In the 50th anniversary year of the 911 Turbo, Luftgekühlt returned to Los Angeles at the weekend to host a special event themed around Porsche’s ground-breaking air-cooled flagship sports car. Held once again on the Universal Studios Backlot, ‘Luft 10: The Sequel’, grew its presence at the unique LA venue with a bold new exhibition designed to celebrate the very best of Porsche’s early turbocharged era alongside another remarkable selection of air-cooled cars from across the decades.
Focus on motorsport heritage
Former Porsche factory driver and Luftgekühlt co-founder Patrick Long, alongside friend and Creative Director Jeff Zwart, produced another unforgettable event that helped tell the diverse story of the 911 Turbo, both as an epoch-defining sports car and a dominant force in motorsport around the world.
“As always with Luft, we try to play by our own rules,” says Long, “and our highlighting of the Turbo was focused around significant race cars that were derived closely from the 930. So for the first time at Luft we saw some 934 and 935 combinations alongside a little-seen 962. We decided to front-load the race theme because most of us in the team are from a motorsport background.”
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With even greater access to the evocative backdrops of Universal Studios, Long and Zwart were able to curate an unforgettable display using film sets with diverse cinematic themes such as Western, New York City and the historic cobbled streets of Europe. Still allowing each car a considered and generous space to be viewed – one of the hallmarks of Luft’s carefully curated displays – the event created more unprecedented photographic opportunities and conversation points for the record number of guests in attendance.
A variety of very special racing cars drew large crowds across the venue on Saturday, with highlights including the Vasek Polak Racing 934 that won the Trans-Am Championship in 1976 and the Kremer-prepared Wally’s Jeans 911 Carrera 3.0 RSR, an unmistakable example of one of Porsche’s most successful customer racing cars to date. Also on display was the legendary 917 Kurzheck campaigned in 1971 by Martini Racing, a car that has been preserved in the unrestored condition in which it finished the Spa 1000km.
While motorsport is always a strong theme at Luft, the personal stories behind numerous road cars are also at the heart of every event. Saturday saw a typically eclectic mix of the highly original and the subtly modified being given equal attention, with European restomods and an immaculate factory-restored Type 930 sharing the limelight with Californian cars such as a Sahara Beige 911 S Targa from 1977 that has been owned and driven by a local father and son since 1980. In all, around 400 cars were featured across the studio lots, each provoking discussion, interaction and inspiration.
“The way that Jeff lays out these sets,” Long continues, “he likes to avoid packing the cars in bumper to bumper and instead give proper space to everything – really creating scenes. And we’re trying to raise the bar with that each year.” Displays at Luft 10 included a colour wheel of 964 RS models in rare paint shades alongside dedicated areas for the 356 and original 911 Turbo (Type 930).
Ten years of Luft
Since its low-key launch event in 2014, Luft has grown exponentially to become a national and now international phenomenon, with events in Indianapolis and San Francisco followed by ambitious outings to the UK, Germany, Poland and most recently Denmark. But last weekend’s return to Los Angeles was a fitting homecoming after ten years of championing Porsche’s unique air-cooled culture.
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“I was driving in on Friday and began thinking about a youngster who might have been at Luft 1,” Long says. “If he was eight years old then, he’s 18 now and maybe driving here in his own Porsche. My goal with Luft 10 years ago was to tell an all-encompassing story of air-cooled cars, from the preserved and original to the highly modified and everything in between. It’s been fun, it’s been rewarding and it’s been exciting to push ourselves year-on-year, not just to rinse and repeat, which has meant different venues, different states and different countries. It’s a big production these days, but I love just sifting through entries for the next event and seeing this growing audience discovering Luft. Because whether you’ve been coming for all ten years or this is your first time, that enthusiasm for the brand is what drives us forwards.”
