If you haven’t been keeping a close eye on Porsche’s social media accounts, you have probably missed the new teaser campaign the folks from Zuffenhausen are running. Under the “Porsche Unseen” banner, the sports car marque is releasing shadowy images of cars that never made it to the assembly line.
Published over the weekend, the first episode of the teaser campaign provided a darkened rear quarter view of a mysterious vehicle “harkening back to the days of sports racing cars of the ’50s.” Pictured below, we’re tempted to believe it was related to the 550 Spyder judging by the design cues and the “Little Rebel” license plate. It’s likely a nod to James Dean’s “Little Bastard” and his tragic accident in September 1955.
The second episode is now out and it shows a different vehicle. Once again, Porsche doesn’t go into too many details, only saying it would’ve been a track-only machine for privateer teams, based on a Le Mans-winning race car. What could it be? A look at the list of Porsche race cars that triumphed on the Circuit de la Sarthe might give us some clues.
It sure doesn’t seem to have anything in common with the 917K that won the endurance race in 1970 and 1971 or the 936 that triumphed in 1976 and 1977. Those massive rear fenders might be inspired by those of the 935 aka Moby Dick, which won Le Mans in 1979.
We could be wrong, though, as Porsche has already built a modern tribute to the 935 by developing a 911 991.2-based 935 limited edition reserved to the circuit.
Of course, neither of these two teased cars look like something Porsche would design in the 50s, 60s, or 70s. These seem to be modern-day interpretations of vehicles that never made it to production. From the little we’re able to see, the cars follow the company’s most recent design language. Porsche says there’s more to come as the teaser campaign will continue for 10 days.
The peeps from Zuffenhausen say we’ll see “many other secrets of Michael Mauer’s lair” in the coming days. He has been the head of design at Porsche since 2004 and it appears a modern take on unseen cars was on his “to do” list.