The Porsche 959 Sport: How a ‘80s Supercar Became a $3M Flex
Porsche built it. Bill Gates wanted it. Now it’s history
Some cars are fast. Some cars are rare. And then there’s the Porsche 959—fast, rare, and so ahead of its time that even U.S. laws couldn’t keep up.
When Porsche dropped the 959 in 1986, it wasn’t just another high-performance toy for the ultra-rich.
It was a technological leap, stuffed with an all-wheel-drive system that could predict grip levels, a 2.8L twin-turbo flat-six that pushed over 440 horsepower, and a body designed for both speed and aerodynamics.
Ferrari and Lamborghini? Well, it was embarrassing for them.
Too Fast for Its Own Good
Porsche originally built the 959 for Group B racing, a motorsport class known for producing absolute monsters on four wheels. But by the time the car was ready, Group B had been shut down.
That left Porsche with a supercar that had nowhere to race and barely any customers willing to pay the eye-watering price.
To make things even more complicated, the 959 was too advanced for the United States. It didn’t meet crash regulations, and Porsche wasn’t about to spend millions on crash tests just to sell a few dozen cars to American buyers.
So, if you were in the U.S. and wanted one, you had to wait—sometimes for years—until legislation finally caught up.
Bill Gates was famously one of those guys. He bought a 959 and had it stored in a customs warehouse for over a decade before laws changed and he could legally drive it.
The 959 Sport: Rarer, Lighter, and Even More Unhinged
Porsche knew the 959 was something special, but for a handful of lucky buyers, they made something even rarer—the 959 Sport.
This was the stripped-down, hardcore version.
Porsche removed luxuries like electric windows and air conditioning, swapped in lightweight parts, and bumped the power to 508 horsepower. Only 29 were made.
Now, one of those 29 is about to hit the auction block.
RM Sotheby’s expects it to sell for around $3 million, proving that even decades later it’s an investment-grade piece of automotive history.
For some, paying $3 million for an old Porsche sounds insane. But for serious collectors, the 959 Sport is a holy grail—one of the last analog supercars before computers took over everything.
It’s also a reminder that sometimes, the best cars aren’t the ones that win the most races or sell the most units. They’re the ones that push boundaries so hard that even governments can’t keep up.
