1966 Porsche 906 Carrera
$1,950,000 Symbolic, San Diego, USA
PORSCHE BUILT 110 examples of its 550 Spyder, the car made famous by its giant-killing success as a racer and infamous as James Dean’s death-mobile. Values are now north of $5 million – the most paid to date is $6,100,000 for the superbly original example sold by Bonhams at 2016’s Goodwood Revival auction.
But the often illogical nature of classic car values means that the rarer, quicker, more advanced – and arguably far more usable – 906 is currently worth less than half as much as a 550. As an example, look at this superb example being offered by long-established California dealer Symbolic, which has an interesting and unusual history, being one of just three Porsche 906s consigned to Japan.
Sold new through Mitsuwa, the only official Porsche dealership in Japan during the 1960s, the car was originally owned by a rag trade magnate called Shintaro Taki: he also ran a car dealership, Taki Motors, that operated a racing team for which he was the main driver. He raced the 906 throughout the 1966/67 season and notched up numerous victories in Japan, Hong Kong and Macau.
Taki upgraded to a 910 in 1967 and sold the 906. It was acquired by the English journalist and racer Peter Bellamy in 1970 and painted British Racing Green. He continued to campaign it extensively in Japan before shipping it to Australia and selling it to the then CEO of Maranello Concessionaires who displayed it in his private museum for the following 26 years.
The car returned to Japan in 1991, later entering the collection of Toshio Tachikawa who engineered a rather nice reunion story by entering it for Japan’s La Festa Mille Miglia and putting Taki at the wheel.
A decade ago, Tachikawa sent the 906 back to Weissach for a five-year restoration that included re-building and re-fitting its original engine and gearbox. It then sat for a decade in Tachikawa’s private museum before being bought by another Japanese collector prior to its purchase by Symbolic in 2015. symbolicinternational.com