I didn’t believe it either.
The fact that it was on display at the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, alongside a message from Porsche where they actually admitted to creating it, was still only barely enough evidence for me to believe it. It’s a Porsche C88, and it was created as a prototype for the Chinese market in the mid 1990s. The idea behind it was to create a car which could be produced simply but still offer excellent quality and driving safety.
The C88 featured just one child seat, reflecting China’s population control policy of the era, but the Chinese authorities wouldn’t grant Porsche – or any other foreign automaker – permission to manufacture in China. Curiously, according to Top Gear, while the Chinese refused permission, they did go on to ‘borrow’ some of the ideas that the Weissach engineers had spent just four months coming up with.
The complete absence of Porsche badges on the car probably tells you everything you need to know about how Porsche felt about the C88. It might also explain why I only took one photo, which might have been by accident.
What has been seen, cannot be unseen.
Paddy McGrath
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paddy@speedhunters.com