Back in the early sixties, Porsche was on a mission to the top of sports car racing. Along the way, they created some pretty incredible cars. One of the most successful was the 904, a coupe that proved to be a winner in the hands of the factory and privateers alike. Before there were customer cars though, there were 3 prototypes of the 1963 904 Carerra GTS. These little beasts were the first Porsches capable of overall wins & not just class wins.

Proto number 3 wasn’t raced too much and as a result has remained in excellent condition. This racing icon will go across the block at Christies on August 17th as part of the Pebble Beach festivities. It is expected to fetch somewhere in the neighbourhood of a half million US dollars.

via Classical Drive

I guess I should be reading more instead of playing with Porsches. One of the topics with Messers Ruf & Ranta yesterday was the upcoming Bullrun. Little did we know that the Bullrun was in the Greater Toronto Area as we spoke. If I had known, I might have made a run downtown to look for some photo ops.

Thanks to Jalopnik for the great ongoing coverage.

As regular readers of The Garage will know that I spent much of my teenage years in the Ranta household, soaking up not only friendship, but a bit of automotive history. What some of you may not know is that one of the air cooled gems in the family collection is a very early Porsche 911. In fact, so early that the car is actually a 901, not a 911. It is number 27 of a production run of around 82 cars. Many people believe that 1964 was the first year for the 911, this car is a ‘63. This car has been in the Ranta family since 1963. 43 years. It may soon take a long trip back to Germany to begin a restoration to it’s original condition.

Porschephiles will be more than familiar with the Ruf name. Ruf is a premier tuning company that works closely with the Porsche factory. Company leader Alois Ruf visited the Ranta house today and spent the afternoon inspecting number 27 and swapping stories.

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