We Celebrate 70 Years of Porsche With Seven of Its Iconic Cars

Bill Gates’ is a Porsche enthusiast and originally owned a 1979 911 Turbo — which lead to his arrest for speeding. When the 959 entered the scene, Gates had to have one and with his vast fortune could easily afford the $225,000 price tag.

He ordered one directly from Porsche and a few months later it showed up at the Port of San Francisco. There US Customs impounded the car and kept it locked away for over a decade.

Due to the way import laws work in the US, in order for a car to legally be imported, it needs to pass crash testing. Since Porsche never gave the feds four cars to crash test, it was never street legal in America.

Since Gates wanted his car, he worked with several other car collectors to pass the “Show and Display” law. After a long fight, Gates eventually won and could finally get his car — with the stipulation it only traveled 2,500 miles a year.
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As much as this story is passed around, the success of the 959 being allowed in the US is really owed more to Bruce Canepa than anyone else. Bruce had the first one in the US and went down the path of trying to find a loophole to get it legalized, from crash-testing to being a manufacturer and so on. Bruce then asked around, finally getting in contact with the D.C. attorney who wrote the "Show & Display" bill with Bruce providing technical information. After the bill was passed, the stipulation was that the car had to meet emissions requirements of the year it was produced. Bruce accomplished this, licensed it, and the car was legal.

I'm sure Bill had a large role as well, likely with his financial backing as a major factor, but Bruce pushed through with a lot of the dirty work. He now offers a program to up the performance on the 959 known as Gen. III & has a had a large portion of now US-based cars through his place.
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McLaren
the success of the 959 being allowed in the US is really owed more to Bruce Canepa than anyone else.
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Came here to say this. I've known Bruce for many years and even met up with him today at a Cars 'n Coffee event at his shop. In fact, my 959 is currently at his place in Scotts Valley, CA getting their Stage III package, elegantly titled the "959SC". Tim, Tyler, John and Mike; the guys that do the restorations, upholstery, and body installations; Christian does all the engine builds in the back of the building; Drake does all the exhaust fabrications and finally Chris, Kenny and Frank do all of the servicing for the car to be ready for the final phase; a test drive from Bruce. Zach Todd took all those photos posted above and is a fantastic guy to talk to about cars.

These guys have more 959 work than Porsche themselves and do a wonderful job. If anyone on here lives close by, I highly recommend going in to see the museum upstairs and the workshop. And if you see a gun-metal 959 parked by the aisle that leads to the Motorsport team, then please don't drop any pennies on it :)
 
TheCrazySwede
Came here to say this. I've known Bruce for many years and even met up with him today at a Cars 'n Coffee event at his shop. In fact, my 959 is currently at his place in Scotts Valley, CA getting their Stage III package, elegantly titled the "959SC". Tim, Tyler, John and Mike; the guys that do the restorations, upholstery, and body installations; Christian does all the engine builds in the back of the building; Drake does all the exhaust fabrications and finally Chris, Kenny and Frank do all of the servicing for the car to be ready for the final phase; a test drive from Bruce. Zach Todd took all those photos posted above and is a fantastic guy to talk to about cars.

These guys have more 959 work than Porsche themselves and do a wonderful job. If anyone on here lives close by, I highly recommend going in to see the museum upstairs and the workshop. And if you see a gun-metal 959 parked by the aisle that leads to the Motorsport team, then please don't drop any pennies on it :)
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And I find all the parts for them!
 
Very nice article, I have to say my congrats to Porsche for it's 70 year milestone.

I've know of Porsche cars since I was childhood age as when I used to go car spotting on walks after school there was a Porsche
928 that I always used to go google eyed over along with the 911.

My favourite Porsche's over the years though have been the 928, 944, 959 and 968 but the top one will always be the 944 and one day
I hope to be able to see it in a PS4 video game again.
 

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