This is a coffee table made from the engine block of a Porsche 930, the legendary first-generation of the turbocharged Porsche 911. The table features a glass top with the word “widowmaker” engraved around the surface of the outer rim.
The turbocharged Porsche 930 debuted in 1975. It was officially given the green light for production in order to homologate turbocharged race cars like the Porsche 934 and Porsche 935, however the 930 would soon become a best-seller in its own right.
Period advertising for the Porsche 930, and for the rest of the Porsche model range, became legendary in the 1970s and 1980s. Image courtesy of Porsche AG.
Porsche had intended to take their turbocharged 934 model racing in 1976, but in order to do so they needed to sell a minimum of 400 examples of the road-going 930 Turbo in order to homologate it. There had been some concern at Porsche internally about whether this number of 930s could be sold in such a short time – just 24 months.
As it turned out, they needn’t have been concerned. Before the end of 1975 they had already sold over the 400 required cars. By May of 1976 they sold their 1,000th example of the 930, and it became clear that Porsche had a new halo model in their line-up that would remain in production for many years to come.
Ultimately, the Porsche 930 would be produced from 1975 until 1989, it became one of the German marque’s most loved models, and it’s now remembered as one of the pivotal supercars of the 1970s and 1980s.
The tempered glass tabletop stands 24″ above the ground, and the engine block is fitted with four adjustable legs to assist in leveling it to almost any floor surface.
The coffee table you see here is made from an original Porsche 930 engine block that has been stripped of its internal components and refinished in silver. It’s also been given full-color Porsche crests and Porsche-script decals and it’s now topped with a 1/2″ thick tempered glass tabletop that measures in at approximately 22″ in diameter and rises 24″ above the ground.
The engine block rests on four threaded feet that can be individually adjusted for height to ensure the table sits level with no wobbling. The table is now being offered for sale out of Travelers Rest, South Carolina on Bring a Trailer with no reserve, and you can visit the listing here.
Images courtesy of Bring a Trailer
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.
