Setting the Scene
The 1960s represented for Porsche, the busiest decade in the company’s history to date, with ten new road and race cars being introduced during the decade. And since those heady days, the Stuttgart manufacturer has not seen another decade in which so many different race cars were produced. Although it was a hectic time, it was also an exciting one which saw some of the most innovative and successful race cars ever to grace the race tracks of the world, come through the gates of the Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen plant.
To set the scene, the ‘swinging 60s’, as the decade was dubbed, was also a memorable one outside of the motor racing industry for a number of reasons, with some significant milestones touching the lives of many of us. The mini skirt, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, those tinny-sounding portable record players, the vibrant colours of speed, the growth of affluence and the young people’s revolution, the moon landing, Woodstock and so much more, influenced our world in so many ways. It was the decade in which people began to shake off the drudgery of the war years, and to start thinking big again. Where previously the luxurious Rolls-Royce motorcar was the domain of the well-to-do banker or entrepreneur, now Rolls-Royce owners wore denims and played in rock bands. The future was there to be taken by the scruff of the neck, shaken vigorously, and shaped by the younger generation, the so-called ‘baby boomers’.
