Export 56 are delighted to share with you our latest arrival. A beautifully presented, fully matching numbers 901 coupe, recently restored by Ruf Automobiles GmbH, even more exciting is this particular car, chassis number 300078 was owned by Alois Ruf himself!
BACKGROUND TO THE 901
Porsche unveiled the 901 as its 356 replacement at the 1963 Frankfurt Motor Show, but when the production 901 made its debut at the Paris Auto Salon in October 1964, Peugeot promptly protested its ownership of the rights to any three number designation with a ‘0’ in the middle. The Porsche engineers’ approach was very straightforward because 901 was their project number, and the last thing on their minds would have been the infringement of another car company’s patented naming system.
Porsche built a run of pre-series cars before customer cars began to roll off the assembly line on September 14th, 1964. By November 16th, the factory had made 82 pre-series cars with ‘901’ stamped on their chassis plates. Porsche’s solution was to change the ‘0’ to a ‘1’, and the rest, as they say, is history. The remaining 150 pre-production cars were badged 911.
