“I’m not terrified of it,” says John Ficarra of his newest ridiculous acquisition, Rocky Aoki’s Porsche 959 limo built for the Car and Driver One Lap of America. Most people would be terrified, I would venture to guess. The car has been for sale in Southern California for at least thirteen years indicating just how afraid of it the car-buying market was. It took a ridiculous man with a ridiculous plan to actually spend hard-earned YouTube bucks on the car, but I truly hope the gambit pays off for Ficarra, because this is a car that deserves to be brought back to life.
If you aren’t familiar with Rocky Aoki, you really should be. In the long-gone days of the nineteen hundred and nineties, he was best known for founding the famous teppanyaki restaurant chain Benihana. He was also something of an international socialite and pleasure-seeker, spending his restaurateur millions on offshore powerboat racing, setting a trans-Pacific ballooning record, amateur wrestling, starting a porn magazine, and shenanigans like this 959 limousine. Rocky’s children, DJ Steve Aoki and actor/model Devon Aoki, have inarguably surpassed his fame, but neither of them party as hard as their pop.
He was just built different, and so was Ficarra.
The car was built specifically for the 1991 running of the Car and Driver 1 Lap event, and ran in a Kirin Beer livery. Built from a single early-1970s Porsche 911 Targa, the car was stretched about four feet in the middle, a 959-aping body kit was fitted, and the interior was custom-built in white leather with red accents. The original 911E engine would have made about 120 horsepower, and pushing all that extra weight around made it quite slow, but Aoki was in it for the fun, not the trophies.
After hauling the car back to his shop in NorCal, Ficarra is still figuring out exactly what he wants to do with the massive machine. Personally, I’m hoping for some turbocharged power worthy of the 959 kit, a strengthened and reinforced chassis, and the original 1 Lap livery and white interior brought back to the look that Aoki wanted. It’s a weird piece of Porsche history, but a piece of history that deserves to be preserved and driven as often as possible. If anyone can do it, it’ll be Ficarra.