The Porsche 909 Bergspyder, which is now displayed at the Porsche Museum car show,-was meant to be a hillclimbing machine—pretty much what the successful car show favorite-Porsche 910 was. The 910 was only raced by the company during the 1966 season, although, of course,-other racers used it way after it was released. The 909, then, served as its successor. This car-show classic is extremely lightweight, weighing only 384 kg, with its weight distributed efficiently-to other parts of the car.
The car show classic Porsche 909 Bergspyder is a beauty aesthetically. Also known-as the “plastic Porsche” due to its appearance and its plastic composite shell, the 909-has a two liter, 275 hp flat-eight engine. To compliment the power of the car, Porsche gave this car model an extremely light-chassis to help it for the uphill climb. All in all, the car show gem is quite experimental, mainly-due to its body and its chassis. The look of the car, however, was positively received by critics.-While it isn’t the company’s most beautiful car, it is among the most-elegant.
Like most car model failures, the Porsche 909 Bergspyder, at the very least, did-seem good on paper. But it wasn’t. During test runs, the 909 proved to be a difficult machine-to handle, mainly because of its speed. Still, the company entered the car in the-Roßfeldhöhenringstraße event in Germany. Ludovico Scarfiotti was the driver for the-event.
Scarfiotti, an esteemed Italian driver, seemed like the perfect man behind the car-show classic 909’s wheel. He won, for the company Ferrari, the 24 Hours of Le Mans competition-in 1963 and was proclaimed as the country’s best race car driver in 1965. Therefore, it was-quite unexpected for him to die during a trial run. But while driving the 909 Bergspyder, Scarfiotti-catapulted down a deep slope covered with trees. Scarfiotti’s body was recovered around 50-yards away from the car, which hung in the trees.
The incident prompted the company to develop a new car instead. For that year,-Porsche 910 remained to be the racer’s favorite during competitions, putting this car show-darling to rest. However, all was not lost for the car show treasure Porsche 909 Bergspyder.-Although this particular car model faced racing obscurity, it actually inspired another Porsche-model: the Porsche 908/3, yet another car show treasure and successful entrant to the illustrious-list of Porsche car models.
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