Classic Sports Cars

1969 Porsche 911E 2.2

The original 911 series is often cited as the most successful competition car ever, especially when its variations are included; namely the powerful 911 derived 935 which won Le Mans as well as other major sports cars races. The original Porsche 911 with its famous and distinctive design was mechanically notable for being rear-engine and air-cooled. Production would run from Autumn 1963 until 1989.

This very rare Signal Green Long nose 911 would make the ideal vintage drivers Porsche. To find a true high option Signal Green, Sunroof 1969 911E is no easy task.

The C series 911 was introduced in August 1969 with an enlarged 2.2-litre engine. The wheelbase for all 911 and 912 models was increased from 87.0 to 89.3 inches, to help as a remedy to the car’s nervous handling at the limit. The overall length of the car did not change, but the rear wheels were relocated further back. Fuel injection also arrived for the 911S and for a new middle model 911E with the 901/09 engine.

The car itself boasts original stickers, tool roll, radio in situ and trim; inevitably the driver’s seat shows signs of wear but is original.

It’s much simpler and a hell of a lot more satisfying to buy a car that will do your pro­testing for you. And if there’s any car that de­fies Detroit’s sacred cows it’s a Porsche. Small displacement, rear-engined, air-cooled, inde­pendently suspended, demanding and not prone to easily forgive errors, the Porsche is the antithesis of Detroit’s engineering and marketing tenets. And, of course, there is the reputation thing. Porsches are arrogant. Only the fact that it has four wheels makes a Porsche a “car.” It is a trip, it is an expression of understanding what the world is really like, it is a teutonic NASA mobile miniaturized for the highway. Porsche knows; Porsche cares; Porsche lives.

How else to react, then, when it came to our attention that the new Porsches featured such exotic hardware as fuel injection and hydro-pneumatic suspension, than  to see if what has come to be known as the “Porsche Aura” (something like the Northern Lights) is justi­fied or if it’s just a glow that hides what otherwise might be a pumpkin coach.