Broad Arrow Auctions, in partnership with Air|Water and Luftgekühlt, is worked up to host their second all-Porsche Public sale on the 2025 version of Air|Water, the globally acknowledged Porsche fanatic occasion, on 26 April in Costa Mesa, California. This must-attend public sale will characteristic an elite choice of uncommon and standout examples from the famend marque together with, this 1966 Porsche 906 estimated at $1,600,000 – $1,900,000.
The Carrera 6, higher identified right now because the 906, was first introduced as a collection of fifty within the February 1966 situation of Porsche’s manufacturing unit journal Christophorus. The preliminary debut was mild on element; nevertheless, the 2 black and white photographs of the automobile revealed the novel nature of the design, heralding a brand new path for Porsche’s motorsport division. The earlier top-line GT sports activities racer from Porsche System Engineering was the 904 Carrera GTS. The twin use street/race 904 was one of many last automotive designs (together with the 911) from the pen of Ferdinand Alexander (FA) Porsche earlier than his cousin, the 28-year-old Ferdinand Piëch, took the reins at Porsche System Engineering.
Whereas nonetheless street authorized, Piëch’s streamlined Sort 906 featured gullwing doorways, a really low, stretched nostril, a protracted Kamm tail with primary form remaining constant by way of the epic collection of “plastic Porsches” nicely into the record-breaking 917 period. Whereas radical in form, the Carrera 6 was powered by the pretty new, however race-tested 2.0-liter flat six that not solely made its road debut within the 901 and 911 however six-cylinder-powered 904s as nicely. The engine, mounted amidships within the tube body chassis, produced 210 horsepower (a formidable 100+ horsepower per liter) at 8,000 rpm, with a ten.3:1 compression ratio, titanium connecting rods, and triple Weber IDA 46 3C carburetors. The 906 was each revolutionary and race-proven on the similar time, one thing of a specialty at Porsche.
As hoped, the automobile was a right away success at the beginning of the 1966 worldwide race season, profitable its class on the Daytona 24 Hours, the Sebring 12 Hours, and Monza 1000 Kms. Maybe most famously, on the best way to profitable the FIA beneath 2.0-liter class championship that season, a 906 gained the Targa Florio with Willy Mairesse and Herbert Müller on the wheel of the Scuderia Filipinetti entered automobile. The win proved, as soon as once more, that Porsche might construct a automobile able to total wins in massive races whereas within the arms of each manufacturing unit pilots and privateers. Maybe this was within the forefront of Earle M. Chiles’ thoughts when he ordered his 906 to contest Pacific Northwest SCCA and USRRC occasions.
Chassis quantity 906-140’s manufacturing unit Kardex guarantee card reveals the automobile was delivered to Chiles, a inheritor to the Fred Meyer grocery store chain, straight by way of Porsche Automobiles Northwest primarily based in Beaverton, Oregon merely completed Weiss. Racing beneath his Rapido Inc. banner, Chiles enlisted achieved drivers equivalent to Gary Wright, Mike Fisher, and Pete Pretty to marketing campaign the automobile within the 1966 and 1967 seasons. Rapido retained the manufacturing unit’s white end whereas becoming magnesium American Racing wheels, competing in West Coast occasions at tracks like Portland Worldwide Raceway and Pacific Raceways in Kent, Washington, and fields afar as nicely. Their first yr introduced chassis quantity 140 a number of top-ten finishes in regional occasions. A significant spotlight got here on the 1966 Highway America 500, the place Fisher and Pretty secured a formidable seventh total and third at school podium. In early 1967, Fisher crashed the automobile right into a police car at PIR with the shunt inflicting front-end injury. Somewhat than undertake repairs, Chiles opted to half methods together with his 906.
