Chasing unicorns: Porsche factory rarities

Standing out from the Porsche crowd

The 911 must be the world’s most ubiquitous supercar. But what if you prefer your prime Porsche to come with a dose of rarity?

Their individual numbers are highly limited, but there’s no shortage of super-rare Porsches to pick from, whether that’s motorsport homologation models or limited-edition specials.

These 17 are our pick of Stuttgart specials that are as hard to track down as rocking-horse droppings.

1. Porsche 356 Carrera GTL Abarth

All examples of Porsche’s first car, the 356, are now coveted, but arguably the most desirable (and least 356-like) of all is the Carrera GTL Abarth, produced from 1960-’63.

Conceived to keep the ageing 356 competitive in racing, it exploited FIA rules allowing entirely new bodywork so long as the weight remained within 95% of that of the base car.

Some 20 bodies by Scaglione were fitted to 356B chassis under the guidance of Carlo Abarth, reducing both drag and weight – the latter by 45kg. Three Le Mans class wins underline its motorsport credentials.

2. Porsche 550 1500 RS Spyder

The 1954 550 1500 RS Spyder pre-dates the Abarth, and it picked up where the first 356 developmental prototype left off by placing the engine in the middle, a Porsche production first. 

Only 90 were produced, one of which was infamously destroyed in fledgling Hollywood star James Dean’s fatal accident.

Porsche 550 1500 RS Spyder (cont.)

Although the model was developed specially for racing, 550 Spyders were also road-legal, and their tubular steel frame and four-cam boxer engines were clothed in delicate aluminium bodywork, for 110bhp and just 590kg (1300lb).

3. Porsche 904 GTS

The 904 Carrera GTS that followed the 550 in 1964 used closed-cockpit glassfibre bodywork penned by ‘Butzi’ Porsche (who also sketched the 911), and was fitted with four-, six- or eight-cylinder engines of up to 240bhp.

It remains one of the most beautiful Porsches ever, and was the last created purely for competition yet still road-legal; 106 examples were built.

4. Porsche 916

Sticking with the mid-engined theme, but long before the Boxster and Cayman, the 914 was Porsche’s everyman mid-engined model, developed in partnership with Volkswagen using either flat-four engines or, in the case of the 914/6, a detuned flat-six from the 911.

Neither was particularly rapid, however, so Stuttgart's engineers conceived the 916 to take that idea further.

Porsche 916 (cont.)

Along with a special one-off built for Porsche boss Ferdinand Piëch with a 2.9-litre 345bhp ‘six’, 10 more 916 prototypes were produced, featuring a steel roof in place of the 914’s removable panel, plus chassis reinforcements, flared arches and either a 190bhp 2.4-litre flat-six or a 2.7-litre version with 210bhp.

The project was canned to spare the 911’s blushes, but the prototypes went to Porsche management or were sold privately and still occasionally reappear – Piëch’s prototype fetched $1,094,000 in 2019.

5. Porsche 911T/R

Where to start with rare 911s? Well, if the 1973 Carrera RS is too ubiquitous, how about the ‘911T/R’ as it’s come to be known, a factory-prepped road-legal racer based on the 911T?

The T was the least powerful, least luxurious 911, but also the lightest at a homologated 923kg (2035lb, when an S weighed 975kg or 2150lb). Crucially, FIA regs allowed the T numerous upgrades, including the more powerful 160bhp S motor, some 50bhp pokier.

Total numbers are believed to be in the low 30s. Then there’s the 23 (or 25, depending who you ask) 2.3- and 2.4-litre S/Ts.

6. Porsche 930 turbo Flachbau

The 930 turbo Flachbau (for ‘flatnose’ or ‘slantnose’) was no homologation special, but it was still inspired by an ingenious workaround of the rules – namely Porsche’s 935/78 ‘Moby Dick’ racer, built to Group 5 Racing silhouette rules while radically altering, well, the 911’s silhouette.

It did that at the front by making the racing car’s ‘bumper’ (which could legally be altered) its entire front end.

Porsche 930 turbo Flachbau (cont.)

