Skip to main content

Watch lesser-known Porsches plow around the track in Laguna Seca tractor race

Porsche tractor
Ronan Glon/Digital Trends

At home and abroad, Porsche enjoys an enviable reputation for building high-tech, high-performance cars that deliver an engaging driving experience. Few people realize, however, that the firm also dabbled in a completely different kind of open-top machine: Tractors. The first-ever Porsche tractor race will take place on the Laguna Seca racetrack in Monterey County, California, during the Rennsport Reunion this month. Pace yourself; it’s likely to be the slowest Porsche-only race ever held. It could be one of the most entertaining to watch, too.

Watching a herd of diesel-powered Porsche tractors sprint down Laguna Seca’s straight will etch memories into every viewer’s soul. It’ll be like watching a Panamera plow a field. If that wasn’t amusing enough on its own, the drivers will need to start the race by sprinting across the track Le Mans-style, jumping on the tractor, figuring out how to get it moving, and speeding off. We use the verb “speed” in the most relative way possible.

Recommended Videos

The organizers of the race promise to place celebrities and well-known professional race car drivers behind the wheel for even more laughs. The race will begin at the starting line, right where you’d expect it to, but the tractors won’t lap the entire track. The winner will be the first one to reach turn number five.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

Why, you ask? Because reaching turn five could take a whopping minutes, according to early estimates. These are not performance machines; they boast the glacial acceleration and the top-heavy handling of, well … a tractor. Porsche designed several models whose engine outputs ranged between 11 and 55 horsepower depending on their size and year of manufacture. Eleven horsepower is a mere rounding error on the Cayenne‘s specifications sheet.

It’s too early to tell how many tractors will participate in the race but the turnout could be massive. Though Porsche never actually built a tractor, the companies who bought a license to do so from the German firm collectively made about 125,000 units between 1956 and 1963. Many examples survive — we think that tractors, like cats, have nine lives — and a good chunk ended up in the hands of collectors after decades of farmwork.

Enthusiasts who attend the Rennsport Reunion will have two opportunities to watch the tractor race. The first race will take place at 1:15 p.m. PT on on Saturday, September 29. The second race will be held at 1:40 p.m. PT the following day. It’s not too late to participate. Send information about your Porsche tractor and a fairly steep $550 entry fee to Laguna Seca and show up on race day ready to run across the track.

Ronan Glon
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Ronan Glon is an American automotive and tech journalist based in southern France. As a long-time contributor to Digital…
Honda unveils sleek electric sedan and SUV prototypes at CES 2025
Honda 0 Saloon and Honda 0 SUV prototypes.

Honda’s next-generation electric vehicles are a step closer to production. At CES 2025, the automaker unveiled prototypes of the 0 Saloon and 0 SUV, the first two of its 0 Series EVs that will start rolling off assembly lines in Ohio next year.

The two EVs follow 0 Series concept cars Honda unveiled at CES 2024. These are closer to what buyers can expect to see in showrooms, hence the label of “prototype” rather than “concept.” How close exactly? When Honda unveils a prototype, that vehicle generally makes the transition to production with minimal changes. But that would be particularly remarkable here.
They still look like concept cars

Read more
Digital Trends’ Top Tech of CES 2025 Awards
Top Tech of CES

Las Vegas is overrun. Every billboard in town is shouting about AI, hotel bar tops now sport a sea of laptops, and after hours The Strip is elbow to elbow with engineers toting yard-long beers.

That means CES, the year’s biggest tech bacchanalia, has come to town, and Digital Trends editors have spent the last four days frolicking among next year’s crop of incredible TVs, computers, tablets, and EVs. We’re in heaven.

Read more
Sony and Honda’s Afeela 1 EV makes more sense at CES than in the real world
Afeela 1 front quarter view.

The Sony car is almost here. After its creation via a joint venture with Honda in 2022 and two years’ worth of prototypes, the electronics giant’s Afeela brand is finally taking reservations for its first electric vehicle, with deliveries scheduled to start in 2026.

But will it be worth the wait? Coinciding with the opening of reservations, Sony Honda Mobility brought updated prototypes of the Afeela 1 (as it’s now officially known) to CES 2025, representing what California customers (Afeela is only taking reservations in that state) who put down a $200 refundable deposit can expect when they take delivery.

Read more