Porsche nuts will tolerate a lot. Hurricane warnings, a delayed start and a sky that looked ready to wash out the whole lawn? Apparently that’s a minor inconvenience when 300 air-cooled cars are waiting at the Town at Trilith. Luftgekühlt 12 rolled into Atlanta, and the storm only made the photos better.
When thunder crashes at Luftgekuhlt 12 ATL. Photos by @thefirebirdphotography on Instagram
About 8,000 people showed up despite the forecast, according to Porsche’s own recap. The start slipped by several hours, then the weather cooperated enough to let the cars do what they came to do: sit there looking ridiculous in the best way.
The car that put Georgia on the Le Mans map
The headline act was the Porsche 935 turning 50. Three yellow cars raced by the Whittington brothers lined up with a Brumos 935, and the star was the 1979 Le Mans-winning 935-K3 driven by Don and Bill Whittington and Klaus Ludwig. That car was the first rear-engined machine to win Le Mans outright. The Whittingtons bought Road Atlanta around the time of that win, so a Georgia family’s race car beat Europe at its own game and then they bought the track back home.
Targa Florio and a Steve McQueen rental
Luft also toasted 120 years of the Targa Florio and 70 years since Porsche’s first overall win there in 1956. The display included a 1959 718 RSK, a 1960 RS 60, a 1964 904 Carrera GTS and a 1971 908/3. Porsche has 11 wins on that brutal Sicilian road race, and it even inspired the 1965 911 Targa.
Then there was the Gulf-liveried 917K that was rented for the filming of Le Mans with Steve McQueen and later displayed by the Brumos Collection. If you’re keeping score, a movie car that was literally a rental is the coolest thing you’ll read about today.
The outlaw that came back
My favorite story belonged to a 1957 356 A Outlaw. It was rebuilt from a rusted 356 found in a North Carolina store basement, sold unfinished in 2004, and resurfaced about 20 years later less than 4 km from its former owner’s home. Some cars just refuse to leave town.
The rest of the lawn included Keen Project 911s, a 914, G-series and 993 911s, a 962 C and a Dauer 962.
Why Atlanta made sense
Porsche Cars North America has been headquartered in Atlanta since 1998, and Luftgekühlt has hopped to a new city every edition since it started as a Los Angeles parking-lot meet-up in 2014. Creative director Jeff Zwart said of the event, “There are no barricades,” and that matches what the photos show: people close enough to touch history, minus the velvet rope.
So here’s the question: would you rather own a perfect 935 or the scrappy Outlaw that came back from a basement?
Source: Porsche Newsroom event recap. Photo embed via Instagram, credit @thefirebirdphotography.
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