Let’s take a spin around La Sarthe with Jonathan Palmer in his 962, shall we?
This is probably from 1987, the year Jonathan Palmer shared a car with James Weaver and Price Cobb for team Liqui Moly Equipe. They DNFed after 112 laps.
Category: Porsche
Follow along with the brave restorers at Gunnar Racing as they tackle the restoration of a mystery 917. So far it looks like it might be 917-021, but apparently Gunnar took on this project without it’s serial number plate, so they’ll be relying on additional details to help establish it’s provenance. I’m willing to give the folks at Gunnar the benefit of the doubt, they’ve restored their share of 917s in the past, as well as examples of just about every other Porsche racing model. Perhaps the mystery is the reason they’ve chosen to document the hell out of their restoration. Whatever the motivation, I’m glad to see the frequent updates. They’re 12 releases into an ongoing YouTube video series documenting the process; everything from grinding down the paint to see the history of liveries, to suspension and transmission and my-word-that’s-scary-to-take-apart removals. Coupled with reams of photos on the restoration team’s blog, this is pure Stuttgart candy. They’re hoping to debut the restored car at this year’s Monterrey Historics, I can’t wait to see how it turns out. It’s nice to not have to wait until the debut to see the car, I’ll be following along closely on their YouTube channel.
You can also follow along on the 917 discussion forum at CKnet.
I’m afraid it’s true. My car sickness extends beyond the cars themselves; beyond the posters and the slot cars and the models and books. Now I’m sick with places to keep it all. I’m sure this isn’t news to most of you. This is practically a support-group for people with automotive illness.
As a result, I find myself from time to time wading through the projects at the Garage Journal forums. Most of the garages are the stuff of pure fantasy. Pole barns and hangars and “Garage Mahals” of endless square footage. Recently a call was put out on the forum for a return to normalcy—or at least a reduction in envy. “Let’s see your 2 car garage”, seems like a normal enough request.
Jack Olsen stepped up with a fantastic space to house his marvelous track car: a ’73 911 RSR tribute. The car is a beauty; built on a ’72 911 chassis, the engine bay hides a 993 power plant mated to a ’77 transaxle. She’s light too, with fiberglass bodywork and Lexan windows. Plus I’m just a sucker for the duck tail. He’s done a wonderful job on it. Especially after a decent smashup with the tire wall forced him to rethink things a bit (see the link above for the grisly photos).
But let’s look again at this great little 440 square foot car hole. I love the color palette and it’s a smart use of the space. These colors and cabinets remind me a lot of hanging out with my grandfather in his lawnmower repair shop. Does it seem like everything used to be that shade of Stanley Thermos meets Dickies coveralls green?
I also like John’s clever use of reclaimed cabinets, folding workspaces, and the idea of isolating the air compressor in the crawlspace probably helps conversations in the space. Mostly though, I like that this garage feels homemade and not like a swarm of garage contractors breezed in and manufactured perfection on the spot. It looks cared for and crafted.
Finally I can reset my garage fantasies to come back to reality a bit. Good job, Jack.
Sorry for all the Porsche 917 posts late—you know what? Scratch that. There’s no sense in apologizing for it. I’d probably make damn-near every post about this majestic ride if I could.
Now the videos we saw earlier this week of a 917 (reproduction) in traffic do a bit to give you the true stature of the machine. It’s giant reputation and it’s long low proportions have, like the 910, always made it seem to me like a larger machine. Low- yes; but big. The long swept tail in some iterations make it seem even more so. Even though I’ve seen a 917 in person on the track, and through the window at Symbolic Motors, I’ve never been close enough to actually take in the true scale of the beast.
But this photo from Sports Car Digest of a Gulf liveried 917 parked next to a Porsche 914 on the track at Spa-Francorchamp, 1970, really hits me with the true scale of the thing. I’ve seen hundreds of photos of the Porsche 917: On the track, in the pits, on the big screen. None of them have, for whatever reason, given me a true sense of how small this incredible machine is. I’ve driven a 914, a car so small that I could barely shift into 2nd gear without uncomfortably pushing against my leg. The 917 is TINY.
Maybe it’s like how people are surprised when a famous actor is short when they see them in person, but the 917 seems like too much of a giant to be this small.
“Honey, will you run up to the gas station and pick me up some soda?“
“Sure thing, dear, let me just get my nomex on.“
The narration isn’t so hot, but I’m not one to turn down footage of my beloved 550.
Update: Watching this again this morning, I particularly find hilarious the narrator’s insistance in saying “Five Hundred Fifty” and “Three Hundred Fifty-Six”. Does she refer to the 911 as the “Nine Hundred Eleven”?
Categories
The New Porsche Museum Is Open!
And apparently it has been for a week—I must be slipping.
I’ve been to more than a few automotive museums and occasionally I am struck by the exhibit ornamentation. The settings in which the cars are placed in certain sections of the Petersen, for example, are incredibly well done and have served as inspiration for the garages of many gearheads, I’m sure. The new Porsche museum, however, eschews elaborate exhibits and displays 80 Porsches in 60,250 square feet of spare white space. The net result is that this museum feels more like a modern art museum than a car collection. Which I’m sure you’ll agree in this case is appropriate.
The vast array of 356s, 550s (mmmmm), 917s, 904s, 908s, and others are, of course, the main attraction, but the building also houses the Porsche Archives: A collection of more than 1,000 hours of film and 3,000 books. Just think of what I could put on the Chicane with just a few hundred hours of research time there. Now where did I put that grant application?
