The Coolest Porsche Spoilers, Ranked: From Ducktail to Tea Tray

Ask any car person which Porsche has the best back end and you will not get an answer. You will get an argument.

That is because no other car maker has turned the rear spoiler into such a signature. Porsche has made them small, huge, rubber-edged, hidden and motorised. It has named them after ducks, whales and a device for serving tea.

I spent a morning at the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart photographing every tail I could find. This is my top ten, counted down from ten to one. You will disagree with at least three of them, and that is the point.

What I love about a Porsche back end is the contrast. The roofline sweeps down in one long curve, and then the spoiler interrupts it. And none of them is decoration. Each one is the solution to a problem, and it just happens to look great.

Open the snapshot: the whole story in five points ▾

• I photographed Porsche’s rear spoilers at the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart and ranked my top ten, counted down from ten to one.
• Number one is the 1972 ducktail on the 911 Carrera RS 2.7. That small lip cut rear lift by around two thirds, and every spoiler on the list traces back to it.
• Second is the whale tail on the very first 911 Turbo, which Ferry Porsche gave to his sister for her 70th birthday in 1974. Third is the 1978 tea tray, which grew to make room for an intercooler.
• The rest run from the 959’s wing, which grows out of the bodywork, to the Carrera GT’s, which rises at speed, and the 2023 718 Spyder RS, which went back to a ducktail.
• The three oldest spoilers took the top three places, in the order Porsche invented them.

10. 911 Turbo S “Duet” (2020)

The one that comes with a jet

Only ten of these exist, and you could not buy one on its own. Porsche built the Duet with aircraft maker Embraer, and each car was sold as a pair with a matching Phenom 300E business jet. The package was reported at just under 11 million US dollars.

The wing itself is the standard Turbo S item, so it earns tenth place on story alone. The project even had its own badge, which combines a drawing of the jet’s wing with a drawing of the 911’s rear wing. Each car also carries its jet’s registration on the underside of the spoiler. You only see it when the wing is up.

To my eye it is functional and sophisticated, although all those horizontal lines across the tail make it look a little fussy. What lifts it onto this list is the story.

9. Cayman GT4 (2015)

The Cayman finally gets a proper wing

For years the Cayman was the car Porsche seemed nervous about making too good. The GT4 ended that. It was the first Cayman developed by the motorsport department, and the first with real downforce at both ends, thanks to a large fixed rear wing.

It lapped the Nordschleife in 7 minutes 40 seconds and cost £64,451 when it went on sale in the UK in 2015. More than ten years later, good ones still sell for about that. One made £62,712 at a UK auction in October 2026, which makes it the only car on this list most of us could dream about sensibly. In 2017 Porsche made a video counting down its five wildest wings and put this one fifth. Car websites were not convinced. A lovely wing, they said, but hardly a wild one.

For me this one is function over form. I love its size, its height and the angle it sits at, although I struggle with the black supports that hold it up. I like it for what it does more than for how it looks.

8. 718 Spyder RS (2023)

The ducktail, fifty years on

The Spyder RS has the 500 PS engine from the 911 GT3 and revs to 9,000 rpm. Its hard-top sister, the Cayman GT4 RS, wears a towering wing. The Spyder does not. Porsche gave it a ducktail instead.

The reason is engineering, not nostalgia. An open car has to stay balanced with the roof on or off, and a clean ducktail does that better than a big wing. It is the 1972 idea solving a 2023 problem.

I love the simplicity of this one. It sits beautifully on the back of the car, with clean lines and a presence of its own that takes nothing away from the rest. You cannot miss it, but it never shouts. It is tasteful, it does its job, and it is a modern take on my favourite tail of all.

7. 911 Sport Classic (2009)

The ducktail comes back

After the original, Porsche did not fit a ducktail at the factory for almost four decades. When it finally did, it made only 250 cars, all in the same flat Sport Classic Grey, and charged £137,529 each in 2009. That was more than a 911 Turbo cost at the time.

It sold out anyway. A right-hand-drive example was advertised at £349,995 in October 2026, although two cars sold at UK auctions in 2023 fetched closer to £280,000. Either way, a spoiler turned out to be a very good investment.

Another ducktail beauty. This one is blended into the rear panel, with the light and the grilles built in, so it looks like part of the car and not something that has been stuck on. An absolute beauty.

6. Carrera GT (2003)

Blended in beautifully, in plain sight, until it is needed

The Carrera GT’s wing sits low and follows the lines of the bodywork until the car reaches 120 km/h. Then it rises to cut lift at the rear. The driver can also raise it with a button, which most owners presumably do in car parks.

It is the least showy wing on a car with a 612 PS V10 from an abandoned Le Mans project. Most of the aerodynamic work happens underneath, where you cannot see it. Just 1,270 were built.

Quite apart from the legendary car it is attached to, I love the gap underneath the wing in its resting position, and the way its lines blend into the two rear quarters. Then there is the gentle sculpting to accommodate the light.

5. 911 GT2 (993)

The wildest wing in the building

Nothing about this wing is subtle, and nothing about it is decoration. Racing rules had banned four-wheel drive, so Porsche took the 911 Turbo, removed the front driveshafts, cut around 225 kg and bolted on wheel arches you could replace after a crash.

