1964 Porsche 904

Unveiled to the public in 1963 and sold for the following two years, the Porsche 904 Carrera GTS was Ferdinand ‘Butzi’ Porsche’s replacement for the 718 sports racing car and designed to compete in GT class racing. The design, an aerodynamic two-seater with polyester resin body powered by a mid-mounted, four-cam, 1966cc horizontal air-cooled engine, attracted numerous people interested in buying and 108 were sold, satisfying homologation requirement.

The first dozen-or-so were delivered in early January 1964 to customers who wanted to race the car that season. The 904 Carrera GTS was the last Porsche racing car that was produced with a number plate, and designed to be driven to the track, raced, then driven home. It quickly gained a reputation for being beautiful with excellent handling and phenomenal levels of reliability, but the 2-Litre engine’s 180bhp giving a top speed of 160mhp and a 0-60 time of 5.9 seconds was just not quick enough on track, especially in the USA, where it the 904 Carrera GTS comprehensively beaten by the much larger-engined Cobras. Despite this, the car did notch up some victories in endurance races in Europe including a 1-2 finish overall in the 1964 Targa Florio, beating a field including Alfa Romeo TZs and Ferrari 250 GTOs.

In order to rectify the lack of engine power, Porsche fitted a few cars with Type 901 six-cylinder engines (904/6) and a handful of eight-cylinder 2-Litre Type 771 engines (904/8), the latter producing 225bhp. These cars were distinguished from the original four-cylinder cars by their central fuel filler caps and vertical lift windows.

Today, the Porsche 904 Carrera GTS is well-established both as a very rare and beautiful road car and as a historic racing car. Modern engine tuning mean the car is now very competitive against similar period competition. As a result, the car is extremely sought-after and values strong. Originality, race history and continuous provenance all add hugely to the value, and the car tends to have a large value range as a result. Engines were regularly swapped or ‘upgraded’ by the factory and a few cars were put together from parts after the initial production run. In addition, there are various replicas on the market.