Thursday afternoon Luftgekühlt announced that its seventh U.S. market show would take place in a totally new city on a totally new date. After six shows in Los Angeles (and two further shows in the UK and Germany) the show for air-cooled cars is coming to the Midwest of all places. Indianapolis, Indiana will play host to the next Luft on September 10 of this year, which is a Friday in case you were wondering. We don’t have really any further information than that, but as soon as we have more, we’ll be sure to send it your way.
The first non-LA Luft was planned to go down in Durham, North Carolina on May 31 of 2020, but for obvious reasons that show was postponed. Originally it was delayed until November of 2020, but as we all know the Coronavirus pandemic threw a wrench in that plan as well. By September of last year we heard the word that there would be no Luft in 2020, and the 7th iteration was postponed until 2021. We assumed at the time that the show would still go on in Durham, but the notice sent out by the show runners indicates that Durham has been abandoned for Indy.
Now, all of what follows is pure speculation, so don’t take it as gospel quite yet. If I were a betting man, I’d say all of this hinges on Porsche’s renewed relationship with one Mr. Roger Penske. As you may have read, Porsche recently announced it would be entering the top-flight classification of prototype sports car racing alongside Penske Racing. Something you might not know is that Roger Penske also recently purchased the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and has spent the last two years committing serious updates and upgrades to America’s oldest home of motor sport. It would make sense, then, that Penske wants to not only bring bigger and better things to the speedway, including social-media-friendly events like Luftgekuhlt, but also cement his relationship with Porsche. Hell, Penske used to race an air-cooled Porsche RS61 Spyder, and that would be a logical centerpiece for a show like this.
We’ll let you know more information as it becomes available, but I actually kind of want to see the show at Indy now. Maybe I’ll see you there!