Chassis No. 906-140 Transmission No. 906-140 The Carrera 6, better known today as the 906, was first announced as a series of 50 in the February 1966 issue of Porsche’s factory magazine Christophorus. The initial debut was light on detail; however, the two black and white images of the car revealed the radical nature of the design, heralding a new path for Porsche’s motorsport department. The previous top-line GT sports racer from Porsche System Engineering was the 904 Carrera GTS. The dual use road/race 904 was one of the final automotive designs (along with the 911) from the pen of Ferdinand Alexander (FA) Porsche before his cousin, the 28-year-old Ferdinand Piëch, took the reins at Porsche System Engineering. While still road legal, Piëch’s streamlined Type 906 featured gullwing doors, a very low, stretched nose, a long Kamm tail with basic shape remaining consistent through the epic series of “plastic Porsches” well into the record-breaking 917 era. While radical in shape, the Carrera 6 was powered by the fairly new, but race-tested 2.0-liter flat six that not only made its street debut in the 901 and 911 but six-cylinder-powered 904s as well. The engine, mounted amidships in the tube frame chassis, produced 210 horsepower (an impressive 100+ horsepower per liter) at 8,000 rpm, with a 10.3:1 compression ratio, titanium connecting rods, and triple Weber IDA 46 3C carburetors. The 906 was both innovative and race-proven at the same time, something of a specialty at Porsche. As hoped, the car was an immediate success at the start of the 1966 international race season, winning its class at the Daytona 24 Hours, the Sebring 12 Hours, and Monza 1000 Kms. Perhaps most famously, on the way to winning the FIA under 2.0-liter class championship that season, a 906 won the Targa Florio with Willy Mairesse and Herbert Müller at the wheel of the Scuderia Filipinetti entered car. The win proved, once again, that Porsche could build a car capable of overall wins in big races while in the hands of both factory pilots and privateers. Perhaps this was in the forefront of Earle M. Chiles’ mind when he ordered his 906 to contest Pacific Northwest SCCA and USRRC events. Chassis number 906-140's factory Kardex warranty card reveals the car was delivered to Chiles, a heir to the Fred Meyer supermarket chain, directly through Porsche Cars Northwest based in Beaverton, Oregon simply finished Weiss. Racing under his Rapido Inc. banner, Chiles enlisted accomplished drivers such as Gary Wright, Mike Fisher, and Pete Lovely to campaign the car in the 1966 and 1967 seasons. Rapido retained the factory’s white finish while fitting magnesium American Racing wheels, competing in West Coast events at tracks like Portland International Raceway and Pacific Raceways in Kent, Washington, and fields afar as well. Their first year brought chassis number 140 multiple top-ten finishes in regional events. A major highlight came at the 1966 Road America 500, where Fisher and Lovely secured an impressive 7th overall and 3rd in class podium. In early 1967, Fisher crashed the car into a police vehicle at PIR with the shunt causing front-end damage. Rather than undertake repairs, Chiles opted to part ways with his 906. The next owner was Monte Shelton, a soon-to-be-famous Portland-based racer and sports car dealer. Seeing the potential in the damaged 906, he acquired it with the expertise and resources to properly restore the car. He repaired the front bodywork, repainted it in a striking blue livery as it appears today, and registered it on Oregon license plates "ACE 906." Between 1967 and 1969, Shelton campaigned 906-140 extensively in events across the West Coast. The car, often seen with start number 57, claimed numerous class wins in national and regional SCCA events and even entered a Can-Am event at Laguna Seca. By 1969, however, Shelton decided to part ways with the car. In March 1970, he placed a full-page advertisement in the Porsche Club of America’s Panorama magazine, emphasizing the car’s race-winning pedigree and offering it for sale. Ever the dealer, his listing underscored the meticulous maintenance, recent engine and gearbox rebuilds, and its dominance in competition. Later that year, 906-140 found a new home with Robert Harmon of Marin County, California. Harmon continued racing the car occasionally at Laguna Seca and Vaca Valley Raceway before selling it in 1975 to legendary Ohio-based Porsche racer and collector Chuck Stoddard, the owner of Stoddard Imported Cars. Over the next decade, Stoddard sold and then reacquired the car, with it passing through the hands of Bob White, Jeff Hayes, and Nick Soprano. Despite being actively used in competition, the 906 remained relatively unmodified compared to many of its contemporaries. By 1988, the car returned to Europe for the first time since leaving Zuffenhausen, joining the Maranello Rosso Collection of Italian Ferrari and Abarth enthusiast Fabrizio Violati. During this period, 906-140 was preserved alongside other significant racing machines, including Violati’s Ferrari 250 GTO, and remained in largely unrestored condition. The car remained part of the collection until 2001, when it was sold to another Italian enthusiast, Alfredo Spinetti. Under Spinetti’s 21-year stewardship, 906-140 continued to be driven, participating in several editions of the Vernasca Silver Flag Hill Climb. Unlike many vintage race cars that undergo extensive restoration, chassis 140 retained much of its original fiberglass bodywork. Spinetti valued its patina and history, believing that preserving its minor imperfections honored the car’s racing spirit. In 2022, Excellence magazine featured the car in an article titled “Northwest Authenticity,” which celebrated its history and condition. In the piece, Spinetti explained, “It was, and still is, a racing car… We didn’t want to change anything about it, even the minor imperfections, because these show its spirit.” Perhaps because of the well-publicized Excellence article, 906-140 returned to the United States in 2022 as a survivor in the truest sense of the term. Unlike other privateer front-line competition cars, 906-140 duked it out in the heat of the battle and lived to tell the tale. While many of its compatriots were modified with new bodywork, revised suspensions, and altered drivetrain components in a vain attempt to stay at the front for an additional season or even just a few races—the same cannot be said for 906-140. It remains an impressively original and well-documented Carrera 6 that remains true to how the series was designed and built in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen during the winter of 1966. It is noted to retain its factory frame number, aluminum chassis tag, and serialized magnesium-cased racing gearbox. Any Type 906 is a vital part of Porsche’s storied competition history and a must-have in any Porsche collection that appreciates the brand’s unrivalled motorsport heritage. It was the car that not only regularly punched above its weight like so many before it, but the first that charted the company’s new path toward achieving its goal to win Le Mans outright and become a World Sportscar Champion constructor. Chassis number 906-140 played no small part in that story. With documented provenance and no shortage of visual appeal finished in Monte Shelton’s simple yet attractive blue livery from the late 1960s, it must be one of the more significant examples, preserved very much as it competed in the mid-to-late 1960s during the dawn of a new golden age of sports racing prototypes.