One to Buy: ex-Shintaro Taki double Suzuka 1000km-winning 1966 Porsche 906
Also known as the Carrera 6, the 906 was created as Porsche’s challenger for the 1966 season when new rules came into effect for Sports, Prototype and Grand Touring Cars.
The premier Group 6 Prototype category had no minimum production requirement whereas the Group 4 Sports car class mandated at least 50 units.
Unlike Ferrari who never came close to reaching the 50 car target with their Dino 206 S, Porsche ultimately exceeded that figure with ease and the 906 went on to become the dominant car in its class for the next few years.
In addition to having supplied the 906 to customers, Porsche undertook their own competition programme with the model which proved competitive in both top flight circuit racing, hillclimbs and even the occasional tarmac rally.
Set to go under the hammer at Bonhams’ Quail Lodge auction in Monterey on August 18th is a particularly significant 906, chassis 120, which was originally delivered to Japanese privateer Shintaro Taki in March 1966.
During his inaugural campaign with chassis 120, Taki won races at Suzuka and Fuji and also picked up a second place finish at Funabashi followed by third in the Macau Grand Prix.
Taki continued to race the car throughout 1967 when Kenjiro Tanaka also took the wheel. Between them they scored four victories at Fuji (to include that year’s 2 Hour event) and also won the Suzuka 1000km.
Chassis 120 continued its winning ways throughout the 1968 and ‘69 seasons, during which it most notably scored a second win in the Suzuka 1000km (in 1969).
The car raced on with a subsequent owner until 1974 and during the 1990s was restored by Porsche themselves.
Reprinted below is Bonhams’ description for this important piece of Porsche and Japanese racing history:
Estimate: USD $2.2m - $2.5m
Chassis no. 906-120
Engine no. 906-121
Multiple endurance-race wins
Highly original matching-numbers example
Eligible for a multitude of premiere league competition events around the world
Uncomplicated and straightforward to run
Bonhams is delighted to offer here this highly-original, matching numbers, well-preserved, handsomely presented and historic Porsche Carrera Six – which has been sympathetically restored in recent years by the Stuttgart Zuffenhausen factory itself. The shapely, lightweight, aerodynamic Porsche 906 – marketed in period as the Carrera Six – is of course revered today by Porsche enthusiasts as one of the most iconic and indeed landmark designs ever produced by the legendary German marque.
This particular Porsche Carrera Six – one of some 65 manufactured in period – was delivered new on March 23, 1966, to its first owner; prominent Japanese entrant/driver Shintaro Taki. During the contemporary Japanese racing season of 1966, Shintaro Taki drove '120', now offered here, in five significant events, and after failing to finish first time out in the Japanese Grand Prix for sports cars on May 3 that year, he responded by winning the Clubman round at the Suzuka road circuit on July 17. A second retirement followed in the Mt Fuji Tourist Trophy race the following weekend but on August 14 he won the All-Japan race at Fuji, before completing a quite successful maiden season with the car by taking second place at Funabashi.
The Macau Grand Prix meeting followed in the Portuguese colony on the China coast on November 20, 1966, and there in the punishing 60-lap sports car race Taki finished third in '120' behind victorious Belgian works Alpine-Renault driver, Mauro Bianchi.
Shintaro Taki retained this car for a full Japanese season in 1967, entering it in eight races. In this new year's Japanese Grand Prix at Mt Fuji he promptly finished fifth, while co-driving with Tadashi Sakai in the year's Fuji 1,000Kms he was forced to retired, being classified 36th overall. However, '906-120's fortunes then improved brilliantly, as fresh driver Kenjiro Tanaka then won both the August 6 and August 20 feature races at Mt Fuji before Shintaro Taki added a third consecutive victory for that year in the Fuji 2-Hours.
On the crest of a wave, the resurgent team took '120' to Suzuka for the circuit's annual 1,000 Kilometers race – the most important on the Japanese competition calendar - and there the driving partnership of Taki/Tanaka triumphed again – scoring the car's fourth consecutive victory of the season. Yet still there was more. Next time out in the November All-Japan race at Fuji, Taki won yet again.
Problems then forced '120', again being driven by Shintaro Taki, out of the Suzuka 2-Hour race but still 1967 had proved to be a scintillating racing season for the Japanese Porsche celebrity.
And to underline the significance of this mouth-watering Porsche as offered here, there was still more success to follow.
Early in 1968 – on January 15 – future Japanese Formula 1 driver Masahiro Hasemi slid down into the Carrera Six's comfortable cockpit and promptly won the Suzuka 300Kms race. On March 24, Tadashi Sakai returned to the driving seat, promptly winning the Fuji 300Kms. One week later, on March 31, it was Masahiro Hasemi who again completed a three-in-a-row hat-trick of race wins in '120' – taking top honours in the Suzuka 500Kms. Take note of these race distances. These were no blink-and-you'll-miss-it sprint races...these were seriously challenging endurance competitions of significance. And Carrera Six '120' had been sufficiently well-prepared and well run to triumph each time.
One more win fell to the car that year, when new driver Mitsumasa Takano drove it home first in the Fuji Champion meeting on August 11, by which time it was being entered by the Tudor Racing Team, not Taki. In its four other events contested through 1968, it retired from the Fuji 1,000Kms when driven by Takano/Jiro Yoneyama, and again from the All-Japan race at Suzuka, driver again Takano. Another new name, Hiroshi Katahira conducted '120' into seventh place in the Japan Grand Prix, and in the season-closing Suzuka 1,000Kms Takano/Yoneyama finished second in it under the colors of the Rolex Tudor Racing Team.
