Celebrate The Porsche 964 With Carbone’s Colorful New Series Of Artwork

March 22, 2018

Find each of the 964 prints available for purchase here in the Petrolicious Shop, along with work from other artists we carry

Automotive anniversaries can be a bit more open to interpretation than the dates of birthdays or weddings. For instance, when is a car born? Is it the first sketch whose features made it to the production version? Is it the date the concept was unveiled on the motor show stand? The first one to roll off the assembly line? Before we start getting too far into Planned Parenthood-territory with this metaphor though, let’s talk about the 964 for a moment. It was heralded as a sort of “new Porsche that looked like the old Porsche” when it was released to the public as a 1989 model-year machine, and it brought a number of technological innovations to the platform in the form of all-wheel drive, adaptive aerodynamics, power steering, ABS, and like or not, Tiptronic transmissions among other things. Three decades after they started building them for the road in 1988, it’s safe to say it’s become a beloved entry in the rear-engined Porsche lineage. It’s funny, what was once called plastic and coddling is now oft-described as “raw” by those that grew up around the same time.

So if we take the start of production to be the start of the car—this does make more sense than basing timelines on the more arbitrary model year decisions made by the marketing department—this year marks the 30th anniversary of the 964. Our friends at Carbone are big fans of Porsche and this era in particular (check out their tastefully modified 1992 964 available in the Marketplace), and frankly we would have been very surprised if they didn’t put together a set of anniversary art to celebrate. The design is available in five colors, with four being factory options for the 964 when new: Raspberry Red, Mint Green, Maritime Blue, and Signal Green. Orange is also available, with a slightly different use of color to set it apart. The factory colors are a fitting touch, and a great palette that lends itself to mixing and matching. Surely just a single poster gets the job done though, and the graphics are beautifully arranged, reminiscent of old Christophorus covers and not just because of the subject matter.

The use of comic-style shading on the pop-art Porsche allows the car’s otherwise realistic-looking fascia to blend in with the solid blocks of color and crisp borders between the text and background. They are perfect for hanging in the garage next to the real thing should you be so fortunate, and they’re equally at home in your home; stack a few next to each other and you’ve got yourself a Warhol-style tribute to one of the 20th century’s definitive sports cars.