PORSCHE 959

Weissach rethinks the supercar

- MICHAEL COTTON

THE MOMENT OF TRUTH comes hurtling towards you when you overcook the entry to the tight right-left chicane at the end of the main straight on the new Nürburgring. The 959 is travelling at an indicated 220km/h and you think you can keep the power on just a moment longer. Chief test driver Gunther Steckkönig showed it can be done, but he's reckoned to be even quicker than Hans Stuck in this car. A mere journalist though...

Hard on the brakes, even at the turn-in point, and the opposite red and white kerb looms ever closer. But the brakes are a new type of ABS, and can't be locked up. Better still, the car will actually turn in with the power off at the precise moment a 911 Turbo would be spinning like a top.

Not the 959 though: it's an inspired device. The tail feels loose but slides only slightly and the driver is given generous moments to get his act together and keep this outrageous supercar on the road. At speeds that no sane owner would contemplate on public roads, Porsche's fastest-ever road car has passed the hardest test with an honours degree in forgiveness an incredible accomplishment, given its towering speed potential.

To prove how forgiving the 959 is, at the car's press day, no-one came near to spinning one. And Porsche had some rapid drivers there, too. Giancarlo Baghetti (Ferrari GP driver of the 1960s) from Italy, Le Mans winner Henri Pescarolo, and Paul Frère (also a former Ferrari GP driver) were the stars. Least popular was an Italian who shifted from third to first by mistake, dragged the engine past the rev limiter and destroyed a $44,000 engine! Worse, he was the first of the day in the driver's seat, which made the Porsche people look rather wan.