Top 10 Porsches of all time. Porsche is one of the oldest luxury automobile brands in the world, offering some of the most well-engineered cars that money (a lot of it) can buy. And as fans of high-performance vehicles ourselves, whether it be jets, motorcycles or cars, we thought we’d celebrate the luxury carmaker by taking a look at the top 10 Porsches of all time. Ready, set, go!
Top 10 Porsches of All Time
1) Porsche 550 Spyder
Taking inspiration from both Ferry Porsche’s 356 and Walter Glöckler Spyder prototypes of the 1950s, the Porsche 550 was a masterpiece of the era’s professional auto racing industry. Thanks to its air-cooled, four-cylinder, 1.1/1.5-liter engine, the car won the first race it ever entered, Nurburgring Eifel Race of 1953, and continued to dominate in the years to come. With it’s famous low profile that made it more aerodynamic it became a dominant design for racing cars by the mid 1960s.
2) Porsche 917
The first Porsche to capture an overall win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 917. And, not only is it famous in racing, it became big in Hollywood as well thanks to an appearance in the Steve McQueen film, Le Mans. This car was built with a Type 912 flat-12 engine, capable of achieving 0-60 in under 2.3 seconds, while the lanheck version recorded a top speed of 225 mph.
3) Porsche 356
The first Porsche to make it to mass production was the 356, with 50 cars built initially in 1948 through 1965. Its minimal weight, rear-engine and rear-wheel drive gave it fantastic handling and speed, while the sleek, two-door body style and hard/open top design made it stand out as an attractive luxury automobile.
4) Porsche 959
Manufactured from 1986-1993, this car is unique in that it started first as a rally car and evolved over time into a road-legal production car. With twin-turbocharged engines, the 959 was, at the time, the world’s fastest street-legal car ever built, clocking in speeds at just under 200 mph. It was also the first high-performance car to include all-wheel drive and was crowned number one on Sports Car International’s list of Top Sports Cars of the 1980s.
5) Porsche Carrera GT
Another top Porsche of all time is the Carrera GT, a mid-engine model manufactured from 2004-2007, and still highly popular today.
6) Porsche 911
The car that took the place of the 356 is the Porsche 911, the company’s most popular production model of all time with over one million manufactured. Introduced in late 1964, the car has gone through several evolutions over the decades, yet remains one of the oldest sports coupés still in production today. An international poll taken at the turn of the millennium declared the 911 number five on its list of Cars of the Century.
7) Porsche 918 Spyder
This limited-production supercar is known for its powerful V8, 4.6-liter engine and two additional electric motors that, when combined, produced a roaring 875 horsepower. It was unveiled at the September 2013 Frankfurt Motor Show as Porsche’s second plug-in hybrid car, and marked a transition in the company toward the production of environmentally friendly luxury car options.
8) Porsche Boxster
Since 1996, the Porsche Boxster has been turning heads on highways and racetracks alike, thanks to its roadster-style body design and fast boxer-style engine. The company manufactures two models of Boxsters, the 718 Boxster and 718 Cayman. While both cars offer similar performance, the most notable distinction is their body styles – Boxster is a convertible while the Cayman is a coupe.
9) Porsche 935
Of the 370 races the Porsche 935 entered, it won first place a whopping 123 times, making this one of the most successful racing cars of all time. In fact, it was so successful that its dominance only ended when the FIA changed its rules in 1982. This car has won 24 Hours of Le Mans, Sebring, Daytona and other major endurance races, thanks to its twin-turbocharged mechanical-injection that produced 845 horsepower.
10) Porsche P1
We couldn’t make a post about the best Porsches of all time without including the vehicle that started it all – the Egger-Lohner C.2 Phaeton, designed by Ferdinand Porsche’s. Also known colloquially as the P1 (or Porsche #1), this was the first car built by the future luxury automobile manufacturer in 1898. With its innovative electric drive system, powered by two motors, the car reached speeds up to 22 mph and offered five horsepower—sure it doesn’t sound like much nowadays, but that was a marked improvement over horse and buggy. The car became well known after its winning performance at a 25-mile race from Berlin to Zehlendorf and back in 1899. Although any car collector would issue a blank check to own this piece of history, it’s currently housed at the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, Germany, where it ended up after being found untouched in an Austrian warehouse for 112 years.