a display of more than 180 1950s and 60s competition Porsches.

The invitation-only (for entrants, that is, the public is more than welcome) event at Quail Lodge will aid cancer charities, and Steve Heinrichs, producer of the Porsche Race Car Classic, commented: “This once-in-a-lifetime gathering of vintage Porsche race cars solely from Porsche’s ‘break-out’ era of 1950-1965 will raise critical funding to directly support lung cancer research.

“We’ll have Gmünds, Glöcklers, 550s, 718s, 804s, 904s, 356s, Abarths and more,” he said, “in numbers and provenance never before seen.”

And, like the racing event at nearby Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, many personalities from the world of racing Porsches will be present.

Over at the track, the organisers promise the 'World’s Largest Gathering of Porsche Race Cars', and I’m leaving the capitalisation as the number of significant Porsches likely to be there more than warrants it. Models from the 550 Spyders of the 1950s, to the 917s and 956/962s, right up to the RS Spyder of the last decade will be driven on the famous sandy, rolling course, high in the hills inland from Monterey.

And significant drivers in period, such as Vic Elford, Derek Bell, George Follmer, John Fitzpatrick and Gijs van Lennep will be there to add to the fun, together with engineers from Porsche Motorsport including the legendary Norbert Singer and Hans Mezger.

For further information, see www.porscheracecarclassic.com and www.porsche.com/usa/rennsport-reunion-iv.

Text: Steve Wakefield
Photos: Bonhams


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