The wing does two jobs. It pushes the back of the car down, and the openings in its sides scoop air to the engine’s intercoolers. Fewer than 200 road cars were made, and only seven are believed to have come to the UK in right-hand drive.

The car in the museum is one of the racing versions, stripped out, fitted with a roll cage and sitting on centre-lock racing wheels.

This is far less subtle than I usually like, but just look at the function in it: the air scoops at the sides, and the rows of holes for adjusting the angle of the wing. I appreciate all of that. But mostly I love it because it looks totally mad.

4. 959 (1987)

The wing that grew out of the car

Look for where the 959’s wing starts and you cannot find it. It rises out of the rear wings and loops across the tail as one piece of bodywork. Nothing is bolted on.

It worked, too. The 959 cut the 911’s drag figure from 0.385 to 0.31 and produced zero lift at speed, in a car that could reach nearly 200 mph. Porsche built just 292 production cars.

The same shape won the 1986 Paris-Dakar Rally, finishing first and second. The museum’s rally car, number 187, was the team’s service vehicle, carrying spares across the desert. It still finished sixth.

How can something so big and so dominating be so beautifully blended and sculpted into the rear of the car? From the side, it is a thing of beauty. From behind, it is all huge, gaping utility and intent.

3. 911 Turbo 3.3: the tea tray (1978)

The bedroom poster wing

In 1978 the 911 Turbo grew from 3.0 to 3.3 litres and gained an intercooler. The intercooler needed space and a supply of cool air, so the spoiler grew taller and squarer, with a raised rubber lip running all the way round.

It looked exactly like something you would carry the cups in on. The name stuck, although Porsche has never used it officially. With 300 PS and 160 mph, this was one of the great bedroom poster cars of the 1980s.

The museum’s car is rarer still. It is a Cabriolet, a body style that only arrived for the final two years, and it is a flatnose: a factory conversion offered for the 1989 model year, born from Porsche’s racing experience, with lower front wings and the pop-up headlights from the Porsche 944. Just 78 right-hand-drive Turbo Cabriolets are thought to have been supplied to the UK.

I have to be honest about this one. I kept staring at the photo while writing this, and I cannot tell you why I love it. It is not subtle. It is not even painted to match the body. It is huge. And I absolutely adore it.

Is it nostalgia? Is it the purpose? Is it simply that it is an icon? I honestly do not know. But it almost does not matter, because I just do.

2. 911 Turbo “Nr. 1”: the whale tail (1974)

A birthday present with a tartan interior

The whale tail is the ducktail’s bigger, flatter successor, edged in rubber, and it first appeared on the 1974 Carrera RS 3.0. This is the car that made it famous. It stayed on the 911 Turbo until 1978, when the tea tray replaced it.

It is the very first 911 Turbo, and it was not built for a customer. Ferry Porsche gave it to his sister, Louise Piëch, for her 70th birthday in 1974. It has the narrow body of an ordinary 911, without the swollen arches of the production Turbo, and it started life with a 2.7 litre test engine before gaining the 3.0 litre unit.

Then there is the tartan. The seats are trimmed in red and blue McLaughlan check, and the pattern is repeated in the Porsche lettering down the side of the car.

Another monster. But again, just look at it. It is so beautifully sculpted, and so purposeful. The grilles break up its size, and then there is that wonderful flip at the end. Somehow those shapes make sure that big is beautiful.

1. 911 Carrera RS 2.7: the ducktail (1972)

The one that started all of this

In the early 1970s the 911 had a problem. At speed, the rear of the car lifted. Three Porsche men, Tilman Brodbeck, Hermann Burst and Rolf Wiener, went into the wind tunnel and came out with a small upturned lip on the engine cover.

That lip cut rear lift by around two thirds. It also reduced drag, so the car became 4.5 km/h faster as well as more stable. Porsche patented it on 5 August 1972.

The nickname was not meant kindly at first, and the sales department doubted it could shift the 500 cars needed to go racing. All 500 were ordered by the end of November 1972. Porsche went on to build 1,580.

Just 134 of those were right-hand drive. A UK-delivered car sold in London for £483,125 in November 2024.

Every spoiler on this list, and most of the ones on other cars too, traces back to this small white lip. It is the simplest, and it is still the best.

So why is it my favourite? Think about everything I have liked in the other nine. A spoiler that looks sculpted, like part of the car. Beautiful lines. A real job to do. Something you cannot miss, but that never shouts.

The ducktail has every one of those things. It is eye-catching without being loud. It is functional without looking bolted on. It is beautifully formed, and it is not too big.

Other spoilers on this list do one of those things better. None of them does all of them at once. The ducktail holds them in perfect harmony and balance, and that is why it is number one.

Wear the argument

If the ducktail is your number one too, I have made a T-shirt for it. It is a technical line drawing of that famous tail, with one quiet caption: DUCKTAIL 1972. No logos and no shouting. If you know, you know.

Over to you

That is my ten. The three oldest spoilers finished in the top three, in the order Porsche invented them, and I did not plan it that way. Maybe the first answer really was the best one.

Of course, there is no right or wrong here. I am not really sure what makes us love what we love, but we do, and it does not matter why.

So tell me what you think in the poll below. Which is your favourite spoiler from the list?