Every generation has its own most famous Porsche. If you were a kid in the early aughts, you know yours.
It features a 473-horsepower 3.0-liter twin-turbo flat-6 engine, and a 7-speed manual transmission. It owns the Cozy Cone Motel, home of the Lincoln Continental breakfast. Your iconic Porsche is a medium shade of blue mica, with turbine wheels and a law degree. She has a tattoo that shows when her speed-actuated wing is up.
Her name is Sally. She was a big-city lawyer but gave that up to help put the town of Radiator Springs back on the map. Along the way, she accidentally helped Lightning McQueen get his groove back.
Auction Benefits Two Charities
Porsche has created a one-of-a-kind (Literally. There’s a build plaque inside that reads “one of one”) re-creation of Sally Carrera, the Porsche 911 that insisted Lightning McQueen be sentenced to repair the road he damaged, and turned the 2006 movie Cars partly into a rom-com.
The car is a charity effort. It will be auctioned off at Monterey Car Week on Saturday. Some of the proceeds will benefit Girls, Inc. — a New York advocacy group for girls and young women. The rest will go to USA for UNHCR, an effort to help fund U.N. Refugee Agency work for families affected by the conflict in Ukraine.
Design by Pixar and Porsche
Pixar’s Jay Ward and Bob Pauley, the original film’s character department manager and production designer, worked with Porsche’s Exclusive Manufaktur custom division to design the real-life Sally. They developed a bespoke shade of paint that Porsche won’t add to the 911 configurator, so you’ll never see another on the road.
But the biggest external change is that virtually every piece of exterior trim is body color — which must have made the animators’ jobs simpler but isn’t something Porsche has offered on the current 911. They also cast unique wheels to match the movie’s style.
Boris Apenbrink, the director of Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur Vehicles, tells reporters, “As it stands, today, there is no plan to offer this [wheel] design on future models.” But we detect a hint of hesitation in that. Perhaps Porsche really likes Pixar’s wheel design.
Yes, the tattoo is there, too.
Leather and Cloth Interior, Not… Whatever Was in Those Living Cars
Porsche didn’t try to re-create the interior of the movie car because we never see the interior of a Cars character. Don’t try to figure out what’s inside an anthropomorphic car with eyes for a windshield. There is only terror down that road.
Instead, the buyer gets Pepita cloth upholstery with blue accents. A Chalk leather dashboard and black leather steering wheel get Speed Blue stitching. The Sport Response button on the steering wheel reads “Kachow! Mode.”
The winner will receive an extra set of wheels for track use. There’s also an indoor car cover (no word on whether it has eyes) and a book documenting her development process.
