Heritage · Porsche 959
“Excellent original condition.”
1981–1983 · The brief
A Group B car before there was a race car
RM places the beginning in 1981, with research-and-development chief Helmuth Bott and Porsche chairman Peter Schutz setting the direction. The public first saw the answer in September 1983: a white Gruppe B study at Frankfurt, shaped around a planned twin-turbo flat-six and a category Porsche expected to enter.
The category would not survive long enough to receive it. The road car kept the research brief instead: sequential turbocharging, PSK all-wheel drive and 450 PS in a shape first shown as a homologation study. Published production arithmetic never became as orderly as the engineering.
The hands
Three names, one programme
Published accounts identify three engineering roles without reducing the programme to one inventor.
Helmuth Bott
Research and development chief · programme sponsor
RM names Bott in the 959 programme leadership and describes the technical sponsor who turned a cancelled Group B brief into Porsche’s technology flagship.
Hans Mezger
Engine architect · racing lineage
Porsche’s Group C history links the 956/962 twin-turbo engine family to the unit later developed for the 959; it does not identify Mezger as the sole project lead.
Manfred Bantle
Programme engineer · prototype bridge
RM names Bantle alongside Bott in leadership of the prototype programme — the programme engineer in the bridge from study to production.
1984–1986 · The desert
Win, fail, return
The first proof carried a different type number. In January 1984 the naturally aspirated Type 953 won Paris-Dakar with René Metge and Dominique Lemoyne; Porsche says all three cars finished. The purpose-built 959s arrived a year later and all three failed: oil line, rock strike, accident.
For 1986 Porsche returned with three 400 PS turbo cars. Across a prologue and eighteen stages on the organiser's 15'000-kilometre route — 7'731 kilometres of them specials — Metge and Lemoyne won. Ickx and Brasseur finished second; Kussmaul and Unger’s service car finished sixth after pulling both team-mates from mud.
2018
Milestone
The $5.945M works car
RM Sotheby’s sells the restored 1985 #186 at its Porsche anniversary sale.
The highest documented public 959 result belongs to a works rally car.
1986–1988 · The road
Launched in 1986, delivered in 1987
Porsche’s retrospective calls the 959 a 2'849 cc sequential-twin-turbo, 450 PS, four-wheel-drive road car launched in 1986. The same source says customer deliveries began in 1987. That establishes the delivery gap, but not a promised date or a quantified delay.
Komfort cars carried leather, air-conditioning, sound insulation, conventional belts and adaptive suspension. The 29 Sports deleted air-conditioning and stereo for a roll cage, cloth seats, four-point harnesses and coil-overs. RM describes roughly 220 lb saved; buyers were offered Grand Prix White or Guards Red.
On the record
Milestones, on a line
The moments that set the 959's standing. Use the arrows, and hover a point to read what happened.
September 1983
Gruppe B study
The white study presents Porsche’s planned twin-turbo Group B direction.
The category disappears; the research programme becomes the road car.
January 1984
Type 953 wins Dakar
The naturally aspirated all-wheel-drive prequel wins; Porsche says all three cars finish.
The desert validates the drivetrain direction before the turbo 959.
January 1985
All three 959s retire
The purpose-built Dakar programme fails in public before it succeeds.
The failure chapter makes the 1986 return legible.
22 January 1986
Paris-Dakar, one–two–six
All three works cars reach Lac Rose: first, second and sixth.
The programme converts three years of desert development.
1986
The 961 at Le Mans
Metge and Ballot-Léna bring the circuit sibling home seventh overall and first in class.
Porsche calls it the first all-wheel-drive race car to finish Le Mans.
1987
Customer deliveries begin
Porsche launched the 959 in 1986; its retrospective places first customer deliveries in 1987.
A documented delivery gap, without an invented promised delivery date.
2018
The $5.945M works car
RM Sotheby’s sells the restored 1985 #186 at its Porsche anniversary sale.
The highest documented public 959 result belongs to a works rally car.
2026
The $5.505M Sport
The Vasek Polak Jr car sets Broad Arrow’s stated world auction record for a 959 Sport.
A Sport record, deliberately not presented as the all-959 record.
