You can stand within arm’s reach of a race car whose record has outlived the circuit it was set on. The 1971 Porsche 917 KH is on display at Porsche at Jewel, Jewel Changi Airport, until Monday, 5 October 2026. It was flown in from the Porsche Museum in Zuffenhausen.
Museum cars rarely travel, and this one has earned its fame. Pedro Rodríguez and Jackie Oliver drove the #21 car to victory at the 1971 Spa 1,000 km at an average of 249.069 km/h, including pit stops. At that pace, the 1,001km race took about four hours. Porsche says no car has matched that average over a full race distance on that course since.
Plan Your Visit
- Where to see it now: Porsche at Jewel, Jewel Changi Airport, until Monday, 5 October 2026
- Where it goes next: Raceborn Fest, Friday, 9 October to Sunday, 11 October 2026, at Porsche Studio Singapore, Guoco Midtown, and the surrounding community spaces
- What’s at the fest: the 917 beside the new Porsche 911 Challenge race car, classic racing cars, professional racing simulators, and a Porsche Experience Centre Singapore announcement
- Crowd tip: the fest shares a weekend with the Formula 1 race at Marina Bay. If you only want the 917, visit Jewel this week.
- Missed both? The car returns to Porsche at Jewel after the fest.
A Record the Track Outlived
Check the fine print before you repeat the record to your friends. The 1971 race ran on Spa’s original public road layout, a 14.1km circuit known as the “Terrifying Triangle”. The shorter Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps replaced that layout in 1979. The 917’s average has stood for 55 years partly because no one has raced a full distance on that road since.
That doesn’t make the win any smaller. The car still had to cover 1,001km at full speed on public roads, with every refuelling stop and driver change counted against the clock. It finished without a single mechanical fault. The team behind it was JW Automotive (JWA), a successful Porsche customer team sponsored by Gulf Oil and run by team boss John Wyer. The result sealed JWA’s reputation for careful preparation and quick pit work. It also makes this #21 the fastest race car ever on that historic layout, a title that can no longer change hands.
Taming a Twitchy Legend
Porsche built the 917 in the late 1960s for the World Sportscar Championship. Early versions combined enormous speed with a nervous streak. Porsche’s own history describes a “somewhat infamous” reputation for instability at high speed, especially in the long-tail version.
The fix was the short-tail Kurzheck (German for “short tail”) body, first seen in 1970. Porsche credits it to a young racing engineer, Ferdinand Piëch. In that form, the 917 gave Porsche its first overall win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1970. One thing to remember at Jewel: this exact chassis never won Le Mans. Its fame belongs entirely to Spa.
For Spa’s fast, sweeping corners, JWA went further. The #21 car used an enlarged five-litre version of the air-cooled flat-12 engine developed by Hans Mezger. A flat-12 has twelve cylinders laid out flat, which keeps the car’s weight low. The team added tail-mounted fins and a JWA-designed wing to keep the car steady at extreme speeds. According to Porsche, it was timed at around 350 km/h on the Masta straight.
From Chinatown to Capella
Before going on display, the car spent a day touring the island on a specially decorated flatbed truck, passing Chinatown and the Central Fire Station on Hill Street.
The tour ended at Capella Singapore on Sentosa. There, the 917 was photographed against the restored Tanah Merah façade. Porsche’s account of the tour describes the building as British Royal Artillery quarters dating back to the 1880s. Today it sits within the luxury resort, carefully woven into its modern design.
Raceborn Fest, Round Two
After Jewel, the 917 moves to Raceborn Fest, running from Friday, 9 October to Sunday, 11 October 2026. The fest takes place at Guoco Midtown, home of Porsche Studio Singapore, and the community spaces around it. Porsche is billing the event as a celebration of 75 years of Porsche Motorsport in Singapore. The Singapore Tourism Board’s programme for the fest lists classic racing cars and professional racing simulators. Porsche is also promising an announcement about the Porsche Experience Centre Singapore, a regional destination due to open in Changi in 2027.
Raceborn takes the idea behind August’s Concours d’Elegance Singapore at IMBA Theatre a step further. That show put classic and exotic cars in cinematic settings. Raceborn adds simulators you can drive.
The catch is timing. The fest falls on the same weekend as the Formula 1 race at Marina Bay, the busiest stretch of Grand Prix Season Singapore (GPSS), which runs from 2 to 11 October. If the 917 is all you want to see, go to Jewel this week, before the race-weekend crowds arrive. If you want the full day out, plan around the fest with our Singapore GP 2026 guide to eating, drinking, and shopping off the track. After the fest, the car returns to Porsche at Jewel for another stint.
🗓️ Date: Porsche at Jewel display from now until Monday, 5 October 2026; Raceborn Fest from Friday, 9 October to Sunday, 11 October 2026\
📍 Location: Porsche at Jewel, Jewel Changi Airport; Raceborn Fest at Porsche Studio Singapore, Guoco Midtown, and surrounding community spaces
The pairing at Raceborn Fest is the best reason to go. The 1971 icon will sit beside the 911 Challenge, which makes its Southeast Asian debut there and which Porsche positions as a new entry point into its racing world. Between them lie 55 years of engineering. Catch the 917 at Porsche at Jewel before 5 October, or head to Guoco Midtown for the fest from 9 to 11 October, and keep an ear out for that Experience Centre news, because Changi’s next car destination is on its way!
Photos and Visuals courtesy of Porsche.
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