Sports Car Digest has some wonderful photos (including the photo above)
Flickr member tericee visited the museum and has a lovely collection of photos as well.
Porsche’s official information page is here.
More home movies of classic races keep bubbling up on YouTube and I couldn’t be happier.
This time, we’ll see some 8mm film of the 1969 Nurburgring 1000km. 1969 was the 2nd of 4 straight years of Porsche 908 victories at the Ring. Brian Redman and Jo Siffert led a contingent of 908s to a 1-2-3-4-5 Porsche victory. Crazy! Ford GT40 #1081 piloted by Helmut Kelleners and Reinhold Jöst was the top non-Porsche at 3 laps behind the leader.
We so often associate the 908 with the Targa Florio that it’s easy to forget the dominant victories it had on other tracks. There’s a new book coming out on the 908, Porsche 908: The Long Distance Runner, that Amazon is taking pre-orders on, but I can’t seem to find a release date for the book. Scratch that, it looks like the book is due out on March 15, 2009.
Know anything more about it? Let’s hear it in the comments.
A Lotus Chassis. A Porsche 4-cam. Is it the best of both worlds? George Follmer probably thought so.
George spent a good bit of the early 60’s lapping Southern California tracks in a variety of Porsches before he got the itch to move into sports prototypes. Naturally, a Lotus 23 fits the bill nicely. He set about modding the chassis to accept a Porsche 550 motor, before ultimately swapping it for the newer 904 powerplant. With the help of former Shelby American team-member, Bruce Burness, George knocked together one hell of a combination.
The 1,966 cc motor just eeks under 2-liters, and soon proved to be highly competitive in the class; taking 3rd in her debut race. The real beauty of the car though, was it’s consistency. Several weeks later, after a string of podiums and after their first class-win, the team realized that their point totals put them not only at the top of the class, but in the outright points lead for the the USRRC series. After an additional string of class wins at Bridgehampton, the Glen, and others; one maneater of a race was all that remained to determine if this little scrapper of a 2-liter car would steal the outright championship away from the big-bore boys. The Road America 500 Miles race.
Road America remains a giant of a track by American standards. For a low-powered (comparatively) car, 500 miles of it would be quite a task. But George finished 3rd behind Jim Hall’s mighty Chaparrals, clinching both the class and overall championships. George Follmer, of course, went on to a very successful career through the 70’s; racing everything from Formula 1 and Can-Am, to Nascar and Trans-Am. I’m guessing this little Lotus-Porsche remained a favorite of his despite the impressive array of machinery he would later compete in.
Today, Gooding & Co. offers the ex-George Follmer Lotus 23 through their private sales department. Wearing it’s original Trans Ocean Motors team livery, she’s a remarkably beautiful car. I particularly like the hand painted team logo and engine-turned gold leaf number 16. Gorgeous!
You can read the complete results of the Road America 500 Miles 1965 at the encyclopedic Racing Sports Cars results database.
The Porsche 904 once owned by renowned collector/museum curator/tycoon/lucky bastard Yoshibo Matsuda is currently among the cars for sale by German dealer Jan Lühn. Ordinarily the non-racing owner of a car doesn’t improve it’s provenance terribly, but Mr. Matsuda is no ordinary car collector. In the 1970s and 80s, Matsuda started pickup up exotic Porsches: the first Porsche to win outright at LeMans (a 917), a 910 Spyder, a 550 Spyder, an RSK Spyder, a 906, 908. The guy’s collection was no joke. So fantastic was it, that he opened a historic Porsche museum in Tokyo. After several years, Mr. Matsuda decided to shake things up and sold off the bulk of his collection and replaced them with historically significant Ferraris and hung a new sign on the door of his museum. I understand that he’s now sold off the Ferraris as well.
But getting back to Porsche 904-092. The car was originally delivered in 1964 to gentleman F1 driver, Count Carel de Beaufort. This 904 was his third—he also owned 904-019 (which he raced at Sebring), and 904-072 (which was crashed by his friend Gerard van Lennep).
The Count only owned 904-092 for a short time before selling it to England, where it was raced by Patrick Godfrey and Alain DeCadenet. After a short time in the states, Matsuda picked up the car in the late 70’s.
Such was Mr. Matsuda’s love for the 904, that he wrote an absolutely marvelous book on the history, development, and current whereabouts of the remaining 904s. I spent several years trying to track down a copy of “Porsche 904 GTS Great Cars of Great Collections Volume 3”, with little luck. I finally tracked down a copy at online bookseller T.E. Warth Autobooks, but $180 seemed a bit steep. Ultimately I was able to order a copy from the publisher at cover price. Go order a copy right now, it’s an amazing book – and the price is fantastic when compared to the odd prices it’s fetching in the secondary market.
Mr. Matsuda sold the car at RM’s Monterrey Auction in 2000—for the now astonishingly low price of $264,000. (Is it wrong for me to hope that the current financial market causes classic car prices to tank and once again become attainable?). After that sale, however, the story becomes even more interesting. The Floridian buyer repainted the car to its original Silver color and shortly thereafter sold the car to a man in Germany. Incredibly, the German tracked down the car’s original twin-cam 4 cylinder Koenigswellen engine, which had been spending some time as a decorative piece in a retired Porsche engineer’s home. Now that is an art piece I’d love to have in my living room.
So now, impeccably maintained and newly reunited with her original engine after 25 years apart, Porsche 904-092 is available. Jan Lühn doesn’t list a price, but I’m sure they’ll be receptive to an offer of the $264,000 that this car fetched in 2000.
Sure they will.