This Porsche 919 Could Sell For As Little As £70k, But It's Missing A Few Things
If you’d really like a Porsche 919 Hybrid LMP1 racer to tuck away in your car collection but aren’t worried about the thing moving under its own steam, allow us to present a way to save a lot of money.
What you see here isn’t really a 919 Hybrid at all. The bodywork is made from fibreglass rather than carbon fibre as on the real car, and under the skin is a simple steel frame. Propulsion comes from whichever human has been tasked with pushing it around, and there’s no interior.
It’s one of 13 1:1 scale models Porsche built in 2014, with the bodywork constructed using CAD data borrowed from the LMP1 programme. This one wears the same livery as the 919 raced to victory at the 2015 24 Hours of Le Mans by Earl Bamber, Nick Tandy, and Nico Hülkenberg. Unlike its number 17 and 18 sister cars, the number 19 machine only raced at Spa and Le Mans that year.
The 919’s second season in action was a highly successful one, with Porsche taking six victories out of eight races, claiming the World Endurance Championship’s driver’s and constructor’s titles.
While the real 919 was busy doing lots of winning, the 13 models were wheeled out for promotional occasions both by Porsche and sponsors like DMG Mori and Schaeffler Technologies. The wheels and tyres, which we believe to be the genuine article, do indeed move, although the front ones don’t steer. To make life easier for event planners, a set of caster wheels could be dropped down from the front.
The 919 mock-up is set to go under the virtual hammer at RM Sotheby‘s next Open Roads online auction, which runs from 21 to 29 April. The estimate is €80,000 - €120,000 (£69,300 - £104,000), which is 911 Carrera territory. Sounds like a lot of money for a model, but that’s pocket change for the average minted car collector. It’s also a lot less than a real 919 might go for, should Porsche ever end up flogging one.
It’s not the first of the 13 1:1 models to be sold - one was auctioned in 2015, achieving $103,000 (£75,000).
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
If you have enough money, 80k seems like a fair price for these. I’d like to have one to convert it into a real car, but only electric. In UK you could register these as a kit car, right?