2 great legendary cars!

[HADI-ZR1]

Porsche 959 &. Our Zr1 C4....
it was one of The best production made by Porsche.

Both car in 400 hp range , the 959, 4 years in production (1986-1989).
It looks to me ,it was the destiny that both came to end of production in short time, that's why both became Legend, Unique machines!

It was always my favorit and wish to collect 959 in that time.

[threestar40]

rock da house! Love it.

Rick =)

[Z51JEFF]

Back in 1987 I saw one of these.At the time there were 2 of these in the U.S. and both were locked up in a Federal warehouse in Oakland.I had a friend that at the time lived next door to a guy that was federalizing import cars and I saw this guy driving a white 959.

[WB9MCW]

The street version of the 959 debuted at the 1985 Frankfurt Motor Show as a 1986 model, but numerous issues delayed production by more than a year. The car was manufactured in two levels of trim, "Sport" and "Komfort", corresponding to the race version and the street version. First customer deliveries of the 959 street variant began in 1987, and the car debuted at a cost of $225,000 USD per unit, still less than half what it cost Porsche to build each one. Production ended in 1988. In total, 337 cars were built, including 37 prototypes and preproduction models.[1] At least one 959 and one 961 remain in the Porsche historic hall in Stuttgart, Germany.

In 1992/1993, Porsche built eight 959s assembled from spare parts from the inventory at the manufacturing site in Zuffenhausen. All eight were "Komfort"-versions: four in red and four in silver. These cars were much more expensive (DM 747,500) than the earlier ones (DM 420,000). The later cars also featured a newly developed speed-sensitive damper system. The cars were sold to selected collectors after being driven by works personnel for some time and are today by far the most sought-after 959s.

The 959 was not street legal in the United States prior to 1999 when the "Show and Display" law was passed, although an unknown number were imported via the "grey market" during the late 1980s as show pieces. During the model's development Porsche refused to provide the United States Department of Transportation with the four 959s they required for crash testing, and the car was never certified by the NHTSA for street use in the U.S. With the passage of "Show and Display" the crash test requirements were removed and importation of the 959 was allowed, assuming the car could meet the emissions standards applicable in 1987. The 959 can be fitted with a catalytic converter and a rechipped computer which allows it to meet those emissions requirements. Most owners refuse to modify their 959s, however, and the cars remain collection pieces. Most 959s are in the hands of collectors, but a few do occasionally come to market, with prices in the region of 180,000?250,000 EUR (cars produced in 1987/1988). It is impossible to estimate the price of cars from the highly limited batch of 1992/1993.

The lessons learned from the 959 project about engine management, aerodynamics, suspension tuning, and 4-wheel drive were what enabled the production life of the 911 to be extended to the present day.

Nice design but at 3 times the price of a ZR-1 -- Really hard to claim this is a car the "everyday man" could ever afford even used like are ZR-1 is.

[mike100]

My ZR-1 was easily attainable (although $$ considering it's a C4), but if you want to dream, throw up a picture of a Ferrari F40. That's a car I would really like to drive once someday.

[cvette98pacecar]

Originally Posted by mike100

My ZR-1 was easily attainable (although $$ considering it's a C4), but if you want to dream, throw up a picture of a Ferrari F40. That's a car I would really like to drive once someday.

I agree with mike. I have always loved the F40.

There is an episode of Top Gear where they actually tested both the 959 and F40. Needless to say Jeremy and James beat the crap out of both cars all day long. When they put the stig in each of the cars they broke before he could get a single lap in.

[WB9MCW]

Top Gear Porsche 959 vs Ferrari F40 season 16

http://youtu.be/l7b6QG3VZqA

Had our beloved N/A ZR-1's been in this competition I just bet we would have been the winner because the Z would have worked and run.

Sometimes a large price tag does not mean success.

[WB9MCW]

The Ferrari F40 is a mid-engine, rear-wheel drive, two-door coup? sports car produced by Ferrari from 1987 to 1992 as the successor to the Ferrari 288 GTO. From 1987 to 1989 it held the title as the world's fastest street-legal production car, and during its years of production, was Ferrari's fastest, most powerful, and most expensive car. The car had no traction control, and was one of the few to utilize turbochargers.

The car debuted with a factory suggested retail price of approximately US$400,000,although some buyers were reported to have paid as much as US$1.6 million. A total of 1,315 F40s were produced.

