50 years of the Porsche 911 at Goodwood

If you’re a fan of Porkers, this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed will be like having all your birthdays and Christmases at once. The famously speedy southern UK car show is celebrating 50 years of the 911 this July, with all sorts of stunning, rare, tuned and gorgeous 911s from throughout history taking part. There’ll also be a specially commissioned, one-off 911-inspired sculpture taking centre stage outside the swanky Goodwood House. The Jaguar E-Type sculpture from 2011 was massive and awesome.

As well as being the 911’s fiftieth birthday, it’s the Festival of Speed’s twentieth, and by the sound of it they’re going to have one serious automotive knees-up between them. Plenty of significant 911s, including examples of the iconic 356, 908, 917 and 962 models will be getting their tyres hot ‘n’ dirty in the name of rear-engine’d German motorsport. Das ist gud, ya!

By all accounts – and they don’t mess around down at Goodwood – 185,000 weekend visitors can’t be wrong – there’ll be all sorts of 911s doing all sorts of stuff at the show this year. Either on the victim-claiming 1.16-mile Goodwood hillclimb, the jumpy Forest Rally Stage, the posh Cartier ‘Style et Luxe’ concours lawn or the Porsche exhibition stand, the legendary curvy coupe will be on every corner of Goodwood’s tarmac, dirt and lawn.

And there’ll be plenty to choose from with over 820,000 911s having been built since the first cars in 1963, and all seven generations will be present and correct at Goodwood. The rattle and hum of thousands of flat-6 boxer engines will be unforgettable.

The 2013 Festival of Speed takes place over the weekend of the 11-14 July and could well be the greatest collection of every generation of Porsche 911 that the UK will ever see. Until the 100th birthday, that is, but I for one will be a bit too dead by then!

By Dan Anslow

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