By 1986 you could get a similar (and now highly prized) shovel-nose look with pop-up lights via Porsche Exclusiv Manufaktur as an option.

An estimated 948 Flachbaus were produced and Porsche GB even ran one on its press fleet for a while. 

7. Porsche 911 (964) turbo S Flachbau

The slant-nose concept resurfaced to mark the end of the following generation of 911s, the 964 era, with a Flachbau turbo S.

This time, just 76 examples were built.

8. Porsche 928 GTS

The 928 GTS was the last gasp of Porsche’s failed front-engined GT experiment to replace the 911. It’s not a wildly rare model in itself, with some 2831 built in total, but narrow that down to right-hookers and the number drops to 195, pick a manual such as this and it will be one of just 44 to reach UK shores.

The basic silhouette was little different from that of the original 4.5-litre, spoiler-free 928 introduced at Geneva in 1977, but the 5.4-litre, 345bhp GTS is a bigger car in every way.

It takes a fairly eagle eye to tell an S4 from an SE or a GT, but not so the GTS, whose fat rear wheelarch flares make it the simplest of all 928 spots.

Porsche 928 GTS (cont.)

Porsche continued to evolve the 928 constantly throughout its 17-year life, topped off by the quad-cam, 32-valve GTS.

With the rare and desirable dogleg-shift Getrag five-speeder driving the rear wheels through Porsche’s clever, electronically controlled PSD limited-slip differential, Autocar measured the GTS at 5.4 secs to 60mph and 168mph at the far end, numbers impressive enough to keep any modern honest.

9. Porsche 911 Carrera 3.2 Speedster

Porsche has a history of marking the end of each era of 911 production with ‘Speedster’ derivatives – a reference to the 356 model built for the US market in the 1950s, with its hot-rod windscreen and bare-bones soft-top spec.

The Stuttgart firm harked back to that car with the Carrera 3.2 Speedster in 1989, with a lower and more steeply raked windscreen and Quasimodo-style plastic ‘speedster humps’ to stow a lightweight, manually operated soft-top.

Porsche 911 Carrera 3.2 Speedster (cont.)

Some 2103 Carrera 3.2s were built, most with the wider ‘Turbolook’ body, though there were 171 narrow-body cars (as pictured here) and even a handful of flatnoses, too.

Porsche acknowledged at the time that this investor’s special was a fair-weather car, with the hood not so great at keeping out wind or rain.

10. Porsche 911 (964) C2 Speedster

Built as a farewell to the 964 generation, the C2 Speedster combined the style of the pared back Carrera 3.2 roadster that preceded it with a 964 bodyshell and 3.6-litre 250bhp flat-six.

Just 936 examples were made, despite initial plans to produce more than three times that number.

Porsche 911 (964) C2 Speedster (cont.)

Inside, the 964 C2 Speedster borrowed the interior of its more focused RS sibling, with a fabulous three-spoke steering wheel that obscures a big chunk of the speedo’s arc, and a pair of the most perfect hard-shell bucket seats anyone with a monk-like control of their beer and choccy urges could wish for.

11. Porsche 911 (964) Carrera RS 3.8

But surely the pinnacle for all 964 fans is the outrageous Carrera RS 3.8. Still following the shape of the 901 Porsche unveiled at the Frankfurt show in 1963, the RS 3.8 adds swollen arches and a giant rear wing, and the stance and the sound make it impossible not to stare open-mouthed at the RS, which looks as if it took a wrong turn out of parc fermé after the Nürburgring 24 Hours.

That’s no coincidence. This car’s predecessor, the 964 Carrera RS, much like its ’73 and ’74 namesakes and the little-known 911SC RS, existed purely to homologate Porsche’s racing machinery. But where the earlier, narrow-body RS looked like a tougher Carrera, the 3.8 made even the turbo look tame.

Porsche 911 (964) Carrera RS 3.8 (cont.)

The interior of the RS 3.8 is black and bare, stripped of almost anything not useful in the pursuit of going quickly, and in this example features the steering wheel on the right, making it one of three so-equipped and the only one supplied new to the UK. 

