Gents, I saw something this morning I honestly never thought I'd see with my own eyes.. a 2010 Porsche 911 Sport Classic.

Bob Ingram, owner of one of the most important collection of collectible Porsches drove his Sport Classic to the "first Saturday" cars and coffee event in north Raleigh this morning. I believe he said it was one of his good friends who also drove his all original yellow '73 Carrera, so clean that you could eat off the bottom if you flipped it over, and an air-cooled Turbo that I forgot to take photos of since I was in shell shock at the sight of the Sport Classic.

I was fortunate in that I was able to have a 10 minute 1-on-1 conversation with Mr. Ingram (the first time I've had the pleasure of meeting him), and I must say that he's a really nice guy. If you were to meet him on the street you'd never know what he has hidden behind closed doors.

As far as the Sport Classic goes, I don't have the vocabulary to describe just how beautiful the car is. Sure it's expensive, very expensive, but for those who are fortunate enough to be in a place in life where they can have the very best of things, I can easily see why someone would buy a car like this.

Bob explained to me how he waded through excruciating bureaucracy and red tape in order to get the car into the country, including using some high-level political clout, but whatever it took I'm glad he did it.

Here's a few (bad - I really do need to get a new camera) photos of the car. The '73 Carrera is sitting next to it..

The color of the car is absolutely perfect. The interior (badly washed out in the photo below) works perfectly with the paint. The whale tail (correction - 'duck tail') is what we all should have hanging off the engine covers of our 911s, and the Sport Classic wheels complete the package. Did I mention the raised roof panels..

A few photos.. enjoy.









The interior is actually a very dark 'cocoa brown'. The sun washed it out in the photo below.

 

That's a ducktail, not a whale tail.

Dollars to donuts, I don't care much for the Sport Classic. If it were not so rare I'd not look twice at it, but taste is subjective, I understand many probably love the look.
CATTMAN

 

thx for posting. very rare, indeed, so cool to see one "in the wild."

still, seems to me though that most of what makes this car special in the tech department is now available in the GTS -- namely the wider track 2WD and power package.

imo, it falls into the same category as the speedster. pleasant enough to look at, but way overpriced unless you put on a high value on exclusivity or think it's going to appreciate.

 

I saw one of these in Germany. Yes, it's truly beautiful and best combination of machine and art. This is my favor special 997 for now...

 

Is that Bob Ingram former CEO of Glaxo? If so, I went to school with his kid. I don't remember him being a Porsche guy!

 

that is a very cool car, not big on the interior color.

 

You're right.. long day..

It'd be a boring world if we all liked the same things in life.

 

Same guy.. He must be a Porschephile; he has some of the most collectible Porsches in the U.S.

This is a link to a thread I posted after last month's C&C:

https://www.6speedonline.com/forums/...l-porsche.html

 

Red tape to get the car into the country... clearly not registered from the plates. I assume you can't register it either. Like having a 959 here, great to look at in your garage, but not too practical. Bizarre that they would make it so exclusive and make it unable to export. Before Porsche came out with all the extra models, GTS, GT3 4.0, Black Series, etc. this car seemed much more exclusive.

 

What makes the car unable to be registered? If I'm not mistaken, the 959 has emissions issues but that shouldn't be the case with a 2010 European car, right? Anyone know?

 

Registered or not, if you can afford a 'toy' like this, I doubt you care that much....and you probably have some powerful strings to pull if needed.

That car is gorgeous. I wish there was a way to get that double-bubble roof on my car. I just had some hail damage last week and was thinking it was the perfect opportunity to try to pull something off...but no chance (I don't have the type of pull he does )

 

Very nice . Did you go for a ride in it ?

 

That was the punchline a while back. It was big press for someone with a Euro exotic that couldn't be registered here that was confiscated by the Feds. If you bring it in illegally, you can get it confiscated. Could be that roof can't meet Fed rollover standards- who knows. They don't want to certify the car for the US market; it isn't a question of emissions alone.

 

definitely a nice version of 911, not as desirable as any GT3/RS to me though.

 

yeah, you don't see a lot of european cars here b/c of our strict crash test requirements, so I agree with you that it might not be emissions related.