Bamber and Hartley’s amazing hyper-racer – in your garage!

A car with a Kiwi motorsport connection is among a fleet of amazing design studies revealed by Porsche.

IMAGINE the sheer delicious madness of it – a road-legal version of the 330kmh-plus 919 Hybrid LMP1, the all-dominant force of recent international prototype sports car racing that Kiwis Brendon Hartley and Earl Bamber took to Le Mans victories and world endurance championship titles.

It could have happened.

The idea for a ‘919 Street’, the version of Porsche’s technology masterpiece you could have used every day is disclosed in a new book, ‘Porsche Unseen’, which reveals just that car as one of 15 radical concepts from 2005 to 2015 that never came to be.

A look in into the inner workings of a place normally completely off-limits to public scrutiny, the famous maker’s design studio – Style Porsche - in Weissach, Germany, also unwraps concept cars that were developed as a source of inspiration for the company’s designers.

As today’s images show, the ‘919 Street’ reached the same point as the other subjects of the book, a one-to-one clay scale model.

 The styling concept has the same dimensions and wheelbase as the racing car that debuted in 2014 then dominated the long-distance circuit racing scene for four years, claiming three consecutive world championships and three straight victories in the arduous Le Mans 24 Hours in France.

Conceivably it would have retained the racer’s radical V4 two-litre petrol engine and advanced hybrid drivetrains that took it to 330kmh in race trim but considerably faster still in the ultimate track lap record-beating ‘Evo’ trim, that Porsche created after the car retired from LMP1 at the end of 2017.

Unchanged mechanically to the racing model, but simply with aerodynamic refinements beyond those allowed for LMP1, the Evo often beat Formula One lap times.

Whanganui-born Bamber and two team-mates achieved the 919 Hybrid’s debut Le Mans victory, in 2015, and his pal from childhood and the NZ motorsport scene Hartley, from Palmerston North, was in a crew that snared victory in the car on the French circuit in 2017 (he then achieved his second Le Mans, this year with Toyota).

Bamber and Hartley also teamed to take the 2017 World Endurance Championship in the car, a second such time for Hartley, who’d also been in the crew that claimed the 2015 world title.

The 919 Street wasn’t the only concept fuelled by Porsche’s rich racing spirit; there were two others created under the ‘Living Legends’ mantle.

The 917 Living Legend (above) was crafted by designers in 2013 as a modern interpretation of the legendary race car that had the same numerical designation.

 This one was created to mark the brand returning to LMP1 with the 919, but was kept under wraps until spring 2019, when the maker released the first photos as a way to celebrate the 917 race car’s 50th anniversary.

 The concept proper was presented to the public for the first time in the ‘Colours of Speed’ exhibition at the Porsche Museum last year.

There’s also the 906 Living Legend study (above) from 2005. As the name suggests, the Porsche 906 street-legal racing car from 1966 served as inspiration for the proportions and body design of this vision of a super sports car. The red contrasting front bonnet and the layout of the headlights are in the style of the famous car that won the 1966 Targa Floria, a daunting road race in Sicily since discontinued on safety grounds, in the hands of privateers Willy Mairesse and Gerhard Muller.

 Another featured concept that was never to be that also has racing links is a battery-propelled passenger van.

The maker identifies that the inspiration for the Vision Renndienst, a family-friendly “space shuttle” rendered in 2018, was a far more utilitarian Volkswagen van, used as a support vehicle by the Porsche factory racing team decades ago.

Envisaged to carry up to six people, Porsche’s concept has streamlined surfaces, minimalist headlights, a sporty front fascia and a long sloping roof. Designers also installed five-spoke alloy wheels and a traditional Porsche rear end with a full-width light bar.