Porsche celebrates 70 years in Australia

Porsche has celebrated seven decades in Australia, holding a gala event for 450 special guests in South Melbourne last week.

Porsche took the opportunity to show off the 911 GT3 70 Years Porsche Australia Edition – a limited model created to mark the occasion, announced in June.

Australian businessman Norman Hamilton brought the first two Porsche 356 sportscars to the country following a chance meeting with Ferry Porsche in 1951, after being overtaken by a 356 piloted by the company’s test driver, Richard von Frankenberg, on Austria’s Grossglockner Pass.

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Hamilton was introduced to Porsche through von Frankenberg following the encounter – a relationship which resulted in Australia becoming the second market outside of Germany (after the US), and one of the longest-established regions in the world for Porsche.

The 911 GT3 70 Years Porsche Australia Edition is finished in the same fish silver grey metallic exterior as the first two Porsches to arrive into the country, as well as receiving; special wheels, badging, interior embossing, extended leather, and a number of standard features normally only available to be optioned.

Just 25 of the special-edition models will be produced, priced from $494,300 before on-road costs.