Tag Archives: 912

Sechzehnzylinder Monster – Porsche 917 PA #917-027

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With few entrants ready, willing and or able to compete in the 3 litre / 183 cui prototype sports car class in April 1968 the governing CSI reduced the production numbers mandated to compete in the 5 litre / 302 cui sport category from 50 to 25.

With this change in regulations Porsche saw an opportunity to build a 917 Coupé powered by a Type 912 12 cylinder motor that would give it a shot at winning the 1970 Le Mans 24 Hour race.

Porsche 917 PA, Goodwood Festival of Speed

An unforeseen benefit of the Porsche 917 Le Mans programme arose when Porsche decided to have a crack at the North American Can Am series for unlimited sports cars in mid 1969.

For it’s first attempt at the Can Am series Porsche built two 917 PA spiders one of which would enter the fray midway through the 1969 Can Am series driven by Jo Siffert.

Porsche 917 PA, Goodwood Festival of Speed

Today’s featured car chassis #917-027 was the first of the two chassis and it was retained at the Porsche factory for development purposes.

It soon became apparent that the 917 PA was too heavy and not developing enough horsepower to compete with the dominant McLaren’s driven by Peter Revson and Denny Hulme so Porsche looked at two ways of getting more horsepower from the type 912 flat 12 motor they had developed originally to tackle Le Mans.

Porsche 917 PA, Goodwood Festival of Speed

One was to turbocharge the existing engine and the other was to add 2 additional cylinders to either end of the 912 flat twelve whose cam shafts were centrally driven.

After testing the 840hp 6.700 litre / 408.9 cui sixteen cylinder car Mark Donohue described it as a monster which in turbocharged form might have produced 2000hp.

Porsche 917 PA, Goodwood Festival of Speed

However the engineers at Weissach came to the conclusion that the 1000hp and more available from the turbocharged 12 cylinder motor would be more than sufficient to do the job, and so it proved.

George Follmer captured the 1972 Can Am title driving Roger Penske’s L&M Porsche 917/10 after Penske’s No 1 driver Mark Donohue was injured and had to miss 5 rounds of the nine race series.

Porsche 917 PA, Goodwood Festival of Speed

Mark Donohue followed that up in 1973 by capturing the title in Roger Penske’s Sunoco Porsche 917/30.

Thanks for joining me on this “Sechzehnzylinder Monster” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again for Ferrari Friday tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

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Nathan D. Muir – Porsche 912

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From the outset an entry level Porsche based on the 911 model was planed to be fitted with a four cylinder motor to replace the Porsche 356 when production of the older model ceased in April 1965.

Porsche 912, Bristol

The new model was originally known internally as the 902 but after problems with the 901 model designation with Peugeot the new model was always publicly known as the 912, not to be confused with the Porsche project number 912 which referred to the flat 12 racing motors used to power the Porsche 917 racing cars.

Porsche 912, Bristol

Initial ideas for the 4 cylinder motor to be used in the 912 model included building a four cylinder version of the 6 cylinder 911 motor and an enlarged version of the 4 cylinder motor used in the Porsche 356 but eventually it was decided to lower the compression ratio of the original Porsche 356 motor and fit Solex carburettors of the 1582cc / 96.5 cui motor to produce 90hp.

Porsche 912, Bristol

To keep the costs down some of the standard features of the 911 were deleted from the 912, which outsold the 911 until the 912s production facilities were turned over to the Porsche VW 914-6 for the 1970 model year.

Porsche 912, Bristol

Although not as potent as it’s bigger 130 hp sibling the 912s lighter motor meant the smaller engine car had slightly improved handling which proved useful to Polish Porsche privateer Sobiesław Zasada who won the 1967 European Rally championship in his Porsche 912 which included an outright win in the 1967 Polish Rally.

Porsche 912, Bristol

A Porsche 912 was also entered in the 1967 Spa 24 hours for Hans Finke and Jean Sage, it qualified 33rd but failed to finish after an issue with the oil radiator. In 1968 Swiss duo James Bernard Fortmann and Urs-Peter Dietrich could not get with in 10 seconds of the qualifying time set by Finke and Sage at Spa the previous year but still started the ’68 edition of the Spa 24 hours in 51st and managed to bring their 912 home in 25th place.

