How Porsche Built the First Modern Supercar

959 is beautiful

953 winning against Pajero in Dakar to me is amazing achievement.

So crazily advanced for the 80s. I love it

Talk about a unicorn!?! Porsche hasn't done anything like that before or since. The 959 was WAAAY ahead of it's time. Great vid.

These videos are phenomenal.

There are very few cars that give me lowkey chills (and ironically many of them are Porsches) but with the 959, the chills aren't lowkey at all. It still amazes me how crazy and ahead of time the 959 really was. To think, almost all other supercars from this era were still stuck with mostly 70s technology and construction, and here you have humble-looking sports car with technological innovations that would not be seen in normal family cars until decades later.

Where to start with the 959? Not only it was a breakthrough for super-cars as it proved they could be reliable and daily-driven (The 959 even has a specific gear to drive in snow, that's how much they wanted these cars to be driven) It also marked the future for the 911. The modern 911 owes more to the 959 than it seems, even the base models are turbocharged and offer all wheel drive now. The problem is, in the process, it truly bankrupted Porsche. They didn't sell it at a moderate loss, the cost of each 959 was a bit more than twice the price Porsche were charging (The cost was around 300K, Porsche spent 720K building each one) To make matters worse, a few years later there was an economic crisis where sales of sport-cars tanked. This is why the 964 and 993 generations were developed and built in tight budgets, which meant little room for innovations. Porsche was so desperate for cash that they built a final run of 6 959s in 1992 out of spares they had laying around for two customers. It is unknown how much these cars were sold for, but it is said Porsche made money with them for a change. Also I love the footage you have sourced for this video!

You need to cover out the Story of the BMW M3 GTR someday. the fact that FIA and ALMS had to change the rules to ban the car from racing is still hilarious til this day.

I was taking a walk to the local park in London and saw a Porsche dealership which I recognised from photos - It was actually the original John Cooper workshop (of mini fame). Taking a walk over the road to take a closer look, I spotted a 959 in the window. A few months later on another walk to the park, I saw that the workshop was open. I had a chat with the floor manager (I presume) and he welcomed me in to take a look at the cars. Very awesome and rare car.

Hope your feeling better mate. Thanks for another awesome video!!

Great video, mate. I made one of these in the summer. The comparison between this and the F40 is quite striking especially when you consider one was a 4 seater (sort of) whilst the other didn't even have interior door handles!

Hey, it was more of an icon than quite a few Group B cars from the era. I'd say it's more recognizable than the RS200 at least. You do a great job. I enjoy your use of footage from the era.

People may think of it as just a "Porsche" but true petrolheads know it from the heart to appearance.

These documentaries are very fun to watch for some reason and it’s simplified anyways yes 959 is legendary

Another great video. I would like to suggest an obscure supercar for the next video. Although it wasn't put into production, the story of it is very interesting. Jiotto Caspita is the name of the car

man id love to see something on the Pajero!

Glad that you touched on the 961 - people rarely talk about it when discussing the 959. To be frank, there’s next to no discussion about Group B road racing in general, which I suppose goes to show how it failed. Thank goodness for Stephane Ratel and Group GT1!

Awesome video. Great video production. You are making great documentaries. Keep up the good work.

"The driver perfectly executed a money shift."... You cannot hear the sass by the tone, but you can feel the sass by the dialogue...

Very cool do one on the Ferrari 288 GTO, another mystical "could have been" of the group B era.