Porsche 911 60 Years - Hardcover

by Randy Leffingwell (Author), Harm Lagaaij (Foreword by)

Celebrate six decades of rear-engine excellence with this beautifully illustrated exploration of 60 milestone Porsche 911s.

Porsche's 911 is the quintessential sports car--focused, purposeful, race-proven, and exciting. Since its prototype debut in 1963, the 911 has defied expectations while never losing its form or its giant-slaying heart.

In Porsche 911 60 Years, best-selling Porsche author Randy Leffingwell delves into the stories of sixty 911s--one from each year from 1964 to 2024. The 911's entire history--engineering, design, development, racing, and culture--is revealed one fantastic car at a time. This unique approach to the 911's legacy includes such icons as:

• 1964 901 Cabriolet prototype
• Bruce Jennings 1967 911 S
• 1971 911 S Safari
• Louise Piech 1975 930 Turbo
• Le Mans-winning 1980 935 K3
• 1987 Ruf CTR Yellowbird
• 1991 964 Carrera RS
• 1997 Ruf Turbo R
• 1998 996 GT1 Le Mans winner
• 2006 50th Anniversary Porsche Club of America 911 coupe
• 2010 911 Sport Classic
• 2018 Turbo S Exclusive
• 2023 Dakar
• And many more

Porsche 911 60 Years is also the story of the people behind the cars: Ferdinand "Butzi" Porsche, who co-designed the 911's timeless shape and his successors, Anatole Lapine, Harm Laggaaij, and Michael Mauer; Peter W. Schutz, the Porsche CEO who saved the 911 from the cutting-room floor and the Porsche leaders who carried on, most notably Wendelin Wiedeking; engineering geniuses such as Dr. Helmuth Bott, Hans Mezger, and Valentin Schaeffer; and stylists and modelers Gerhard Schroeder, Heinrich Klie, Peter Reisinger, Anthony Hatter, and Grant Larson.

Each profiled car is accompanied by historic photography from Porsche's own archive, and beautiful, contemporary photography features throughout. Porsche 911 60 Years is an essential volume for any Porsche owner or fan's collection.

Author Biography

Randy Leffingwell wrote his first book, American Muscle, while still on staff at the Los Angeles Times. The book examined Times' publisher Otis Chandler's growing collection of muscle cars. American Muscle published in September 1990, jump-started a love of book creation that ultimately led Leffingwell to leave the Times in 1995. By then, he and Motorbooks had published Porsche Legends, and six other books.

Since 1990, Leffingwell has authored more than 60 titles, most of them automotive-oriented. Over 30-plus years, these include a dozen Porsche titles ranging from general overviews--Porsche 75 Years: Expect the Unexpected, and The Complete Book of Porsche 911--to deeper explorations in Porsche Turbo and Porsche 911: 50 Years. During this time, he has regularly traveled to Germany to continue his research regarding Porsche's history. To date, Leffingwell has interviewed more than 200 Porsche engineers, stylists, model makers, racers, and managers.

While he has tackled other subjects including John Deere tractors, Harley-Davidson motorcycles, and West Coast lighthouses, Leffingwell admits he is almost addicted to the Porsche story. In addition to his book work, he is historical editor for 000 magazine and PorschePanorama. And for the past decade he has been researching and writing an encyclopedic history of Porsche's motorsports endeavors.

Leffingwell lives near Santa Barbara, California. Harm Lagaaij was born in The Hague, Netherlands, in 1946 but spent his entire youth far from Europe. Between 1947 and 1952 he lived in Ecuador and Venezuela, then attended English-language grade school in Brunei through 1960. He returned to the Netherlands for high school and then studied at the IVA (Institute for Automobiles) at Driebergen, Netherlands, graduating in 1968.
He worked at Olyslager and then Simca before joining Porsche in September 1971. He had designed the 924 by the time he left in mid-1977. Broadening his perspectives, he spent eight years as Advanced Design Studio Manager at Ford in Cologne, then three more as chief designer at BMW Technik.
Lagaaij returned to Porsche as Director of Design in January 1989, where he encouraged change, fresh thinking, and experimentation. He set the style for Porsche's extraordinary product expansion, from the 993, 996, Boxster, Cayman, Cayenne, Carrera GT, through the 997. He retired from Porsche in September 2004.
In 2013, Lagaaij received the "Officer in de Orde van Oranje-Nassau," the Netherlands equivalent of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). Since 2021 he has been an independent automotive design consultant.