Are you tired of this yet? I hope not because today was the first of two days when, for NCMA (North Carolina Museum of Art) members only, they would have many of the hoods up and open so that you could get a view of the engines of these special cars.
As I walked from the parking lot to the museum building I spotted this Porsche…
Obviously a person who really appreciates these cars and enjoys them for what they are…classic performance that you don’t have to treat like it should be in a museum to enjoy it.
I continued my walk to the main building, went in and went down the stairs to where the exhibit is on display. Yes, I had seen them earlier, but to have the engine compartments open and exposing the motors that made these car special was… well… special.
If you look carefully – just in front of the door is a semaphore turn signal that would pop out of the bodywork and flash the indicator that a driver was going to make a turn. So classic.
The lid was up and open, but the display didn’t give you a direct view of the engine compartment so I did the best that I could…
Obviously close to its Volkswagen roots.
Inside was more…
No view of the engine compartment on that one…but you can see the semaphore turn signal in front of the door. VW put it on the ‘B’ pillar on the early bugs.
People were enthralled with the cars.
It was a shame that this one didn’t display its engine compartment either.
The 904 is a stunning car and if you stretched you could get a shot of its power plant.
Then on to the next display…
The 356 and 356B.
The 718 RS60 garnered a lot of attention.
The 365C had its engine on display…
Next in my sights was a race car…
No restrictions on the view on this one!
Notice the trumpet-like tubes to direct cooling air onto the transmission.
Above is the 917 prototype and I did my best to get an overhead shot of the engine without incurring the wrath of the docents.
Then there was the ruddy and well raced version of the 917…
Then on to another race car with history…
No views of the engine compartment on that one, nor on the early F1 Porsche…
But I did get a good shot of the front disk brake layout where the calipers were on the inside of the brake rotors.
Another Porsche race car.
The one above from the IROC series first race.
People loved the views of these cars on display.
The 959 shown above was taken on the track at VIR (Virginia International Raceway) and got to stretch its legs.
The Porsche Carrera GT is a stunner.
The NCMA members were really enjoying their chance to see this exhibit. I enjoyed the open (limited) engine compartments, too.
So many of these iconic cars are here for the viewing right through January 20 of next year. What is interesting to me are the ones that you don’t see on display.
No 928, 924, 944, or 968. These were the front-engined cars that appeared on the scene when Porsche was trying to do more than new iterations of the 911. There also was no 914, although you can forgive that because it was only badged as a Porsche in the US. In Germany it was a VW. But it would have been nice to see an example of the 914-6 which came with a mid-engine mounted, six cylinder Porsche engine.
Maybe Porsche feels that the exhibit is the “best of the best” in terms of representing the brand and its heritage, but those others should not be considered step-children by any means.
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