Ostensibly, the F40 was conceived as the successor to the 288 GTO and designed to compete with vehicles such as the Porsche 959 and Lamborghini Countach; for Ferrari management, the vehicle was a major statement piece. Over a period of several years prior to the F40's conception, the company's dominance in racing had waned significantly, and even in Formula One, an arena they had once dominated, victories had become sparse. Enzo Ferrari had recently turned 90 years old, and was keenly aware that time was not on his side. He wanted his new sports car to serve as his final statement-maker, a vehicle encompassing the best in track-developed technology and capable of being a showcase for what the Ferrari engineers were capable of creating. The company's upcoming 40th anniversary provided just the right occasion for the car to debut.

As he had predicted it would be, the F40 was the last car to be commissioned by Enzo before his death.

The F40's light weight of 1,100 kg (2,425 lb) and high power output of 478 PS (352 kW; 471 hp) at 7000 rpm gave the vehicle tremendous performance potential. Road tests have produced 0-100 km/h (0-62 mph) times as low as 3.8 seconds (while the track only version came in at 3.2 seconds), with 0-160 km/h (0-99 mph) in 7.6 seconds and 0-200 km/h (0-120 mph) in 11 seconds giving the F40 a slight advantage in acceleration over the Porsche 959, its primary competitor at the time.

The F40 was the first road legal production car to break the 200 mph (320 km/h) barrier. From its introduction in 1987 until 1989 its only competitors were the Porsche 959 and the 1988 Lamborghini Countach (it was later overtaken by the Lamborghini Diablo), it held the record as the world's fastest production car, with a top speed of 200 mph (320 km/h). During the 2006 Bonneville Speed Week, Amir Rosenbaum of Spectre Performance managed to take his F40 with small boost and air intake modifications to 226 miles per hour (364 km/h).

[cvette98pacecar]

Originally Posted by WB9MCW

Top Gear Porsche 959 vs Ferrari F40 season 16

http://youtu.be/l7b6QG3VZqA

Had our beloved N/A ZR-1's been in this competition I just bet we would have been the winner because the Z would have worked and run.

Sometimes a large price tag does not mean success.

Just as funny the second time that I watched it.

[WB9MCW]

A total of 2,042 cars were built during the Countach's sixteen year lifetime:
prototype -1 LP400 -157 LP400S -237 LP500S -321 LP5000QV -676 25 Anniversary -650

Substantially more than half were built in the final five years of production, as Lamborghini's new corporate owners increased production.

The Lamborghini Countach was a mid-engined sports car produced by Italian automaker Lamborghini from 1974 to 1990. Its design both pioneered and popularized the wedge-shaped, sharply angled look popular in many high performance sports cars. The "cabin-forward" design concept, which pushes the passenger compartment forward in order to accommodate a larger engine, was also popularized by the Countach.

In 2004, American car magazine Sports Car International named this car number three on the list of Top Sports Cars of the 1970s, and it was listed as number ten on their list of Top Sports Cars of the 1980s. Top Gear placed it at number 1 on their list of "100 Sexiest Supercars of All Time" (supplied with the June edition of Top Gear).

The Countach was styled by Marcello Gandini of the Bertone design studio, the same designer and studio that designed the Miura. Gandini was then a young, inexperienced designer—not very experienced in the practical, ergonomic aspects of automobile design, but at the same time unhindered by them. He produced a quite striking design. The Countach shape was wide and low (42.1 inches), but not very long (only 163 inches). Its angular and wedge-shaped body was made almost entirely of flat, trapezoidal panels.

The doors, a Countach trademark, were scissor doors: hinged at the front with horizontal hinges, so that the doors lifted up and tilted forwards. The main reason is the car's tubular spaceframe chassis results in very high and wide door sills. It was also partly for style, and partly because the width of the car made conventional doors impossible to use in an even slightly confined space. Care needed to be taken, though, in opening the doors with a low roof overhead. The car's poor rear visibility and wide sills led to drivers adopting a method of reversing the car for parking by opening the door, sitting on the sill, and reversing while looking over the back of the car from outside.

The Countach's styling and visual impression caused it to become an icon of great design to almost everyone except automotive engineers. The superior performance characteristics of later Lamborghini models (such as the Diablo, or the Murcielago) appealed to performance car drivers and engineers, but they never had the originality or outrageousness that gave the Countach its distinction. The different impressions left by the various Lamborghini models have generated numerous debates and disagreements over what constitutes 'classic' or 'great' automotive design (elegant looks and style, vs. technical and engineering superiority).