One to Buy: ex-Fernand Schligler 1968 Porsche 911 2.0 R
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Although Porsche had scored some impressive early victories with the 911, wins at the likes of the Le Mans 24 Hours and Monte Carlo Rally had necessarily been achieved with lightly modified cars taken off the production line.
Therefore, in order to push the 911 concept to the absolute limit of its performance capability, over the winter of 1966-1967 Porsche created the two-litre-based R: a radically modified, super lightweight hot rod that was such a departure from the base 911 it normally had to run in the Prototype as opposed to GT category.
During the ‘67 season, a works 911 R driven by Vic Elford won its class on debut at the Mugello GP World Sportscar Championship contest. Elford, Hans Herrmann and Jochen Neerpasch then won the 84 hour Marathon de la Route at the Nurburgring and a series of International Speed Records were set at Monza. Later in its career, the 911 R won the 1969 Tour de France and that year’s Tour de Corse.
After the first four prototype 911 Rs had been completed (numbered R1 to R4), Porsche built a further batch of 20 cars, some of which were sold off to customers (numbered 001R to 020R).
One, of these, chassis 006R, is set to go under the hammer at RM Sothebey’s Monterey auction taking place over the weekend of August 15th and 16th.
Sold new to to French privateer Fernand Schligler via the Sonauto agency in October 1967, 006R made its debut on the Tour de Corse a few days later and the following year successfully contested both rallies and hillclimbs. January 1969 saw the car pass to Michel Martinache. A later owner (1971) was Paris-Dakar Rally organiser, Thierry Sabine.
