He keeps a model of it on his desk, he says. He is gushing and charming and lightly geeked as he says that, and it is wonderful, because he is who he is.

Bruce Meyer is the closest thing L.A. has ever had to an official car-culture mensch. He helped found the city’s landmark Petersen Automotive Museum. His collection holds some of the most envied racing machines on the planet, including the first production Shelby Cobra and a Kremer 935 that won Le Mans overall. Most important, he believes in sharing what he has at events like Luft, thinks it’s silly to keep neat machines hidden away.

Fittingly, this RSR—chassis 9113 600686, a.k.a. R7, one of history’s most revered 911s—was kept out of the public eye for years.

Not by Bruce. He didn’t own it then. But he does now, and he adores the thing, can’t believe it’s his, is just so infatuated with the history oozing from its pores, talks about it like a little kid.

“It’s just so weather-worn and race-worn—it’s just got soul.”

The backstory, if you’re unfamiliar: In 1973, Porsche shows up at Le Mans with a modified, 3.0-liter version of its 911 RSR competition model. This car was built to chase a production-class win, but it features so many new and clever speed tweaks that race organizers force it to compete in a much faster group, against 3.0-liter prototypes. The class essentially guaranteed to win overall.

Porsche was riding high in ’73—RSRs had won that year’s outings at Daytona, Sebring, and the Targa Florio. And yet R7 was so unlikely to win its new class that engineer Norbert Singer told the drivers—Gijs Van Lennep and Herbert Müller, the men who had just won the Targa—screw it, go all-out.

Meyer took R7 to Rennsport 7, at Laguna Seca, shortly after he bought it. “[Indy 500 winner] Arie Luyendyk comes by… he says, ‘This car was driven by a fellow Dutchman.’ I go, yes, of course… He said, ‘He’s here.’ I go, you’re kidding.”

Luyendyk brings over Van Lennep. “We had a terrific conversation,” Meyer says. “Gijs said, ‘Singer came up to us… he said, You go as fast as you can.’ He was pointing his finger, showing me the body motion. ‘Don’t worry about the shifts. The shift is hard and fast. Don’t worry about the redline.’

“Anybody who would say that is thinking, Just go out and kick ass, and if it breaks, it breaks, and it probably will, but we’re just pissed—we’re running in a category that we didn’t plan.”

R7 didn’t win Le Mans in 1973—but it didn’t break, either. The car finished fourth overall, higher than any production-based 911 before it. An incredible feat. Today, R7 remains unrestored, all but untouched and as it ran. Singer himself has authenticated the car.

Meyer owned a 356 in period and still loves them—but he is, he says, a 911 guy. He took delivery of a new example at the factory in 1965, couldn’t get enough.

“I have that mutant gene, just that love of cars. I came from a family where there was no bigger waste of time than the automobile."

"We didn’t have money, it wasn’t even an option. Before this, Porsche was winning Le Mans with cars that were just unobtainable, undrivable for most mortals. That’s why this car, this RSR, to me, is just delectable."

“I love it,” he says. “I just love it so much.”

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“I love it,” he says. “I just love it so much.”