Porsche celebrates 75 years in the UK with a very special festival at Silverstone. These are the highlights
“This beautifully streamlined rear-engined sports model is the first German car to be shown in England since the war.”
That car, announcing its maker’s arrival on these shores, was the Porsche 356 at the Earl’s Court motor show in October 1951 and those words were tucked away on page 141 of The Autocar’s 19 October 1951 issue.
Two of those three very examples of the 356 that starred at Earl’s Court were back on display at Silverstone this past weekend (one static, one having been driven there by its owner) at the Porsche Sunstede festival, held to celebrate 75 years of Porsche in the UK.
The UK is typically Porsche’s fourth-largest market and the Porsche Experience Centre at Silverstone was bursting with owners and brand enthusiasts on its sprawling site, greatly expanded since your correspondent last visited a decade ago.
The track space was packed with every flavour of Porsche from every era, though a leaning towards 997-, 991- and 992-generation Porsche 911s was most evident. A chunk of them were from the centre’s own collection, surely one of the UK’s if not the world’s best collection of contemporary iconic Porsches.
My favourite? A 997 Sport Classic, the car that effectively started the hugely successful business for desirable, limited-run 911s that have followed. The 991-generation 911 R was a close second (“driving it is a spiritual experience” said our Andrew Frankel at the time, words that have always stuck with me).
The SUV and electric Porsches parked among the sports cars didn’t stand out or feel like they didn’t belong. The Porsche Cayenne hybrid I arrived in briefly turned into an attraction in its own right when the heavens opened and I scooped up four colleagues past and present to shelter from the rain. Couldn’t have done that in a 911…
On display in the centre’s main atrium was the latest 911 GT3 Earls Court 51 Edition, created specifically by Porsche GB for this anniversary. It looked great and it will sell, but I did wonder if a back-to-basics 911 Carrera might have been a better base for it than a Porsche 911 GT3, especially when it was parked next to the gorgeous simplicity of the 356.
The Silverstone centre is now home to Porsche’s 2023 Goodwood Festival of Speed statue (a 2014 sculpture from Goodwood now resides atop Porscheplatz in Zuffenhausen) and it was on display in the middle of its handling track.
Around the main Grand Prix Circuit at Silverstone ran high-speed demonstrations from classic racers, including perhaps the most famous Porsche of all, the 917.
The event ran over the whole weekend and was remarkably well attended, as the queues for the shuttle buses returning to the packed car parks will testify. Even on the drive home, the car spotting continued along the M40, where 911 GT3s were as common as Fiestas.
