The Porsche 901 was one of the major drawcards at the 1964 Paris Auto Salon where it ruffled the feathers of French automobile manufacturer Peugeot, the French marque had a long history of using three digit names with an “0” in the middle, so they officially objected and the name of the 901 was changed (in typically efficient German fashion) to the 911.
During 1964 Porsche built 232 Porsche 901/911s, many of them using pre-mass production parts that set them apart from the 911s that would come from 1965 onwards. It’s thought that only 50 of these original 1964 cars survive to the current day, making them amongst the most sought after cars in the Porsche back catalogue.
The recently restored 901/911 shown here has one other feather in its cap – it’s one of the earliest racing cars from the 911 model line. It was brought to Sweden in 1964 by the official Swedish Porsche importer Scania-Vabis, who used it as a press car to drum up attention for the new German sports car.
By late-1965 Scania-Vabis had moved on to using the mass-produced 911s as their press and test drive cars, so they sold their early 901/911 to Anders Josephson Racing – who wasted no time launching the car into the Swedish Touring Car Championship (it finished 2nd in 1968), during the winter the car was a regular feature on the ice racing circuits of Scandinavia.
Anders Josephson kept the car in his stable until 1970 when he sold it on, it passed through private ownership in two more collections until it was imported to the UK in 2010 – in need of a ground-up restoration. The show-winning rebuild was undertaken by marque specialist Maxted-Page & Prill Ltd who spent two years on the project, paying fastidious attention to getting every detail on the car perfect.
After the restoration was complete the 901/911 was shown at Salon Prive where it was awarded “Most Iconic Car”, since then it’s been raced in the 2013 Spa 6 Hours historic race and at Mugello Classic in April 2014. It’s now being offered with UK road registration (and MoT), as well as current FIA HTP paperwork, a Porsche Certificate of Authenticity and a fully documented history and restoration file.
Click to read more via Maxted-Page.
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.
