This is one of relatively few original brochures for the Porsche 901 – the car that would later be renamed the Porsche 911 after a famous legal objection from French automaker Peugeot.
The story of how the Porsche 901 became the Porsche 911 is surely one of the most retold tales in the history of motoring. The German automaker had developed their new model to replace the long-in-the-tooth Porsche 356 and they had built the first 82 production examples.
This original English language brochure includes all of the vehicle’s key specifications as well as images showing the car from four angles and a lady demonstrating how much luggage the car can accommodate.
The new model was unveiled to the world officially at the 1963 Frankfurt Auto Show where French automaker Peugeot immediately took exception to the name, as it consisted of three numbers with an “0” in the middle – something they had trademarked in France.
Once the Porsche lawyers had look at their options it became clear that there were only two potential paths forward – either use the name 901 in the rest of the world and use a unique name in France, or change the name altogether.
The Germans, being a famously logical people, opted to go with the second option and changed the name from 901 to 911. Thus the Porsche 911 was born, now the longest running production sports car in history by quite some margin.
The stying of the early Porsche 901 would go on to become one of the most enduring in automotive history.
The brochure you see here is from the time before the car was unveiled in Frankfurt, as you can see the Porsche 901 name is used throughout, and the speciations of the car are of course identical to the car that would become the first of the 911s.
It’s a four sheet fold out brochure with all the text written in English and it includes specification and coachwork illustrations with four monochrome images in total. It’s due to cross the auction block with Bonhams on the 14th of March with a price guide of £300 – £500 which works out to approximately $398 – $664 USD.
If you’d like to read more about it or register to bid you can visit the listing here.
Images courtesy of Bonhams
Articles that Ben has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
