One to Buy: ex-Racing Team Holland 1966 Porsche 906
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Created as a successor to the all-conquering 904 GTS, Porsche’s iconic Gullwing-doored 906 Carrera 6 seamlessly took over the mantle of premier under two-litre Group 4 Sports car.
To qualify for the Group 4 Sports category, a manufacturer first had to build at least 50 copies of the machine it wanted to race. That meant, although Porsche would field an army of its own 906s, a considerable number would have to be sold to satellite teams and privateers.
One such outfit to go racing with the 906 was Racing Team Holland who acquired chassis 146 which will be going under the hammer at RM Sotheby’s Munich sale on October 18th.
Supplied via Porsche’s Dutch distributor, Ben Pon, who (like Prince Bernhard) was a patron of Racing Team Holland, chassis 146 was appropriately finished in the national racing colour of its new homeland: a striking shade of orange.
The car made its competition debut in the NAV Dutch national meeting at Zandvoort on April 24th 1966 where Wim Loos took a class win. Over the course of the next twelve months, chassis 146 was raced successfully around Europe; in a dozen outings it only failed to finish twice (owing to mechanical issues) and scored a number of podium placings to include a couple more wins.
Following an accident during practice for the 1967 Spa 1000km World Championship race, chassis 146 returned to Porsche for a complete rebuild, after which it was sold to Antoine Hezemans for his SRT Holland equipe.
Hezemans continued to expand the now white and Dutch-striped car’s already impressive record. He recorded six more wins during 1968-1969 and then sold the 906 to privateer Arie Ruska who occasionally raced it until 1971.
More recently, chassis 146 has been the subject of a comprehensive restoration that saw a 2.4-litre 911 S engine installed. The original 906 motor accompanies the car on a specially fabricated display stand.
