Porsche 959 rally car set to cross auction block late October
The supercar prototype, which raced from Paris to Dakar, may fetch more than $4 million
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A Porsche 959 rally car that competed in the 1985 Paris-Dakar off-road endurance race is crossing the auction block late October with an estimated $4.34 million price tag attached to it.
The 959 was engineered in the early ’80s to race in the famed Group B rally series, which had unfortunately been shuttered by the time development was complete.
Porsche decided to make the best of the investments it’d already sunk in a 959 homologation road car and enter its race-car in the 9,600-km Paris-Dakar in 1985, one of the most grueling rallies of the period.
The company entered three 959s in the endurance race, partly to use as prototypes to further the development of the 959 road car, later revered as one of the most incredible supercars of its decade.
The 3.2-litre-powered 959 crossing the auction block at Ontario-based RM Sotheby’s Porsche 70th Anniversary Sale in Atlanta, Georgia is one of those three 1985 Paris-Dakar cars.
While it didn’t finish the rally due to a failed oil line – the other two also DNF’d due to in-race accidents – it gave Porsche a leg up on the next three 959s they entered in the Paris-Dakar the following year. Those three took the 1st, 2nd and 6th spots out of hundreds of entries.
The sale takes place October 27, and best guesses put the car’s auction price at north of $4 million.
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