Thank Heavens! You Can Finally Buy Porsche's Ugliest Race Car That Is Named After A Fish

Image: Air-Water

The flounder is a group of flatfish species found at the bottom of oceans around the world. When first hatched, flounder have one eye on each side of their head, but as they age, one eye migrates to the other side of the body, resulting in a fish that lays on its side with both eyes pointing upward. The long-tail version of Porsche’s successful three-liter air-cooled flat-eight-powered 908 sports car looks a bit like a mature flounder, a low and flat machine with both eyes (headlights) on the up side. That’s how it earned the name Flunder. If you want to buy one, now is your chance, but it’s going to cost you a few million dollars.

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Austrian business magnate and ludicrous engineer — and grandson of Ferdinand Porsche — Ferdinand Piëch has been largely responsible for some of the most incredible cars in automotive history, including the Bugatti Veyron, Volkswagens XL-1 and Phaeton, and Audi Quattro. Long before he was the long-serving chairman and CEO of the Volkswagen Group, he was an engineer with Porsche’s motorsport division, overseeing the development of the company’s late-1960s road racing monsters, including the 917, 907, and 908. These wild Porsche race cars at least somewhat explain Piëch’s later no-holds-barred approach to building street cars.

Image: Broad Arrow Auctions

This particular car won its class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1970, grabbing the final step on the overall podium and finishing out a Porsche top-three sweep, and the Index of Performance victory all at once. The Martini-sponsored Flunder, official nomenclature referred to it as a 908/2 Langheck, was driven by Helmut Marko and Rudi Lins, finishing eight laps behind the famous red and white Salzburg 917K. It was one of just seven cars to be classified at the drop of the checkered flag.

If this is the kind of car you want to add to your collection, you’re in luck! This fast fish will be available for public auction at the upcoming Air|Water Porsche car show, the more inclusive spin-off of racing driver Patrick Long’s famed aircooled-only Luftgekühlt show. You can bet that this car will bring a few million dollars when the hammer falls. The inaugural stand-alone Air|Water will take place on Saturday, April 27th in Costa Mesa, California, showcasing both aircooled and water-cooled Porsches from the company’s history. The auction will be conducted by the Broad Arrow Auctions team, which is a subsidiary of Hagerty Insurance.