904 Living Legend
Twice I’ve visited the anonymous warehouse close to Porsche’s museum, a place full of hidden treasures like a four-seat 911, GT3-engined Cayman and the stillborn 989 saloon. But if I’d seen the 904 Living Legend there, I’d have struggled to notice anything else in the building.
A tiny, tapering two-seater inspired by one of the most beautiful sports cars of the ’60s, the only thing likely to send your jaw further through the floor towards Australia than its perfect proportions is the discovery of the origins of the car underneath, helping define that shape.
That car is the VW XL1, the miniature hypermiling supercar built by VW and sold in tiny numbers in 2013-16. Just imagine combining the disarming tactility of the XL1’s unassisted steering, its rock-solid carbon structure and the high-revving V-twin bike engine Porsche imagined this 900kg jewel would feature in place of the VW’s two-pot diesel. A Cayman GT4 would feel like a Panamera in comparison.
Why didn’t it progress further than this 2013 design study? CAR’s Georg Kacher certainly understood from his sources that both Porsche and Audi were seriously looking into production variations on this theme, though neither materialised.
Maybe that’s because, even if they haven’t always been conventional, Porsches have always been practical at their heart. A carbon-monocoque sports car wouldn’t be as simple or cost-effective to make or repair as a steel or aluminium car, and while the high-revving V-twin might make it fly, its emissions wouldn’t fly with the clean-air crowd.
The only thing likely to send your jaw further through the floor is the origin of the car its based on