Broad Arrow Auctions, in partnership with Air|Water and Luftgekühlt, is happy 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 function an elite collection 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 recognized in the present day because the 906, was first introduced as a sequence of fifty within the February 1966 concern of Porsche’s manufacturing facility journal Christophorus. The preliminary debut was mild on element; nonetheless, the 2 black and white photos of the automobile revealed the unconventional 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 remaining 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 Kind 906 featured gullwing doorways, a really low, stretched nostril, a protracted Kamm tail with fundamental form remaining constant by the epic sequence of “plastic Porsches” properly 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 avenue debut within the 901 and 911 however six-cylinder-powered 904s as properly. The engine, mounted amidships within the tube body chassis, produced 210 horsepower (a powerful 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 identical time, one thing of a specialty at Porsche.
As hoped, the automobile was a direct success initially 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 way in which to profitable the FIA below 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 may construct a automobile able to general wins in huge races whereas within the arms of each manufacturing facility 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 facility Kardex guarantee card reveals the automobile was delivered to Chiles, a inheritor to the Fred Meyer grocery store chain, immediately by Porsche Vehicles Northwest primarily based in Beaverton, Oregon merely completed Weiss. Racing below his Rapido Inc. banner, Chiles enlisted completed drivers reminiscent of Gary Wright, Mike Fisher, and Pete Beautiful to marketing campaign the automobile within the 1966 and 1967 seasons. Rapido retained the manufacturing facility’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 properly. Their first 12 months introduced chassis quantity 140 a number of top-ten finishes in regional occasions. A serious spotlight got here on the 1966 Highway America 500, the place Fisher and Beautiful secured a powerful seventh general and third in school podium. In early 1967, Fisher crashed the automobile right into a police automobile at PIR with the shunt inflicting front-end injury. Reasonably than undertake repairs, Chiles opted to half methods along with his 906.
The subsequent proprietor was Monte Shelton, a soon-to-be-famous Portland-based racer and sports activities automobile supplier. Seeing the potential within the broken 906, he acquired it with the experience and sources to correctly restore the automobile. He repaired the entrance bodywork, repainted it in a hanging blue livery because it seems in the present day, 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, nonetheless, 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 supplier, his itemizing underscored the meticulous upkeep, current engine and gearbox rebuilds, and its dominance in competitors.
Later that 12 months, 906-140 discovered a brand new residence with Robert Harmon of Marin County, California. Harmon continued racing the automobile often 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 Vehicles. Over the following decade, Stoddard offered after which reacquired the automobile, with it passing by 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 a lot 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 vital 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, taking part in a number of editions of the Vernasca Silver Flag Hill Climb. In contrast to many classic race vehicles that endure intensive restoration, chassis 140 retained a lot of its unique 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. In contrast to different privateer front-line competitors vehicles, 906-140 duked it out within the warmth of the battle and lived to inform the story. Whereas a lot of its compatriots had been modified with new bodywork, revised suspensions, and altered drivetrain parts in a useless try to remain on the entrance for an extra season and even just some races—the identical can’t be stated for 906-140. It stays an impressively unique and well-documented Carrera 6 that continues to be true to how the sequence was designed and inbuilt Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen throughout the winter of 1966. It’s famous to retain its manufacturing facility body quantity, aluminum chassis tag, and serialized magnesium-cased racing gearbox.
Any Kind 906 is an important a part of Porsche’s storied competitors historical past and a must have 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 attaining its objective 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 enchantment completed in Monte Shelton’s easy but engaging blue livery from the late Nineteen Sixties, it have to be one of many extra vital examples, preserved very a lot because it competed within the mid-to-late Nineteen Sixties throughout the daybreak of a brand new golden age of sports activities racing prototypes.
To view extra thrilling vehicles on provide at Broad Arrow’s Porsche Air|Water Public sale, please go to their web site at broadarrowauctions.com and make sure to register to bid for this thrilling must-attend occasion.
