World of Speed: 962 Magic

Last summer my girlfriend and I were lucky enough to spend some time in the Pacific North West of North America. We spent some time in Seattle, Portland and Vancouver. Obviously I managed to sneak in some automotive related activities, and I'm gonna make an effort to get some of them up here.

We somehow found out about a motorsports museum just outside Portland, and decided it would be worth a look. This first generation Acura NSX greeted us upon arrival.

Stock ride height has actually never looked better.

There was a porsche exhibition on at the time we visited, no complaints from me.

Air cooled Porsches aren't exactly common in Ireland so it's always a treat for me personally to see some nice examples.

996 GT3 cup car.

964 Targa Turbo.

 Wide.

Look at the light reflecting off the rear quarter, perfect paint is not really something I care about but still, look at it.

Cool, cool, cool, cool.

The 959 has always been in the shadow of the F40, but its an engineering marvel none the less.

I don't think I had seen one in the flesh before either so pretty cool.

Not a lot to see here, 2.8l Bi-Turbo.

1979 935 IMSA car. This is a pretty iconic livery/number/team for porsche race cars.

Centre locks and turbo fans. Good stuff.

Mickey Thompson driven land speed record challenger. It features 4 supercharged Pontiac V8 engines, one driving each wheel, and each making circa 700 horse power.

It was built to break the 400mph barrier at the Bonneville salt flats, after a few failed attempts it did so in 1960 at 406mph. Look and listen.

Imagine looking out a postcard sized windscreen at 400mph.

Probably my favourite Porsche there. 1974 911 RSR IROC, 1 of 15 built. Look at the wing. The name Fittipaldi might also be familiar to any Formula 1 fans.

Not sure I have the vocabulary to describe how cool this is.

Look at it!

1980 Porsche 935J. Minus the Penthouse windscreen it wore back in the day. 

I love getting to have a chance to get up close to machines like this. The engineering of race cars from previous eras in particular are so much easier to appreciate, the technology has a relatable feel.

Everything is laid out for you to enjoy.  The symmetry, and simplicity of the packaging of this Lola Indy car was certainly working for me.

Lucy genuinely thought these were hilarious, perhaps that's how they got the name.

Whats not to like though. Blown V8's strapped to a tube frame with a 'hotwheelsesque' fibreglass body, designed to do one thing.

When I was a bit younger I might have been slightly dismissive towards drag racing, but like pretty much like anything, once you start to get under the skin of it the appeal is clear to see. The simplicity of the goal at hand, makes the actual development of the car super interesting to me. Pushing the car until you've reached the limit of a part, and then upgrading so that you can find the next bottleneck in the system.

These nitro cars are obviously the absolute pinnacle of that, although I suspect this would be a relic by modern standards. Anything that you need to have straps the prevent cylinder heads from flying off is pretty cool in my book.

I'd love to get the opportunity to see, hear, smell, and feel one of these at full pelt down the strip.

Taste the rainbow.

What you're looking at is a hydroplane, powered by a 3000hp Rolls-Royce Merlin V12 engine. I found of this madness, here enjoy.

Do it for Dale.

I guess this is from the period when 'stock cars' were actually based on 'stock' cars. I didn't get any pictures but there was some trick stuff going on inside that allowed to driver to adjust the rear geometry on the fly.

I had never actually seen a 962 Porsche in the flesh until this moment. What a treat to see this one with panels off, and with a glorious livery, and the best race number to boot.

Jet fighter comparisons are impossible to ignore, when you see under the shell.

Design, and details are absolutely beautiful.

If the 962 is a jet fighter, then Porsche current endurance car the 919 is a space ship, but I think I could tell you which one I'd rather be looking at.

So yeah, not one but three 962's. 

With stunning liveries also.

962 Magic.