Vehicle Description
Chassis No. 906-140
Transmission No. 906-140
The Carrera 6, better known today as the 906, was first announced
as a series of 50 in the February 1966 issue of Porsche's factory
magazine Christophorus. The initial debut was light on detail;
however, the two black and white images of the car revealed the
radical nature of the design, heralding a new path for Porsche's
motorsport department. The previous top-line GT sports racer from
Porsche System Engineering was the 904 Carrera GTS. The dual use
road/race 904 was one of the final automotive designs (along with
the 911) from the pen of Ferdinand Alexander (FA) Porsche before
his cousin, the 28-year-old Ferdinand Piech, took the reins at
Porsche System Engineering.
While still road legal, Piech's streamlined Type 906 featured
gullwing doors, a very low, stretched nose, a long Kamm tail with
basic shape remaining consistent through the epic series of
"plastic Porsches" well into the record-breaking 917 era. While
radical in shape, the Carrera 6 was powered by the fairly new, but
race-tested 2.0-liter flat six that not only made its street debut
in the 901 and 911 but six-cylinder-powered 904s as well. The
engine, mounted amidships in the tube frame chassis, produced 210
horsepower (an impressive 100+ horsepower per liter) at 8,000 rpm,
with a 10.3:1 compression ratio, titanium connecting rods, and
triple Weber IDA 46 3C carburetors. The 906 was both innovative and
race-proven at the same time, something of a specialty at
Porsche.
As hoped, the car was an immediate success at the start of the 1966
international race season, winning its class at the Daytona 24
Hours, the Sebring 12 Hours, and Monza 1000 Kms. Perhaps most
famously, on the way to winning the FIA under 2.0-liter class
championship that season, a 906 won the Targa Florio with Willy
Mairesse and Herbert M�ller at the wheel of the Scuderia
Filipinetti entered car. The win proved, once again, that Porsche
could build a car capable of overall wins in big races while in the
hands of both factory pilots and privateers. Perhaps this was in
the forefront of Earle M. Chiles' mind when he ordered his 906 to
contest Pacific Northwest SCCA and USRRC events.
Chassis number 906-140's factory Kardex warranty card reveals the
car was delivered to Chiles, a heir to the Fred Meyer supermarket
chain, directly through Porsche Cars Northwest based in Beaverton,
Oregon simply finished Weiss. Racing under his Rapido Inc. banner,
Chiles enlisted accomplished drivers such as Gary Wright, Mike
Fisher, and Pete Lovely to campaign the car in the 1966 and 1967
seasons. Rapido retained the factory's white finish while fitting
magnesium American Racing wheels, competing in West Coast events at
tracks like Portland International Raceway and Pacific Raceways in
Kent, Washington, and fields afar as well. Their first year brought
chassis number 140 multiple top-ten finishes in regional events. A
major highlight came at the 1966 Road America 500, where Fisher and
Lovely secured an impressive 7th overall and 3rd in class podium.
In early 1967, Fisher crashed the car into a police vehicle at PIR
with the shunt causing front-end damage. Rather than undertake
repairs, Chiles opted to part ways with his 906.
The next owner was Monte Shelton, a soon-to-be-famous
Portland-based racer and sports car dealer. Seeing the potential in
the damaged 906, he acquired it with the expertise and resources to
properly restore the car. He repaired the front bodywork, repainted
it in a striking blue livery as it appears today, and registered it
on Oregon license plates "ACE 906." Between 1967 and 1969, Shelton
campaigned 906-140 extensively in events across the West Coast. The
car, often seen with start number 57, claimed numerous class wins
in national and regional SCCA events and even entered a Can-Am
event at Laguna Seca. By 1969, however, Shelton decided to part
ways with the car. In March 1970, he placed a full-page
advertisement in the Porsche Club of America's Panorama magazine,
emphasizing the car's race-winning pedigree and offering it for
sale. Ever the dealer, his listing underscored the meticulous
maintenance, recent engine and gearbox rebuilds, and its dominance
in competition.
Later that year, 906-140 found a new home with Robert Harmon of
Marin County, California. Harmon continued racing the car
occasionally at Laguna Seca and Vaca Valley Raceway before selling
it in 1975 to legendary Ohio-based Porsche racer and collector
Chuck Stoddard, the owner of Stoddard Imported Cars. Over the next
decade, Stoddard sold and then reacquired the car, with it passing
through the hands of Bob White, Jeff Hayes, and Nick Soprano.
Despite being actively used in competition, the 906 remained
relatively unmodified compared to many of its contemporaries.
By 1988, the car returned to Europe for the first time since
leaving Zuffenhausen, joining the Maranello Rosso Collection of
Italian Ferrari and Abarth enthusiast Fabrizio Violati. During this
period, 906-140 was preserved alongside other significant racing
machines, including Violati's Ferrari 250 GTO, and remained in
largely unrestored condition. The car remained part of the
collection until 2001, when it was sold to another Italian
enthusiast, Alfredo Spinetti. Under Spinetti's 21-year stewardship,
906-140 continued to be driven, participating in several editions
of the Vernasca Silver Flag Hill Climb. Unlike many vintage race
cars that undergo extensive restoration, chassis 140 retained much
of its original fiberglass bodywork. Spinetti valued its patina and
history, believing that preserving its minor imperfections honored
the car's racing spirit. In 2022, Excellence magazine featured the
car in an article titled "Northwest Authenticity," which celebrated
its history and condition. In the piece, Spinetti explained, "It
was, and still is, a racing car... We didn't want to change
anything about it, even the minor imperfections, because these show
its spirit."
Perhaps because of the well-publicized Excellence article, 906-140
returned to the United States in 2022 as a survivor in the truest
sense of the term. Unlike other privateer front-line competition
cars, 906-140 duked it out in the heat of the battle and lived to
tell the tale. While many of its compatriots were modified with new
bodywork, revised suspensions, and altered drivetrain components in
a vain attempt to stay at the front for an additional season or
even just a few races-the same cannot be said for 906-140. It
remains an impressively original and well-documented Carrera 6 that
remains true to how the series was designed and built in
Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen during the winter of 1966. It is noted to
retain its factory frame number, aluminum chassis tag, and
serialized magnesium-cased racing gearbox.
Any Type 906 is a vital part of Porsche's storied competition
history and a must-have in any Porsche collection that appreciates
the brand's unrivalled motorsport heritage. It was the car that not
only regularly punched above its weight like so many before it, but
the first that charted the company's new path toward achieving its
goal to win Le Mans outright and become a World Sportscar Champion
constructor. Chassis number 906-140 played no small part in that
story. With documented provenance and no shortage of visual appeal
finished in Monte Shelton's simple yet attractive blue livery from
the late 1960s, it must be one of the more significant examples,
preserved very much as it competed in the mid-to-late 1960s during
the dawn of a new golden age of sports racing prototypes.
