Reading time: about 2 minutes |Written by Ben Branch|March 4th 2024
This wall display consists of an authentic Porsche 911 RS carbon fibre bonnet and a swan-neck rear wing that has been fitted to a lightweight aluminum frame, and finished in Porsche’s iconic “Pink Pig” racing livery.
The Pink Pig livery first appeared on the Porsche 917/20 entered into the 1971 24 Hours of Le Mans. This car was a one-off prototype created as a collaborative effort between Porsche and French aerodynamics specialist SERA (Société d’Études et de Réalisations Automobiles). It was designed to combine the best aspects of the Porsche 917K (short tail) and 917LH (long tail).
The Porsche 911 RSR competed in the 2018 24 Hours of Le Mans in the GTE Pro class carrying the Pink Pig livery and won its class.
Not everyone liked the look of the car, some claimed the front end looked like the snout of a pig, and Count Rossi of the Martini & Rossi drinks empire is said to have refused to allow the car to carry the iconic Martini livery.
This left Porsche scrambling to find a suitable livery for the car before the 1971 24 Hours of Le Mans. Porsche designer Anatole Lapine came up with a completely new look that included a series of dotted lines across the car with the names of various butcher cuts, over a pink “ham-like” base color.
Despite its unusual looks and contentious debut where it was branded the “Pink Pig,” “Big Berta,” and “Truffle Hunter” by various onlookers, the car proved competitive – qualifying in 7th overall and rising through the ranks to 3rd place before retiring towards the end of the race due to brake failure.
The Pink Pig livery was revived for an entry into the 2018 24 Hours of Le Mans in the GTE Pro class. It now graced the Porsche 911 RSR as a faithful homage to the original, and this time the Pink Pig would go on to win its class driven by the three-man team of Kévin Estre, Laurens Vanthoor, and Michael Christensen.
The unusual pink livery was designed by Porsche designer Anatole Lapine after Count Rossi of the Martini & Rossi drinks empire refused to let the unusual looking Porsche 917/20 carry the Martini livery.
The display piece shown in this article is a faithful recreation of the 2018 RSR, it includes a genuine Porsche 911 RSR carbon fiber hood and a swan-neck rear wing, both finished in Pink Pig livery to match the original.
This wall sculpture is now being offered for sale out of Bridgnorth in the United Kingdom on Collecting Cars, and you can visit the listing here if you’d like to read more about it or register to bid.
Images courtesy of Collecting Cars
Ben Branch
Articles that Ben has written have been covered onCNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine,Road & Track Magazine,the official Pinterest blog, theofficialeBay Motorsblog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
Published by Ben Branch - March 4th 2024
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