Porsche Insurance

Roadside Assistance – Only a Call Away

A perfect day cruising in your Porsche does not include being stranded on the side of the road. Never fear! Your Classic Auto Insurance policy includes nationwide roadside assistance with guaranteed flatbed towing. We are just a call away.

The Tradition and Innovation of Porsche

Porsche 356

Almost 7 decades ago, Ferry Porsche introduced his dream car to the world and launched Porsche’s sports car line with the Porsche 356. His father, Professor Ferdinand Porsche, was already a famous automotive designer who had worked on the prototype for the original Volkswagen Beetle, but young Ferry dreamed of producing something faster, more powerful, and much more fun than the stodgy old Bug.

The earliest prototype for the Porsche 356 was essentially pieced together from other low-cost car parts that were available during the war in the mid-1940s. When the government confiscated many large roadsters and touring-style cars for the war effort, automotive designers were left with an array of small vehicle parts to work with.

Shortly after the German surrender to the British in 1945, officers in the British royal army discovered that Porsche’s plans and prototypes had been scattered among various locations to prevent them from being stolen. Professor Porsche, who was imprisoned at the time, left Ferry to resurrect the company with the help of a sympathetic Italian industrialist. Project 356 was secretly reborn in a new era for the company.

The Porsche 356, eventually released in 1950, was built to be light and maneuverable, yet packed with horsepower. Its 50-hp engine was supercharged for its time and its small, smoothly curvaceous body style looked undeniably futuristic. Under its sleek skin, it had an innovative aluminum tube frame that every Porsche since has been based upon.

The most lightweight racing versions of the 356, sometimes called Speedsters and America Roadsters, went on to win races around the world. American buyers liked the idea that they could capture a bit of genuine auto racing spirit by driving a racing-inspired car, which helped spark the emerging sports car craze.

Before the 356 was released to the public for series production, modifications were made out of necessity. The all-aluminum frame, which was labor-intensive to create, became mostly steel parts. The aerodynamic shapes of the windshield and roofline were improved to compensate for the extra weight.

Today, it’s thought that only about one-third of the original Porsche 356s still exist in the world. If you ever have the pleasure of seeing one, take a moment to appreciate its unique place in automotive history.

Porsche 550

Even for a car company that is itself an icon, the Porsche 550 is iconic. It’s such a part of automotive and racing history, it goes by many names. The Giant Killer refers to its large frame and truck-style transmission. It’s often called the Spyder because the 550 Spyder is one of its all-time favorite iterations. Some call it the Glockler Porsche, which refers to racer Helm Glocker’s use of the Porsche 550 in the 1953 24 Hours of Le Mans.

It has a 1.5-liter flat-four, air-cooled, four-overhead Fuhrmann engine mounted just in front of the rear axle, with a manual 4-speed or 5-speed transmission. Lightweight and easily maneuverable, the Porsche 550 was built with racing in mind. In the 1950s it was constantly within the top finishers at races around the world and racked up 95 victories and 75 class wins in 370 races.

First introduced in 1953, by late 1954 it was already in demand as a prize among private car collectors. Just 69 Porsche 550s were produced for private buyers. Early-model Porsche 550 Spyders have always been a prize among collectors. Today, it would be difficult to find an original-condition early model Porsche 550 outside of an exceptionally exclusive private collection. 

The Porsche 550 Spyder also holds an unfortunate honor in Hollywood history. It’s the beloved custom-painted “Little Bastard” sports car James Dean was driving when he died on a California highway in 1955.

Porsche 911

The Porsche 911 might be the most popular Porsche of all time. The 911 line originally launched in 1963 as the Porsche 901, but the Peugeot company objected to the use of the zero in the middle of the name, which they considered part of their signature brand. The 901 became the 911 and it’s still produced to this day.

The enduring love for the Porsche 911 may be a result of its surprising practicality. Although it’s always been a full-blooded Porsche with a powerful engine and sporty look, it also has features that appeal to everyday drivers, like a roomy trunk, a comfortable cabin, and a fully-usable back seat. Today’s 911 comes with optional all-wheel drive instead of rear-wheel drive, which is still surprisingly rare among pedigreed sports cars.

Perhaps 911 fans also appreciate its fidelity to the original design. If you put an early-model 911 next to a comparable modern 911, they still look very similar. The main exception on the exterior is today’s wider wheelbase, which meets modern safety standards and keeps the ride steady even in tight turns. Inside, the 911 has an interior that gives a nod to the vintage look but is fully decked out with modern materials and features.

