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They are loading up the trailers in the paddock as we write this, the great Porsches of Porsche Past being hauled off and flown away to the four corners of the Earth from which they all came. There were 320 of them officially registered to be driven on the race track and parked in the paddock; there were 1400 of them in the official Porsche Corral between Turns 3, 4 and 5; and there were countless thousands of them being driven all over Monterey Peninsula during the three days that Porsche Rennsport Reunion V officially turned all or most of the otherwise bucolic golf and sea otter paradise of Monterey, California into a little slice of greater Stuttgart.
There was even an oom-pah-pah band on Sunday.
The many great cars are only part of the draw at Rennsport Reunion.
Why? Why do so many car enthusiasts love Porsches so much, enough that they would gladly send their best cars and travel halfway around the world to get a glimpse of their favorite drivers? Who knows? The cars are fast, sure-footed (if you don’t count the lift-throttle oversteer on those early 911s) and they look great. But mostly - they were fast. Porsches have won more races than, well, okay it depends how you measure those things, but Porsches have won an awful lot of races the world over, and not just the club autocrosses but the real, long-distance endurance sufferfests, most pointedly at Le Mans, where the Stuttgart crest has won class and overall victories for six decades.
In that time the Germans have garnered a long list of followers, fans and fanatics. So every three or four years the owners, wannabe owners, drivers, racing heroes and even the engineers who built and tuned the great Porsches to victory all came together in this most unique of car club concords, Rennsport Reunion.
Sure, there are other gatherings of other clans: there are things like Seven Stock for Mazdas, Fabulous Fords Forever for Fords and even the Saturn Homecoming for.. oh wait, they don’t have that anymore. But there really is nothing as fanatically devoted to engineering perfection and racing victory as Rennsport Reunion.
“I’m so happy I get goose bumps when I see these faces,” said Porsche Cars North America president and ceo Detlev von Platen. “Who knows any other brand that can bring so many people together?”
And together they were, almost 60,000 of them over the course of three days paid between $70 and $90 to wander through the paddock, ogle the cars, climb up to the Corkscrew and watch 962s, 911s and 908s roar through the twisting drop, and then wait in line to get an autograph from the rows of smiling racing heroes brought here for the celebration.
“I’m delighted to be here,” said Porsche 917 driver Vic Elford.
“Detlev is very passionate about this brand and in corporate America sometimes that’s not the case,” said 917 driver Jackie Oliver. “To do something like this is fantastic. I do a lot of these things and they’re so courteous and so gracious here. The whole event has an ambience that is unmatched. Maybe at Goodwood, but nothing is as friendly and iconic.”
“The first and last cars I won Le Mans with are here, the Jules 936 and the #17 Rothmann’s 962 which I drove with Hans Stuck,” said five-time Le Mans winner Derek Bell.
“It’s completely magic,” said von Platen.
And maybe, with a little more magic, they’ll have another one.
But for now, let’s just say danke and auf weidersehn, baby. Maybe we’ll do it again in another three or four years.
*More stories and photos coming.
Race cars from all eras come to Rennsport Reunion
