1958 Porsche Bill Rutan special

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JonnoDub
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1958 Porsche Bill Rutan special

Post by JonnoDub »

I saw this beauty while watching the skottel, looks great!

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The Porsche Special was built by Bill Rutan of Connecticut in the late 1950's. It was a purpose built car for hillclimbs. The front hood, longitudinals and center tube are from a 1945 VW as is the highly modified front suspension. The engine is a Porsche 4 cam engine from a 1958 Carrera. The frame, rollcage, rear suspension and the cooling system were designed by Rutan and weight was kept at around 850 lbs. It has several FTD's from the era and has also raced at Lime Rock and the Pittsburgh Vintage GP. The Porsche Special was profiled in a four-page spread in the June 2011 edition of Hemmings Sports and Exotics.

The most famous race was the 1961 Mt. Washington hillclimb where it had the overall FTD on a dirt and gravel road. It also has the distinction of overall FTD on Mt Washington from 1904 to 1990. Of course the cars in 1904 were bog slow and in the 80's the road was partially paved which changed the driving style and the competition changed. However, the FTD stands. The second overall FTD on Mt Washington was Carroll Shelby in a race-prepared Ferrari.

The car was restored 4 years ago, and was recently raced at the Hershey, PA VSCCA hillclimb. Driver was Wayne Carini who came in 2nd overall on 50-year old tires. The Porsche Special is still uncannily fast.
In June of this year it was the subject car on "Chasing Classic Cars" with Wayne Carini and has received a lot of press as a result.


Keep on rolling baby , you know what time it is !
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