new 901 60th anniversary books - review

[haul]

Dear all,

Christmas time is ahead and two new books are on the market since mid and end of November. The one is called

“Porsche 911 – 60 years – 1963-2023”
376 pages, size 305 x 260 mm, hardcover in extra box
3.2 kilos
published by Berlin Motor Books
limited in the first edition to 911 books
192.- €
dual language german/english
ISBN:978-3982299846


the other one is called


“Destination 901 - The history of the Porsche 911 - from an idea to the world premiere”
448 pages, size 295 x 240 mm, hardcover
2.8 kilos
About 600 pictures and illustrations
published by Motor Buch Verlag / Edition Porsche Museum / Peter Weidenhammer
79.-€
available in german and english language
german version:
ISBN: 978-3613321496
english version
ISBN: 978-3613321625

[haul]

Porsche 911 – 60 years – 1963 -2023

I had had much hope on the release of the book from Berlin Motor Books, as the publisher promised to set a new gold standard for our community. Better than THE BOOK from Tobias Aichele. To make it short:

Much ado about nothing

As a buyer you do expect for 192.- Euro at least something – a nice editorial, highend graphics, top layout, special paper, perfect print, any gimmics to make that money worth.

But what you are confronted with, is a student degree graphic, blunt pages, thick matte paper, AI and photoshop colorized images we do all know as black and white.
You will find lots of third person interviews, we all do know, the F.A. Porsche interview, some 904 picture content and we will find again the story of Alois Ruf and a bit of Quickblau.

You will find the excerpts of the Reutter built book and the 82 first 901 cars as a single page picture, with two sublines, alone this making 87 pages??!! You will find the color charts, also with a dummy chassis printed, not hitting the hue, nor the correct description of the year.

You thought of new details about the prototypes? Wrong - it is a copy paste of Tobias Aichele´s listing, blown up to 50 pages, also each Proto being on one page, again colored with some two lines on the opposite page, having the subinfo. It ends with 13360, so only 8 protos are mentioned.

To even blow up more pages with content from external sources, former publications from Hobby and else magazines, the usual factory brochures are magnified to fill pages. Another 60 pages.

There is absolutely no new information nowhere to be found.

And what shows, that this product is a creation of some “smart guys”, set off to plunder our pocket, is the standard picture of the factory, with the 912 being assembled and the 616 engines are coming down the ceiling. It is falsely mirrored, again, titled: assembly of the 911 2.0 coupe at plant 2 in Stuttgart- Zuffenhausen.

No love for Porsche

[haul]

Destination 901 - The history of the Porsche 911 - from an idea to the world premiere

You start with a nice blue linen hardcover with a gold and silver font and a print of the 901 chassis outline with a 616 engine in the rear. A matt gold intro empty page will be next, followed by a stylish white print on black paper table of content. Porsche Design language pattern. Seidldesign from Stuttgart can be accounted for the series of Edition Porsche Museum books.

Normally I am more sceptical on the Porsche coffee table books and the stake is high for this theme. But also to make it short:

A clear buy and for this money, the invest is well done.

The storyboard is nicely evolving, unfolding the timetable of events in and around the factory and persons involved for the developing of the 901. Due to the 100% support package of the Porsche archive, there are really new documents presented to the reader.

The 448 pages are full of documents, minutes of meetings, technical protocols, sketches and drawings, along side never published and pictures we do know from the Typ 540 book from Steve Heinrich, or the Protoype book from Tobias Aichele, or the 356 Reutter book from Frank Jung.

The author for this compilation, Peter Weidenhammer, is a profound expert in product and technology communication. He held this position from 1984-1994 at Daimler/Mercedes, moved over to BMW from 1994-2003 and serves in this position the Porsche AG since 2003.

A coffee table book from people who do know what they do, for people who know what they want.

liebe zu ihm

[preS]

Do you know if it’s or will it also be available in English (besides the title..).

Richard

[one-two]

Thank you for the reviews Haul - I have the same question as Richard!

[haul]

Gentlemen,

answered already in the first post..

the Berlin Motor Book is dual language
the Edition Porsche Museum is available seperately as a german and an english version

best regards from bavaria

haul

[one-two]

One step ahead as usual! Many thanks Haul!

[ibmiked]

Unfortunately it looks as if the Destination 901 book is out of stock.

https://shop.porsche.com/us/en-US/p/...-B/MAP09090523

[lbpa18]

Thanks for taking the time Haul.

[StephenAcworth]

I saw a pre-production version of the Destination 901 book (German version) when I was in Stuttgart in early October and knew it was going to be something to have. My English language copy is with DHL en route to me with delivery tomorrow. (Horribly expensive shipping and duties ...)

The BMB book had all the hallmarks of being nothing special at all (something I find with many of their books) so thank you for the review which confirms everything, and thank you for saving me the money. Just sad you had to part with hard earned euros to buy it.

Stephen