This is a 1:3 scale model kit of the legendary Porsche Carrera Type 547 4-cylinder boxer engine that was originally fitted to later examples of the Porsche 550 Spyder, as well as the Porsche 356 Carrera GT and GS.
There can be no doubt that the Porsche Carrera Type 547 is one of the most important engines in the history of Porsche, it was a technological tour de force by the standards of the 1950s. The engine was developed by Ernst Fuhrman who took the original 1500cc flat-four boxer engine and fundamentally upgraded it to the point that few parts were interchangeable.
This new engine had four overhead cams (two per bank) driving two valves per cylinder and it was capable of revving well over 7,000 rpm and producing 110 to 135+ bhp – a staggering power increase over the previous 70 bhp.
This 1:3 scale model captures the engineering brilliance of Ernst Fuhrman’s design, it’s a working model with all the parts you’d expect including the crankshaft, connecting rods, pistons, cams, timing gears, valves, and it even has LED spark plugs that illuminate at the correct time to show when ignition would occur.
The kit is made up of 300 pieces and can be assembled in a matter of a few hours by an adult or teenager. The kit has a number of transparent parts that showcase the engine’s working interior, it’s battery powered with an electric motor to turn the engine, and it comes with a sound module that faithfully reproduces the sound of the original engine.
As you would expect it comes with detailed instructions, and it comes with a 112 page collector’s book with archive drawings, photographs and text, written and produced by the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart.
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