The 80th staging of the Goodwood Members’ Meeting once again featured Porsche at its core. In the brand’s 75th year, and with a nod to both the centenary of Le Mans and the 60th anniversary of the 911, the annual motorsport event saw another spectacular line-up of historic Porsche sports cars lapping the famous racetrack in southeast England.

Some welcome spring sunshine over West Sussex on Saturday morning had dried the circuit just in time for the first of two days of nose-to-tail racing and high-speed demonstration runs, the highlight of which for many visitors would be a unique celebration of racing 911 cars from across the decades. Thanks to the efforts of Porsche Cars Great Britain, the team at Porsche Heritage and Museum and the team at Goodwood itself, some 19 cars spanning three decades of racing had assembled for this unprecedented parade, creating a colourful chronology of works and customer cars that revealed the diverse history of the 911 in its many competitive guises.

Large crowds were drawn to the paddock all weekend, enjoying such rare sights as the Martini-liveried 911 Carrera 2.8 RSR that, due to its experimental ‘Mary Stuart’ rear wing, was obliged to compete in the prototype class during the 1973 season of the World Sportscar Championship. 50 years ago, with Gijs van Lennep and Herbert Müller at the helm, this car was driven to an historic win at the Targa Florio and an equally remarkable fourth overall at Le Mans, on the coattails of the V12 Matra and Ferrari prototypes.

The following year, Porsche increased capacity in its race-honed flat-six and three examples of the imposing 1974 911 RSR 3.0 were present at Goodwood, sharing the limelight with the Museum’s unmistakable 911 RSR Turbo, which Van Lennep and Müller drove to second overall at Le Mans that year.

Rule changes in sports car racing would, by 1976, allow for dramatic modifications to the 911 and for the remainder of the decade sports car racing would be synonymous with the Porsche 935. This highly evolved, be-winged and turbocharged evolution of the Porsche’s evergreen air-cooled GT would bring countless victories to the factory and its customers. The four privateer examples at Goodwood, each an important part of Porsche’s rich racing legacy, flanked another of the Museum’s most reliable crowd pleasers, the fearsomely powerful longtail 935/78 better known as Moby Dick.

Further veterans of Porsche’s long history at Le Mans were visible in the 993-generation of 911 that was campaigned by customers throughout the second half of the 1990s. Four 911 (993) GT2 R versions were again the perfect support act for the last of the Museum’s exhibits for Goodwood in 2023: the 911 GT1 '98. This technological tour de force gave Porsche its record-breaking 16th win at Le Mans in 1998, 25 years ago. Danish Le Mans legend Tom Kristensen, who won the first of his nine victories with the Joest Porsche WSC-95 in 1997, led the field in the GT1 '98.

Goodwood celebrates the 911