The following proprietor was Monte Shelton, a soon-to-be-famous Portland-based racer and sports activities automobile vendor. Seeing the potential within the broken 906, he acquired it with the experience and assets to correctly restore the automobile. He repaired the entrance bodywork, repainted it in a placing blue livery because it seems right now, and registered it on Oregon license plates “ACE 906.” Between 1967 and 1969, Shelton campaigned 906-140 extensively in occasions throughout the West Coast. The automobile, typically seen with begin quantity 57, claimed quite a few class wins in nationwide and regional SCCA occasions and even entered a Can-Am occasion at Laguna Seca. By 1969, nevertheless, Shelton determined to half methods with the automobile. In March 1970, he positioned a full-page commercial within the Porsche Membership of America’s Panorama journal, emphasizing the automobile’s race-winning pedigree and providing it on the market. Ever the vendor, his itemizing underscored the meticulous upkeep, latest engine and gearbox rebuilds, and its dominance in competitors.
Later that yr, 906-140 discovered a brand new house with Robert Harmon of Marin County, California. Harmon continued racing the automobile sometimes at Laguna Seca and Vaca Valley Raceway earlier than promoting it in 1975 to legendary Ohio-based Porsche racer and collector Chuck Stoddard, the proprietor of Stoddard Imported Automobiles. Over the following decade, Stoddard offered after which reacquired the automobile, with it passing by way of the arms of Bob White, Jeff Hayes, and Nick Soprano. Regardless of being actively utilized in competitors, the 906 remained comparatively unmodified in comparison with lots of its contemporaries.
By 1988, the automobile returned to Europe for the primary time since leaving Zuffenhausen, becoming a member of the Maranello Rosso Assortment of Italian Ferrari and Abarth fanatic Fabrizio Violati. Throughout this era, 906-140 was preserved alongside different important racing machines, together with Violati’s Ferrari 250 GTO, and remained in largely unrestored situation. The automobile remained a part of the gathering till 2001, when it was offered to a different Italian fanatic, Alfredo Spinetti. Underneath Spinetti’s 21-year stewardship, 906-140 continued to be pushed, collaborating in a number of editions of the Vernasca Silver Flag Hill Climb. Not like many classic race automobiles that endure in depth restoration, chassis 140 retained a lot of its authentic fiberglass bodywork. Spinetti valued its patina and historical past, believing that preserving its minor imperfections honored the automobile’s racing spirit. In 2022, Excellence journal featured the automobile in an article titled “Northwest Authenticity,” which celebrated its historical past and situation. Within the piece, Spinetti defined, “It was, and nonetheless is, a racing automobile… We didn’t wish to change something about it, even the minor imperfections, as a result of these present its spirit.”
Maybe due to the well-publicized Excellence article, 906-140 returned to the USA in 2022 as a survivor within the truest sense of the time period. Not like different privateer front-line competitors automobiles, 906-140 duked it out within the warmth of the battle and lived to inform the story. Whereas lots of its compatriots had been modified with new bodywork, revised suspensions, and altered drivetrain elements in a useless try to remain on the entrance for an extra season and even only a few races—the identical can’t be stated for 906-140. It stays an impressively authentic and well-documented Carrera 6 that is still true to how the collection was designed and in-built Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen throughout the winter of 1966. It’s famous to retain its manufacturing unit body quantity, aluminum chassis tag, and serialized magnesium-cased racing gearbox.
Any Sort 906 is a crucial a part of Porsche’s storied competitors historical past and vital in any Porsche assortment that appreciates the model’s unrivalled motorsport heritage. It was the automobile that not solely frequently punched above its weight like so many earlier than it, however the first that charted the corporate’s new path towards reaching its purpose to win Le Mans outright and turn into a World Sportscar Champion constructor. Chassis quantity 906-140 performed no small half in that story. With documented provenance and no scarcity of visible attraction completed in Monte Shelton’s easy but enticing blue livery from the late Sixties, it should be one of many extra important examples, preserved very a lot because it competed within the mid-to-late Sixties throughout the daybreak of a brand new golden age of sports activities racing prototypes.
To view extra thrilling automobiles on provide at Broad Arrow’s Porsche Air|Water Public sale, please go to their web site at broadarrowauctions.com and you’ll want to register to bid for this thrilling must-attend occasion.
