The fourth Icons of Porsche festival drew crowds of 28,000 to the Dubai Design District over the weekend. Many famous and familiar faces from the Porsche world attended the gathering. Thousands of Porsche owners and enthusiasts attended to share their passion for the brand and its cars. The event drew particularly strong numbers from Porsche clubs and communities, cementing Icons of Porsche’s reputation as the biggest car festival in the Middle East region.
Connecting people across generations and continents
It was the second Icons of Porsche festival attended by Oliver Blume, Chairman of the Executive Board at Porsche AG, who visited on Saturday night. “Porsche has always been all about fascinating sports cars but just as much about emotions and dreams that connect people across generations and continents,” he said, during the event. “All of this comes together at Icons of Porsche in a truly unique way – in front of this spectacular backdrop here in Dubai.”
Also visiting from Stuttgart were some of the Porsche Museum’s most precious cars, which were delivered to Dubai to celebrate 50 years of the famous Turbo model lines at Porsche.
Racing champions also on-hand
Reigning Formula E World Champion Pascal Wehrlein took to the main stage, along with his championship-winning Porsche 99X Electric Formula E racing car. Porsche ambassadors Mark Webber and Jörg Bergmeister were also on-hand, with the latter also joining a 200-car community drive on the day before the event started, up Jebel Jais, the highest point in the United Arab Emirates.
The 44,000-square-metre festival site was abuzz on both Saturday and Sunday nights, with live art installations, cultural exhibits, live music and entertainment, and community gatherings. Several of Dubai’s most popular restaurants had pop-up food locations on-site, including the DRVN by Porsche café, which created a one-off ‘Cayenne Pepper’ pizza exclusively for this year’s festival.
More than 300 media from around the world were accredited for this year’s event, and there was a live outside broadcast by popular local radio station DubaiEye from the festival site on Saturday.
Experience raised to a new level
“We are so pleased that yet again a large and passionate crowd has joined us here in Dubai for Icons of Porsche,” said Manfred Bräunl, Chief Executive Officer, Porsche Middle East and Africa FZE, which organised the event. “We made special effort this year to ensure the experience was raised to a new level. The size of the festival site was expanded and we had more entrances, food vendors, activations and facilities than ever before. To see the enjoyment and excitement on the faces of fans of all kinds over the weekend was rich reward for the entire team that made this event our best one yet. As always, I must personally thank each and every owner that allowed us to share their dream sportscar to our adoring fans. We appreciate their participation immensely.”
Auction of 911 Turbo Remastered by Sonderwunsch
The one-off 911 Turbo Remastered car, created by the Porsche Sonderwunsch special request department, was again presented at Icons of Porsche. Last year’s appearance was its world premiere, and this year the car was presented for auction in conjunction with RM Sotheby’s.
The auction concludes tomorrow (Tuesday, November 26), with interest from around the region and world already registered, and with bidding and inspections of the car occurring in earnest over the festival weekend.