Porsche New Zealand took over the Auckland Viaduct Events Centre on Sunday September 20 to celebrate its 50th anniversary as an official distributor for the marque, with a massive display of 200-plus cars.
For Porsche Club NZ participants and a handful of media hangers-on (that's us), the day started early at Sir Colin Giltrap Raceway in Wiri, South Auckland.
The karting facility is named after the founder of Giltrap Group, who spent six decades building a giant car distribution and retail business, secured the Porsche import licence in 1976 and was an avid supporter of Kiwi motorsport from grass roots upwards all his life. Sir Colin passed away in 2024.
Models from every era gathered in the morning at the Raceway. Perhaps delerious from the sheer effort in putting the event together, Porsche NZ invited a handful of media to participate in the drive to the Events Centre in a selection of classic models.
Ours was a 1981 911 SC Targa in period-excellent Grand Prix White, with the Sports Package including Fuchs wheels and "whale tail" spoiler.
For the public, the day started at 11am after the last car was in place at the venue.
The place was immediately packed. There won't be any official attendance numbers because the event was free to enter, so nobody was counting; but you couldn't move inside once the doors were officially opened, and crowds kept coming right through the 3-hour window before closing time at 2pm.
The event marked the first public showing of the 50th-anniversary 911 GT3 Touring commisioned by Porsche NZ from the factory's Sonderwunsch ("special request") department. See below for the full story on that car.
It bears the signature of Sir Colin Giltrap on the dashboard and has been produced in a run of just five examples, at $584,000.
There was a sparkling new example on the plinth, but in fact the majority of production was on site. The first customer delivery car and a Giltrap Group example both joined the convoy from Wiri and were also on display (in a rather unobtrusive fashion, it must be said) at the Events Centre.
The other special guest was a 917 KH ("Kurzheck", or short tail) racing car, specially flown to NZ from the Porsche Museum in Zuffenhausen, Stuttgart, for the occasion. Check out the photo gallery below to see the official Porsche NZ photo shoot in Auckland with both the 917 KH and Anniversary 911 GT3.
Inside the 50th Anniversary 911 GT3 Touring
"Fifty years is a long time in any market, and it means even more in one as small and as far from Stuttgart as ours," says Porsche NZ general manager Greg Clarke. "We wanted to mark this milestone with something that could only have come from here: a car built for our roads and signed by the man who started it all."
The special anniversary model is based on the 911 GT3 with Touring Package from the latest 992.2 generation. Each car is finished in "Paint to Sample" Yachting Blue Metallic.
The special Yachting Blue Metallic is "a reference both to NZ's rich sailing heritage, and to the first Porsche imported into the country which was blue," says the company.
The exterior mirrors, front air intakes and bespoke wheel details are finished to complement the exterior body colour.
Each of the five cars carries the etched signature of Sir Colin Giltrap on the passenger-side dashboard inlay, "honouring the man whose enthusiasm, vision and lifelong commitment to motorsport established Porsche in NZ and helped shape generations of drivers and enthusiasts".
Further bespoke Sonderwunsch elements include woven blue Pepita cloth seat inserts and "50 Years Porsche New Zealand" anniversary embossing on the headrests and throughout the cabin.
How Sir Colin brought Porsche to New Zealand
After seeing a Porsche Speedster at the Sydney Trade Show in 1957, Colin Giltrap bought his first Porsche, a 356 A 1600 Super Coupe, in 1959.
By 1974 he was running a successful Auckland dealership and, at the Geneva Motor Show that year, made a strong case to Porsche's export manager to convert his NSU import licence into a Porsche one.
A community had already begun to form around the marque. In December 1975, 10 Porsche owners responded to a notice in the NZ Herald and gathered at Milford on Auckland's North Shore, marking the start of Porsche Club NZ.
Half a century later, the club counts close to 2000 active members.