That also makes it very valuable indeed: the former property of four-time IndyCar champ Dario Franchitti, this thinly veiled racing car is currently on offer with The Hairpin Company for a not inconsequential £1.2m.

12. Porsche Boxster Spyder

The brilliant Boxster Spyder was similar in concept to the 911 Speedster, and first became available with the 987 generation of Porsche’s affordable two-door roadster in 2010.

A very fiddly roof is the bugbear, but it atoned for that with the lightest kerbweight in the Porsche range of the time, at 1275kg (2811lb), plus a fizzy 3.4-litre flat-six. 

13. Porsche 924 Carrera GTS

If you’re thinking that a rare 924 could be a bargain, you’re out of luck. The 924 gave Porsche its first water-cooled model and an entry to the sports car market at a third of a price of a 911 in the 1970s, but the Carrera derivatives are a different matter.

Take the 924 Carrera GT, of which only 406 were homologated for Le Mans in 1980. It used a 210bhp version of the 924 turbo 2-litre ‘four’, but the GTS pushed that to 245 or even 275bhp in Club Sport trim. 

Porsche 924 Carrera GTS (cont.)

Endurance-racing legend Derek Bell’s deal to drive for Porsche at Le Mans 1980 included a 924 Carrera GTS road car, which he still owns and says he’ll never sell.

If you fancy bagging one of the 59 examples of these boxed-arch beauties for yourself, you’d better start saving: RM Sotheby’s sold one for $212,750 last year.

14. Porsche 968 turbo S

Porsche closed the chapter on its front-engined forced-induction rarities with the 968 turbo S, a road-legal version of its wild turbo RS racer.

Based on the more familiar (and naturally aspirated) 968 Club Sport, the turbo S added an uprated chassis and a 3-litre version of the eight-valve ‘four’ from the 944 turbo, producing 305bhp.

Porsche 968 turbo S (cont.)

There’s no mistaking a 968 turbo S for its lowlier siblings: you’ll spot it by the NACA ducts in the bonnet, huge split-rim alloys and larger rear wing.

But don’t expect to be spotting one very often: just 14 road cars were made. 

15. Porsche 911 GT1 Strassenversion

After the 968 turbo S, the 911 GT1 Strassenversion that came only slightly later sounds positively commonplace, with a heady 25 examples produced.

These street-legal sports-racers were built with the sole purpose of getting the car on to the grid at Le Mans, a race it won in 1998.

16. Porsche 911 (997) Sport Classic

In the modern, water-cooled 911 era, there are very few versions that stand out above the more obvious (if still brilliant) GT models.

Distinguished by elegant pastel grey paint, Fuchs alloys and a ‘ducktail’ reminiscent of the 1973 Carrera RS 2.7, the Sport Classic is the peak of purity and rarity for a 997 Carrera-based 911 before the incoming 991 matured and added electric power steering. 

Porsche 911 (997) Sport Classic (cont.)

The Sport Classic was essentially a 3.8-litre 997 Carrera S with the 402bhp Power Kit, rear-wheel drive and a manual gearbox plus uprated chassis and brakes, all wrapped up in the wider-hipped Carrera 4 body.

Just 250 were produced, and at £137,529 when new they were pricier than a contemporary 911 turbo.

17. Porsche 911R (991)

If the Sport Classic was a kind of ‘Carrera Plus’, the 911R that was offered for the following 991 generation was a GT3 RS dialled back towards Carrera territory.

It retained the same astounding 4-litre naturally aspirated flat-six engine, but with the embarrassingly wild aero addenda banished and a manual gearbox reinstated. It’s a car to enjoy on the road rather than for smashing out Nürburgring lap times.

Porsche 911R (991) (cont.)

Just 991 examples of the 911R were sold (at £136,901 each), and used prices soon went silly – £500k-plus silly at one point, before the bubble was partially burst by Porsche offering the largely similar GT3 Touring model to stick it to the speculators (and to sell more cars).

Don’t expect to haggle too hard, though…