Will this ultra-rare Porsche 959 fetch £1m?

Yes, Mr Wayne, it does come in black, but there are only three of them. Ladies and gentlemen, this is one of just three Porsche 959s in existence ever coated in an exclusive ‘paint-to-sample' black - and it's coming up for sale. You want it.

Even without the rare paint job (Porsche Paint Code 041, we're reliably informed), the 959 is still an utterly desirable, utterly rare piece of Porsche cake that very few have ever tasted.

This one was built in 1988, but the story started in 1983. Porsche made the 959 first as a racing car to go rallying in Group B, but didn't manage to bring it to competition before the class was shut down for being too bloody dangerous.

So the 959 ended up racing in the Paris-Dakar rally instead, winning in 1986. Then came the road car, which was - at the time - the fastest production road car in the world.

It boasted a 197mph top speed from a twin-turbo, 2.9-litre flat six engine. 444 horsepowers were produced from this flat sixer, that, when allied to an advanced-for-its-time 4WD system and six-speed gearbox, meant the 959 could accelerate from 0-62mph in just 3.9 seconds.

Such acceleration was aided by a relatively lithe kerbweight, the 959's body featuring aluminium, Kevlar composites and Nomex. It even had magnesium wheels with hollow spokes, and the whole thing tipped the scales at 1450kg.

This Batman-black 959 boasts black wheels and an oh-so-Eighties caramel-brown leather interior, The paperwork's all in order, too, with Porsche Zentrum stamps in the service book, along with plenty of service receipts, documents and books.

It's being offered up for sale at Gooding & Co's Pebble Beach sale between 15-16 August, and could fetch anywhere between $1.6m and $1.8m - to just over a million English pounds.

Want to learn a little more how central the 959 was to bombastic road-car development? Allow Richard Hammond to better explain... with the help of a twin-turbo Ferrari F40.

Video: Richard Hammond tests the Porsche 959 against the Ferrari F40

Behind the scenes: Hammond on F40 vs 959