The Porsche 911 has had a wide variety of engines and transmissions over time, but it’s most famous for its flat-six boxer rear-engine layout with a low center of gravity. This is what gives it a special type of handling and road feel that’s difficult to describe and hard to find anywhere else in the automotive market. It comes in a variety of two-door styles including a coupe, convertible, targa top, and speedster.

Porsche 918 Spyder

The Porsche 918 Spyder was introduced as a hybrid-electric hypercar that could easily meet the world’s toughest environmental standards while zipping across the landscape like a true performance sports car. It gets 85 mpg with 79 g/km of CO2 emissions and has an EPA-rated 12 miles of all-electric range on a 6.8 kWh battery.

When it runs on the 4.6-liter V8 gasoline engine, top-exit exhaust pipes allow excellent heat dispersion. It has 608 hp from the gas engine and the dual electric motors in the front and rear add 279 hp for a total of 887 hp and an incredible 944 lb-ft of torque. 

The designers of the 918 Spyder honored the heritage of the Porsche body style while somehow still creating something totally entirely new and unique-looking in the world of supercars. It has an innovative rigid carbon-fiber monocoque chassis, which allows an overall light body weight and keeps the center of gravity low. 

Although this vehicle came roaring into the worldwide hypercar market, if a Porsche 918 Spyder went gliding past you on the road, you’d barely hear it. It’s one of the world’s only commercially produced virtually-silent hybrid hypercars and barely makes a whooshing sound.

It’s both road-ready and race-ready, no matter the terrain, track, or local environmental laws. Porsche dubbed the Porsche 918 Spyder the world’s first vehicle with global road homologation, meaning it meets even the strictest standards for motorsports and road access around the entire planet.

Porsche 959

In 1987, Porsche began producing the Porsche 959 as a sparkling jewel in the crown of one of the world’s most innovative and beloved automakers in the world. However, the 959 was both a resounding success and a spectacular failure. 

While it eventually became one of the most successful racing cars in history, it also sucked up a tremendous amount of Porsche resources, took years longer than projected to produce, and put a small blemish on the company’s otherwise stellar reputation. Today, it’s regarded as a marvel of technological innovation that almost didn’t happen.

Porsche packed a huge number of scientifically-advanced innovations into the tight 959 frame, which was modeled after the Porsche 911. It was built with the same wheelbase and interior as a 911, but with a more aerodynamic exterior and a vent system set up for maximum airflow. IT could hit 60 mph in 3.6 seconds.

After years of sending turbo cars to the racetrack, Porsche wanted to turbocharge a car for the ordinary buyer and create a sort of souped-up 911 that appealed to a suburban dad as much as a racing superstar. The 959 incorporated tried-and-true comfort features like all-wheel drive, easy handling, and perfect stability.

But it also had innovations that were totally new to the marketplace of the mid-80s and were essentially overkill for the road standards of the day. As it said in the Porsche 959’s brochure, “Countless elements are carried over directly from racing. With the 959, high-value materials are processed in the highest quality, as is, in Zuffenhausen, standard. It is tested for everyday usability to the most strenuous standards.”

When you look back at the Porsche 959 today, it’s easy to see why buyers at the time almost couldn’t comprehend its supreme technological elegance. In fact, Car and Driver summed it up perfectly when they wrote, “The 959 was so far ahead of its time, it feels as if we’re only now catching up.”

Porsche Carrera GT

Every luxury automaker eventually produces a car widely described as “exotic,” and for Porsche, it was the Carrera GT. It launched in 2004 with a $440,000 price tag and hit 208 mph in a well-publicized road test that left Porsche fans picturing themselves sliding into the leather-lined carbon-Kevlar driver’s seat.

The Carrera GT is a mid-engined V10 hypercar that Porsche outfitted with a nearly weightless ceramic clutch, 10 titanium connecting rods, a 68-degree 5.7-liter V-10, and an ability to hit 62 mph in 3.9 seconds. It has low rotational mass and drives almost effortlessly to hit a staggering 8,000 rpm.

Although these features were born in the racing market, Porsche helped them blossom off-track in this ultra upscale commercial run of just 1,270 cars. Of course, the limited run was somewhat a function of the high price; 1,500 Carrera GTs were originally planned but fewer were purchased, giving it a certain ultra-rich cachet.

Did we mention the Carrera GT is built to ride at maximum performance while totally topless? Its two lightweight roof panels can be removed without adding even the slightest weakness to the car’s carbon-fiber structure.

There’s no doubt that the Carrera GT produces one of the smoothest rides Porsche has ever offered. This sleek beast has also taken a place in automotive history as one of the world’s last super/hypercars with a true manual transmission and enough racing-inspired features to still feel more like a track car than a road car. For this reason, it has mostly held its value in the used luxury car market.