The most advanced car in the world, and you could not legally drive it home.
What it was
The 959 was built between 1986 and 1993 in tiny numbers, roughly 337 cars across the run. It was developed to homologate Porsche for Group B, the short-lived and famously extreme racing category, and it ended up as something more than a race homologation special. It was a rolling argument about how advanced a road car could be.
The numbers were unreal for the era. A twin-turbocharged flat-six, but with the turbochargers arranged sequentially rather than in parallel, so the small turbo spooled first for low-end response and the large turbo joined at higher revs. Roughly 444 horsepower. All-wheel drive with a computer-controlled center differential that could shift torque front to rear depending on grip. Adjustable ride height. Tire-pressure monitoring, in 1986. A top speed near 197 miles per hour, which made it one of the fastest road cars in the world.
Why it mattered
Almost every technology that would define the modern high-performance car appeared on the 959 first or close to first. Sequential turbocharging. Sophisticated all-wheel drive with active torque distribution. The idea that a computer could manage the chassis in real time. The 959 was the laboratory where Porsche proved these systems could work in a car a person could actually drive on the road, and the lessons fed directly into the 911 Turbo and the all-wheel-drive Carrera 4 that followed.
It was also gorgeous in a restrained way, a 911 silhouette smoothed and widened into something aerodynamic and purposeful, with the integrated bumpers and flowing rear that pointed toward where the 911 shape was heading.
The American problem
Here is the part enthusiasts love. The 959 was never federalized for the United States. Porsche did not build it to American crash and emissions standards, and the company declined to surrender examples for the destructive crash testing that certification would have required. That made the 959 illegal to import and register in the US.
This did not stop Americans from wanting one. Bill Gates and Paul Allen both bought 959s, and both had their cars impounded by US Customs, where they reportedly sat in storage for years because the law had no path to release them. The frustration of two of the wealthiest men in the country, unable to drive cars they owned, became part of the legislative story.
The resolution was the Show or Display law, passed in 1999, which created a narrow exemption allowing technologically or historically significant vehicles to be imported and driven a limited number of miles per year. The 959 was one of the cars that motivated it. Only after that law could the impounded cars finally be legalized and driven on American roads.
What it is worth now
The 959 has appreciated into solid seven figures for good examples, with the rarest variants worth considerably more. It sits in the small club of cars that are valued not for beauty or rarity alone but for what they represented, the moment a manufacturer reached further than anyone thought a road car could and built the future a decade early.