Porsche 911: 50 Years

Best-selling author Randy Leffingwell celebrates a half-century of one of the world’s premiere sports cars, focusing on the major themes that have defined Porsche’s rear-engined wonder. 

Porsche 911: 50 Years tells the whole story—design and development, racing and competition, engineering and technology, style and culture. All the iconic 911 models are included:

• The original 901 prototype that set the standard
• The legendary RS models that made the little Porsche a dominant force on the world’s racetracks
• The infamous Turbo, the car that kept the performance flame alight during the dark, dismal decade of the 1970s
• The fabled 959, the model that redefined the term “sports car”
• The 993, last of the original air-cooled models
• The 996, 997, and 991, the liquid-cooled cars that brought the 911 into a new millennium

Beyond telling the story of the cars, Porsche 911: 50 years also spotlights the people behind them: Ferdinand “Butzi” Porsche, the son of legendary Porsche founder Ferdinand “Ferry” Porsche, who co-designed the instantly recognizable 911 shape; Peter W. Schutz, the Porsche CEO who saved the 911 from extinction; and Dr. Helmuth Bott, the engineering genius behind many of the groundbreaking technologies that have defined the 911, including fuel injection, turbocharging, and all-wheel-drive.

Leffingwell also tells the story of the 911 community—the clubs and culture that surround the car.

Together, all of these facets make Porsche 911: 50 Years the most essential book in any Porsche owner or fan’s library.

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

To date, Leffingwell has authored more than 60 titles. 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. He regularly travels to Germany to continue his Porsche-history research, and he has interviewed more than 200 Porsche engineers, stylists, model makers, racers, and managers.

While Leffingwell has tackled other subjects, including John Deere tractors, Harley-Davidson, and West Coast lighthouses, he admits he is almost addicted to Porsche’s story. In addition to his book work, he is historical editor for 000 magazine and Porsche Panorama. 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.