Porsche Trademarks ‘Flachbau’, Hinting At Slantnose 911’s Return

We love it when a carmaker trademarks an old name. It gives us hope that a revival of a beloved model is in the works, even if it often comes to nowt or, worse, to a much-loved name slapped onto an electric crossover. We suspect the latter fate, though, won’t befall a badge that Porsche, legally at least, has just brought back from the dead: Flachbau.

Use a certain search engine’s translation software and it’ll tell you that ‘flachbau’ is German for ‘low-rise building’, but Porschists know it really means ‘flatnose’ or ‘slantnose’.

An option introduced for the original ‘930’ version of the 911 Turbo in the early ’80s, it was part of Porsche’s ‘Sonderwunsch’ special order programme. Inspired by the pointier front end of the 935 race car, it did away with the 911’s usual rounded, raised headlights for a lower, flatter nose. Early versions featured a set of slightly generic headlights set low into the bumper, but the later, more famous iterations of the look incorporated pop-ups.

Later versions of the Flachbau also started to incorporate other bits of ’80s excess, like an even bigger whaletail wing and side strakes just ahead of the rear wheels. By Porsche’s reckoning, just 948 Flachbaus were ordered across all iterations, unsurprisingly making it one of the more sought-after of the baffling array of different air-cooled 911s.

That brings us to the modern day, and two Porsche trademark filings, registered with the EU Intellectual Property Office and spotted by Autoblog. Both filed on 14 May this year, one is simply ‘Flachbau’ and the other is ‘Flachbau RS’.

What does this mean? It’s possible Porsche is simply safeguarding this name that’s so closely associated with it to stop pesky German bungalow developers from pinching it, but we’re hoping it signals a return of the slantnose bodystyle.

The fact that it’s been teamed with ‘RS’ does give this some credence, as the Flachbau name was never paired with the Rennsport badge in period. Could Porsche be readying a limited edition flatnose version of the current GT3 RS? We know the company's fond of a retro special at the moment, and the ’80s seem like prime inspiration for its next 'Heritage Design' model.

We can get a sense of what this might look like because the 935, the racing car that inspired the original Flachbau, was revived as a GT2 RS-based track special a few years ago. That transposed the shovel-like front end of the original onto a modern car, and we’d imagine Porsche might take a similar route if it is indeed planning a new Flachbau. Probably no pop-ups this time, then, but we doubt we’d be complaining too much.