Rennsport Reunion VI: A living, driving, racing museum

In the movie “Night at the Museum," Ben Stiller plays a night watchman who gets caught up in all kinds of hijinks when the museum’s exhibits come alive. Stiller’s Larry Daley character interacts with heroes like Teddy Roosevelt, Sacagawea, and Christopher Columbus. That’s just fantasy, though; far-fetched fiction of Hollywood script writers brought to life on the silver screen by actors and special effects.

The Rennsport Reunion is history in motion—fast motion, and it's oh-so-real. Road and race cars from the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen, Germany, as well as other museums and high-end collections around the world, wake from their slumber to not only appear before adoring fans but to relive their glory on a racetrack. Not only that but they are driven by the heroes who drove them decades ago.

Rennsport Reunion VI, Weathertech Laguna Seca, September 2018

Rennsport Reunion VI, Weathertech Laguna Seca, September 2018

Rennsport Reunion VI, Weathertech Laguna Seca, September 2018

What started as a public relations effort in 2001 has now spawned six of these vintage racing events and each gets more popular. Rennsport Reunion VI, held Sept 27-30 at Weathertech Raceway Laguna Seca, drew more than 81,000 fans of horizontally opposed rear-mounted engines, Le Mans wins, road racing, and fantastic sports cars. That's a good 20,000 more attendees than the last Rennsport Reunion held at the same track three years ago.

Almost any brand could host a vintage racing event, but no brand could do it like this.

Rennsport Reunion VI, Weathertech Laguna Seca, September 2018

Rennsport Reunion VI, Weathertech Laguna Seca, September 2018

Rennsport Reunion VI, Weathertech Laguna Seca, September 2018

Rennsport Reunion VI, Weathertech Laguna Seca, September 2018

The sounds are different here. They’re the angry bee screams of horizontally opposed cylinders, made more raspy by headers in place of exhaust manifolds and straight pipes instead of mufflers. No brand can touch the variety and volume of the race cars, from the first 550 Spyders of the 1950s to the thundering 917 Can-Am cars of the 1970s to the generations of high-tech prototype Le Mans racers, with all manner of 911 in between. On top of all that, the parking lot and paddock are full of legendary sports cars spanning 70 years of an unwavering commitment to the genre. The fans own a piece of the history.