Porsche – The Rally Story
By Laurence Meredith
In 1951, Porsche launched its now-famous, 57-year, motor sport legacy when a 1,086-cc, 356 Gmünd coupe won its class in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. A fact less widely known was that, several months later, Porsche elected to demonstrate its motor sport versatility by entering a team of 356s in the arduous Liège-Rome-Liège Rally. The result was a class victory, a 2nd and 3rd overall, and the beginning of a 30-year involvement in rallying, which included everything from 356s, 904s, and 911s to 914s, 924s, and the 959 super-car.
In Porsche—The Rally Story, Laurence Meredith tracks the history and development of Porsche’s rally cars from those early Gmünd coupes in 1951, right through to the mid-’80s and the short-lived, but successful, 959 rally program. At 255-pages, this book includes a tremendous amount of detailed information on this lesser written-about segment of Porsche’s racing heritage.
One of the great strengths of this book is that it is filled with over 400 excellent and rare photographs, chronicling the various Porsche rally cars and campaigns over the years. Ironically, if there is fault to be had with this book, it lies with the captions for a number of these photos, which tend to merely explain the obvious and not provide the details or history of the image itself. With that said, this is an interesting book that sheds new light on a poorly documented segment of Porsche’s rich racing history.
Available for US$89.95 (£45.00) directly from the publisher at www.veloce.co.uk or at www.motorbooks.com
