Forty-six, fifty-one, sixty-three: behind these three numbers are the “coordinates” of Porsche’s official debut in racing, the beginning of an adventure made up of successes, victories and records won in almost every automotive discipline. To the protagonist of that historic moment, a 356 that came first of sports cars up to 1.1 liters, at the 1951 edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, is dedicated the volume “46: The Birth of Porsche Motorsport” published by Dalton Watson and signed by a set of experts, historians and photographers. The number recalled in the title is a race ID, the other two indicate respectively the year and the chassis number of that car, which was also able to emerge at the Liège-Rome-Liège rally and the Monthléry Salon cup before setting sail for America from which it returned only a few years ago to take its place at the Porsche museum after careful restoration.
The book celebrates not only the history of this car, but also its contribution to starting Porsche’s sporting era and its role of inspiration for the design of endurance racing cars. Great care was taken to make it more aerodynamic, replacing some windows with louvers and fairing the wheel as well. Three of the first five chapters concerning the car’s conception, construction, and development, concluding with a chronicle of the races, while the three of the second parts runs through that the American experience. Finding, restoring and returning to the scene are covered in the final five chapters followed by an additional 36 pages of appendices with bibliography and references of the more than 500 photographs in the work, some of which are unpublished as are many of the original documents reproduced.
Flippable preview of the volume here.
Datasheet
Forty Six: The Birth of Porsche Motorsport
Publisher: Dalton Watson Fine Book
Author: Randy Leffingwell, Doug Nye, Sean Cridland
Size: bound volume measuring 29 x 25,4 x 3,1 cm with hard cover
Pages: 336
Text: English
Photographs: 500 in color and b/w
Price: 155 euros
