It was at the Frankfurt Motor Show in 1973 that a silver prototype, perched on the Porsche stand, wowed onlookers with its distinctive appearance. From the familiar sloped 911 engine cover extended a new, wild-looking rear spoiler with air intake louvres and a thick rubber lip around its edges. Visually, the show car looked like the 911 Carrera RS 3.0, a car that had just become available for sale, but the badges on the rear wheel arches made it clear that, in reality, this was a thoroughly new model. The badges said ‘Turbo’, and from this point forward that motif would develop yet another Porsche tradition.
Underneath the rear spoiler and explaining the turbo badges was a flat-6 engine with a single turbocharger. It developed 280 horsepower and enabled a top speed over 160 mph. These sounded like figures from a pure-bred racing machine … More