A new comprehensive exhibition at the Porsche Museum in Germany will highlight the company’s many successes at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Held from March 26 to July 13, 2014, the “24 Hours for Eternity” display in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen will also highlight Porsche’s present-day Le Mans commitment with a display of the Porsche 919 Hybrid. The car celebrated its premiere only three weeks ago at the Geneva Motor Show.
The exhibition at the Porsche Museum was transformed to a racing track in homage to the famous endurance race. The focus will be on the 919 Hybrid, the fastest research lab and most complex racing car Porsche has ever built. The onset of the Porsche Le Mans history in 1951 marked the beginning of the “24 Hours for Eternity” special exhibition. Re-enactments of racing situations from the victorious racing years on life-sized prism walls and track sections such as the Hunaudières straight will guide the museum visitor through the special exhibition.
More than 20 different racing cars will tell the history of this legendary 24-hour race. Alongside the 919 Hybrid, visitors can see at the Porsche Museum for the first time the 1969 Porsche 908/2 Spyder long tail, the 1971 Porsche 911 T/R, the 1974 Porsche 911 3.0 RSR as well as the 1981 Porsche 936/81 Spyder, among others. The Porsche 936, which already captured the races in 1976 and 1977, was reactivated in 1981 for the 24-hour race. With 360 km/h, the 936 was the fastest vehicle in the field on the Mulsanne straight and brought its drivers Jacky Ickx and Derek Bell the sixth overall victory – with a lead of 14 laps.
The cars on exhibit also include the 1979 Porsche 935, the Porsche 911 GT2 Le Mans, the 1994 Porsche 962 GT Dauer Le Mans as well as the WSC LMP1 of 1998. With the 962 GT Dauer Le Mans, Porsche competed in the 24-hour race under the direction of the Joest team in 1994. With this car, Mauro Baldi, Yannick Dalmas and Hurley Haywood took home the 13th overall win for Porsche. The model that Hans-Joachim Stuck, Danny Sullivan and Thierry Boutsen drove will await the visitor here in the museum. Various historical and technological small exhibit pieces such as helmets, a brake disc from the Porsche 956 and the diary of Ferry Porsche from the collection of the Porsche corporate archive round off the historical journey through time of Porsche at Le Mans.
On the weekend of the race, the Porsche Museum will be open for the first time for more than 24 hours straight, from Saturday, June 14, starting at 9:00 a.m., until Sunday, June 15, 6:00 p.m. Visitors and fans of the endurance race can follow the race live as part of a public viewing programme on several monitors inside and around the museum building. Entrance will be free of charge on this racing weekend.
The museum shop has a selection of specific items as part of the Le Mans special exhibition for sale to the public. Along with posters, postcards and polo shirts, all 16 overall winners of Le Mans will be available as model cars in a scale of 1:43. The Porsche Museum is open from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Tuesday to Sunday admission is eight euros for adults. Reduced price tickets cost four euros.
For more information, visit www.porsche.com/museum.
[Source: Porsche AG]
