Auto news on Youtube Dec 28 2017

Upon opening the doors, you'll feel they're light as a feather.

The windows go down with a leather strap.

The windshield is thinner than the standard ones.

There are air vents in the small quarter windows at the rear of the car.

The indicators of a NSU.

It also has the tail lights of a NSU.

For a big part the car's been made of polyester.

The rims are wider.

The engine lid folds all the way back on to the rear window.

It's all purely rudimentary.

Talking about the 911R...

it is the grandfather of every racing Porsche,

or racing 911 that has ever existed.

It's an extraordinary car to drive, simply because it's so light,

combined with quite a good amount of horsepower.

And it still has a very smooth suspension as well.

It's a car you can take dancing through the bends.

I can't describe it any better than that.

My name is Johan Dirickx and I'm the caretaker of the JFD Collection.

In essence, it's all about 911's.

Air-cooled 911's.

It's those cars that really passionate me.

The 911R originated in 1967.

It was the first project of Ferdinand Piëch,

to turn the 911 into a pure racing car.

Before that, a couple of 911's were raced, mainly at Monte Carlo,

but those were more or less standard cars.

It was his task to turn the 911 into a race car,

as light as possible,

a 2 liter engine, dual ignition, 210 hp,

in a body that only weighed 900 kg (1984 lbs).

In 1967, to participate in Group 4, they had to build 500 cars.

The racing department wanted to build all of those.

But then the bean counters and the guys from marketing came in...

They claimed they'd never be able to sell 500 of these cars to the general public.

So they ended up only building 20 cars.

And as a result they ran in the 'Prototype' category.

The first race the R competed in was Mugello 1000km in 1967,

in which Van Lennep and Elford came third, driving prototype #2.

They were competing heavy hitters like the Porsche 910 and 908, Ferrari and so on.

So it was an excellent result for such a small car, considered to be the 'underdog'.

In circuit racing the R was relatively unsuccessful.

It managed its biggest achievements in rallying...

the Tour de France, the Tour de Corse...

and of course the World Record at Monza.

Those are its biggest accomplishments.

But the car was actually no real match for the brute force of the competition,

the 12 cylinders, the 3.0 liter engines...

that used to race in the Prototype category at the time.

Now fast forward, 50 years later, Porsche released a new model.

They went back and looked at their history,

and the link was made, 50 years, from R to R.

It was the perfect timing to make this connection after 50 years.

They decided to limit the production to 991 cars.

While from the original, only 4 prototypes and 20 production cars were made.

In fact, the new 911R is practically a GT3 RS....

With the essential difference it has no spoilers.

The downforce is generated by the diffusers and the bottom of the car,

rather than by the top of the car.

And a second thing that differentiates it is the manual gearbox.

The new electronic gearboxes are definitely a bit faster.

That can't be contradicted.

But there's also something like 'the joy of driving'.

Which in my opinion is also manifested in a manual gear box.

The reason I could buy this car,

is because I also own the original R,

and my old R served for the brochure pictures of the new 911R.

As a result of this and some appreciation from Porsche,

they allowed me to order this car in 'paint to sample'.

So I managed to turn something from an already exclusive line, into something even more exclusive.

When you see both cars besides one another,

you'll notice that the 2017 car has bcome a gigantic car.

It's no longer the small 911 that we know from the 60s and 70s.

Technical specification wise there are almost no similarities.

The 1967 model has a 2.0 liter engine with double ignition,

while here you have a 4.0 liter engine with 500 hp,

compared to 210 hp...

You can't compare those things.

Also, in terms of handling, that new car is just phenomenal...

It's a fantastic car, a perfect, amazing car...

Yet, in my eyes, they sort of missed an opportunity,

to make the new car as extreme as the old one.

When you get in the old car, you can feel it...

Everything trembles, it makes a hell of a noise, there's the smell as well...

It's something completely different... The old one is clearly a race car,

while the new car is almost a luxury car.

Today they form a pair.

It's the first and the last, with 50 years in between.

So they belong together.

I think these cars are inseparable and will continue to live on together.