Have you ever heard of the ‘Heigo’ Porsche? The Group IV rally-specification 911 SC 3.0 was the brainchild of Dieter Röscheisen, who was a master technician and test-driver for Porsche for over four decades. Using a generous sponsorship package from the German roll-cage manufacturer Heigo, Röscheisen built the car together with a group of his friends from Porsche in 1979 and set about an incredibly successful year of rallying in the German national championship.

We’ll divulge more about the ‘Heigo’ Porsche’s fascinating history, its link to the double World Rally Champion Walter Röhrl and its scale model commissioned by Porsche itself when we present the car for sale a little later this year. But before then, we wanted to show you a little of the lengths we go to behind the scenes to present such a car in a manner that both honours its historical, cultural and personal importance, and safeguards its future.

The story and our involvement with this particular Porsche can be traced back to the tail end of 2020. Marcus had been in regular contact with the previous owner for some time and, suitably impressed with the Porsche’s history and originality, we decided to acquire the car with a view to bringing it to market.While we welcome consignments, in this case buying the ‘Heigo’ Porsche has given us the time and flexibility to lean on our extensive network of historians, archives and specialists, ensuring we can effectively document the car and authentically prepare it to the highest possible period-correct standards.

From Dieter Röscheisen himself, we were able to obtain a wonderful compendium he’d put together about the ‘Heigo’ Porsche, a car of which he’s still incredibly proud. In addition to build sheets and first-hand accounts from Röscheisen, there was incredible photographic documentation of the entire build process in 1979 and spectacular shots of the car in action at almost every event in which it competed.

This was an invaluable starting point from which Marcus, our resident research guru, could dive deeper, contacting a number of historians and small independent archives to add further imagery, paint a comprehensive picture of the car’s early history and create a definitive history file that, once completed, won’t ever need to be compiled again, only added to.

After several weeks of putting puzzle pieces together and armed with a near-finalised history file, we knew exactly how we wanted to present the ‘Heigo’ Porsche. In truth, save for some small livery corrections and several other small detail tasks, the car as we received it was not too far off how we want it. We chose to send the 911 to the renowned rally car specialists at BGMsport. We’re good friends with the founder Ian Gwynne, who looks after several of our and our clients’ competition cars, and we know the quality of his team’s work.And that’s where we’re at currently, as evidenced by these photos captured by Rob Cooper at BGMsport earlier this week. A thorough inspection and assessment of the Porsche has been carried out, and our brief is for it now to be prepared to be ready for action at any of the wide array of prestigious events for which the car is eligible, all the while respecting its originality.

We’ll be bringing you further behind-the-scenes updates in the coming weeks as BGMsport finalises the works and we present the famous ‘Heigo’ Porsche for sale publicly for the first time. We appreciate it’s early days, but the thought of seeing this 911 once again slithering around a special stage once again, caked from head to toe in mud or mid-air having crested a huge jump, is so exciting. Stay tuned…Photos: Robert Cooper for Girardo & Co. Would you like to know more about the 1978 Porsche 911 SC 3.0 Group IV, otherwise known as the ‘Heigo’ car, featured in this story? Call us on +44 (0) 20 3621 2923 or email info@girardo.com.Alternatively, click here to browse our current online inventory of cars for sale.