Porsche 912, Bristol

Fans of Robert Redford may remember him staring in the 2001 thriller Spy Game, in the film Redford’s character Nathan D. Muir drives a Porsche 912, though it appears to be dubbed with a 911 engine sound except in the alternate ending version on DVD. More on how the 912 came to be chosen for filming on this link.

Porsche 912, Bristol

Regular readers may remember that a couple of years ago I featured a Porsche 912 in need of some TLC, I caught up with the car seen above again at the end of last year.

Porsche 912, Bristol

The transformation from junk yard dog to a 912 Carrera looks cool, officially the car is still listed as having it’s original size 1582cc / 96.5 cui motor.

Thanks for joining me on this Nathan D. Muir edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres”, I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be featuring a couple of 1966 French Porsche advertisements. Don’t forget to come back now !

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500lb Competition Diet – Porsche 911 R Replica

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In 1967 Porsche put it’s 911 model on a competition diet to bring the weight down by 230 kgs / 500 lbs to 810 kgs / 1786 lbs to produce a new model the 911 R.

Porsche 911 R, Goodwood, Festival of Speed

A limited run of 4 factory cars and 19 customer 911 Rs were built by Baur at their body shop in Stuttgart with fibreglass paneled doors, bonnet / hood and boot / trunk lid. Additional weight saving was achieved by using plastic door hinges and bumpers.

Porsche 911 R, Goodwood, Festival of Speed

The standard interior was completely deleted in favour of the bare essentials needed for racing or rallying competition, the lightweight side windows were louvred at the rear.

Porsche 911 R, Goodwood, Festival of Speed

Power from the flat six motor was raised from the original type 901 130hp to 210 hp using the type 901/22 motor from the 906 Carrera or 230 hp from the four cam type 901/21 motor.

Porsche 911 R, Goodwood, Festival of Speed

Homologation for the GT class required a minimum of 500 identical vehicles to be built, so with only 24 cars completed the 911 R was forced to run in the prototype class against the likes of mighty Ford Mark IV’s and Ferrari P4s which both had motors more than double the size of the 911 R’s 2 litre / 122 cui flat 6.

As a consequence notable results were hard to come by although the 911 R did score two outright wins the first in the 1967 when Hans Hermann, Jochen Neerspach and Vic Elford shared chassis #3, fitted with a 4 cam motor and Sportmatic transmission, to win the 84 hour Marathon de la Route at the Nurburgring.

Tour de France, Dunlop SP Sport, Advertisement, Connaissance des arts

The second significant 911 R victory came in 1969 when Gérard Larrousse & Maurice Gélin won the 1969 Tour de France beating the Chevrolet Corvette driven by Henri Greder and André Vigneron as seen in the black and white photo seen above in a 1970 advertisement for Dunlop tyres.

Today’s featured car seen at the 2011 Goodwood Festival of Speed is a replica 911 R that started life as a far more humble 1967 4 cylinder Porsche 912, according to the blurb in the windscreen this car took over 1200 hours to complete.

Thanks for joining me on this “500lb Competition Diet” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at a couple of Porsche 912s.

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Awaiting TLC – Porsche 912

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From 1965 to 1969 around 30,000 entry level Porsche 912’s were sold, featuring the body of the then all new Porsche 911 with the 90 horsepower motor from the old Porsche 356.

In 1967 well known Polish Porsche privateer Sobiesław Zasada won the European Rally Championship in his 912 fitted with a factory supplied rally kit.

The 912 was replaced by the 914 allegedly built in a not so harmonious collaboration with Volkswagen from 1970 – 1976.

In 1976 914’s were temporarily replaced in the the Porsche line up by 2099 additional 912 E’s, with 911 G series bodies and 2 litre engines from the ill feted 914/4, built exclusively for the US market until the arrival of the water cooled Porsche 924.

Porsche 912’s are easily recognisable when looking at the engine, they only have 4 cylinders instead of the 6 of the 911.

This particular model was on it’s way to the Porschmode Specialist body shop for some long overdue TLC when I happened on it at the end of last year.

Hope you have enjoyed today’s in need of TLC edition of ‘Gettin’ a lil’ psycho on tyres’ and that you’ll join me again tomorrow for a look at one of the most outrageous Porsches ever built by the factory. Don’t forget to come back now !

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