Still, what had become the veteran Porsche Carrera Six '120' raced on into its fourth season of competition, 1969. Highlight of the year was its second outright win in the prestigious Suzuka 1,000Kms, run on June 1 that year, co-driven by Tomohiko Tsutsumi/Jiro Yoneyama for the Tudor Watch Racing Team.
Driver Yoneyama had also driven '120' to win the All Japan race at Suzuka on March 9, he would win the series' eponymous round at Fuji to close the year on September 21, and in between would take two third places (both at Fuji), plus a fourth there, and a 12th in the Suzuka 12-Hours. Two DNFs punctuated the year (again, both at Fuji).
By 1970 old '120' was effectively obsolete, but Japanese-based enthusiast drivers Peter Bellamy and Bob Hathaway took over its running and contested at least nine more races that year, Hathaway scoring a third place first time out in the All Japan Suzuka event, while Peter Bellamy later matched that podium place in the Fuji Speed Cup race. He also wrote race reports on a number of Japanese events for the specialist European press, and through 1971 campaigned old '120' six times, best finish being second place at Tsukuba on April 18, followed by a third there on June 27. He had also finished fifth in the car after a solo drive in the Fuji 300 Miles on June 6.
Still, this remarkably long-active Porsche Carrera Six continued in competition – entering its seventh season of combat in 1972. Peter Bellamy was entered with it in the Fuji 200-Miles, the All Japan Suzuka event, and both 250Km and 200Km Fuji events, finishing 14th first time out on that circuit beneath Japan's sacred mountain...
Come 1973 and '120' commenced its eighth racing season, still in harness, Bellamy finishing tenth in the Fuji 300Kms but being forced to retire at Atsu and non-starting in the Fuji 300Kms. One final hurrah remained to put the final footnote to '120's magnificent frontline racing career, Keith Dinnerville driving it in the 1974 Macau Grand Prix...and finishing fourth.
The car subsequently passed to Japanese Porsche enthusiast Takashi Yasunaga of Yokohama who, in 1992, commissioned the German factory to commence a sympathetic restoration. A copy letter from Porsche to Mr Yasunaga dated December 11 that year confirms vehicle dismantling to measure the chassis frame (to check for distortion after so very much hard use), suspension checking and fresh set-up, plus engine, gearbox and body condition.
Another surviving communication from July 16, 1993, then confirmed completion of work on the chassis frame, and commencement of work upon the molded fiberglass bodywork. However, it was regretted that "...there is no possibility to rebuild the engine to an original engine 2.0 liter). Because the crankcase for this engine is no more available. Therefore we will rebuild the engine in that condition (2.5 liter) as you delivered the car. We hope that you will accept this decision...".
It is unclear at what stage in the car's career the original 2-liter engine was enlarged to 2.5-liters, but the factory's advice upon leaving it at the larger displacement was apparently accepted. The car retains its 2.5-liter engine to this day.
The master mind behind development of the Porsche Carrera Six competition Coupe was Dipl. Ing. Ferdinand Piech (highly-qualified nephew of company founder Prof Dr Ferdinand Porsche). He had become head of the experimental department in 1966 and under his unbridled ambition Porsche racing developments absolutely accelerated. The Porsche 904 GTS Coupe model had proved very successful both in competition and in competition-minded customer sales through 1964-65.
The Carrera Six replaced it with the accent upon major weight-saving. There was little in common between 906 and preceding 904. The new model's multi-tubular spaceframe chassis was a lightweight new structure which needed little extra stiffening from the molded fiberglass bodywork. Essentially 904-style suspension, brakes and 15-inch wheels were carried over but from the outset the new model was designed to accept the flat-six cylinder air-cooled production engine in race-tuned form.
Most significantly, the sleek new model was no less than 255lbs lighter than the 904/6 variant at a total of 1,235lbs. With the 210bhp 6-cylinder engine installed the Carrera Six could offer a power-to-weight ratio of 3480bhp per ton, while with a 260bhp 2.2-liter version of the flat-8 engine installed it would have been 450bhp per ton. These were heady figures by contemporary standards.
Only 50 identical units had to be produced to fulfil the FIA governing body's contemporary homologation requirements to allow the cars to race within the required international Group 4 class, and the line-up of 50 identical gull-winged beauties when arrayed for FIA inspection caused a tremendous media stir. Officially a total of 65 Porsche Carrera Sixes were completed, 52 of them with the 2-liter six-cylinder engines. Nine prototype cars used Bosch fuel injection boosting the power output to 220bhp, and four 2.2-liter variants with Bosch injection developed a claimed 260bhp.
In the words of Porsche historians Richard von Frankenberg and Michael Cotton "The Carrera Six seemed right from the word go, and at its debut race in Daytona, Hans Herrmann/Herbert Linge had a completely trouble-free 24-Hour race finishing sixth overall behind the 7-liter Fords and 4.4-liter Ferraris. Then at Sebring a month later a factory Carrera Six driven by Mitter/Herrmann and Joe Buzzetta finished in fourth place behind a trio of 7-liter Fords....".
That proved to be just the beginning, and the Porsche Carrera Six series would dominate World-class 2-liter endurance racing – at least in private customer terms - for at least two frontline seasons. Its successor would be the Porsche 910, but the sculpturally voluptuous body form of the 906 or Carrera Six remained for many 'Porsche people' the iconic image of Porsche's progressive emergence through the mid-to-late 1960s from perennially minor-class competitor towards the majestically dominant, all-competition-crushing behemoth that it proved to be into the 1970s.
This Porsche Carrera Six survives today as absolutely one of the most raced, and most successful, of all surviving 906s. We commend it absolutely to all Porsche lovers as being worthy of the most careful consideration. All it takes to secure it for your motor house is just that one, single, decisive, bid...it is available here for the taking.
