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Porsche 917

The Porsche 917 was to become quite simply the fastest racing car of it's era and was even faster than it's contemporary Formula 1 equivalents.

The primary goal pushing the development of the 917 was to win Le Mans. In 1966 3 ford GT40s took 1st, 2nd and 3rd, followed by 3 Porsche Carrera 6s in 4th, 5th and 6th. The Carrera 6 along with the 910, 907 and the very succesfful 908 was to lay the grounding for development of a very special car. The key factor in the early development of Porsches racers was weight saving which was to give Porsches relatively small engined cars a fighting chance against much bigger capacity competition such as the Fords and Ferraris. Because the weight saving meant extremely light components, these components would suffer from fatigue after only one or two races, so Porsche took the decision to sell their successful racing cars to more than willing buyers after only one race. The effect this had was to help with funding the development of the next car and also was to dramatically speed up that development. The 917 project was to be headed by Ferdinand Piech, Ferry Porsche's nephew by his sister Louise. Piech got full approval for the 917 project in July 1968. The new projects mission was simply to dominate international racing against the powerful and well established Fords and Ferraris.

Weight saving was to be taken to such a degree as to have engine parts manufactured from glass fibre where this was possible.

The engine cooling fan was to shift 2400 litres of cooling air per second, 65% being directed at the cylinder heads and 35% at the cylinder barrels, with the fan only consuming 17bhp.

To be able to run from the start of the 1969 season meant an extremely tight development schedule and to accomodate this the Porsche team where working day and night and at weekends such was the enthusiasm of the relatively small team of very talented and driven engineers and designers. Parts where ordered straight from the drawing board and although weight saving was paramount duplicate parts of stronger materials where ordered where it was felt that there may be a risk of failure. For instance parts of Aluminium would be ordered alongside Magnesium parts and Steel parts would be ordered alongside Titanium parts. Even parts of completely new design would be duplicated with parts of a tried and tested design. This meant that if something did fail during a race then a judgement could be made to replace it with a more robust or well tested part.

The first bench runs of the new 180 degree V12s where to yield 540bhp, 15bhp more than the expected 525bhp.

On 12th March 1969 the first 917 was launched at the Geneva Salon, the price was £15,800 and this was to be paid in cash upon collection at the factory. The launch at Geneva was to catapult Porsche into the International limelight as a major German car manufacturer whereas before they had tended to remain in the shadows allowing there race successes to bring them notoriety. Within a week Porsche also unveiled there new 908 Spyder racing car. To the press this was a remarkable acheivement for a relatively small car manufacturer to release two racing cars in the same week.

In April 1969 the first Le Mans test run was taken, on one stretch the 917 was clocked at 216mph, this was a very fast car, but it wasn't particularly quick around a full lap. The handling and control was poor through the fast corners. However the average speed of the first runs was still a relatively good time for a new car at 143mph.

The car had been developed with weight saving in mind and also streamlining with little development on downforce. Downforce at the time was a fairly unknown quantity and was in it's infancy as a tool for getting a car round a track safely and quickly. In fact the long streamlined body of the new Porsche was creating lift which of course meant that the car had to be slowed to run through fast corners or control would be minimal and the car would be dangerous to drive. Some very quick development was done on spoilers which would move up into the airflow at the critical time for cornering safety.

Formula 1 cars had been experimenting with downforce and aerofoils but due to some accidents caused by aerofoils collapsing with disastrous results the FIA banned any moveable aerodynamic devices. However due to the influence on the FIA of one of the Porsche development team the FIA was persuaded to relax the rule for the Le Mans of 1969, the argument being that the 917 was the most interesting thing to happen to Le Mans since the advent of the big Fords and Ferraris and with this in mind the 917 would be withdrawn as it would be too dangerous to drive without the moveable spoilers.

Due to the extreme weight saving and streamlining development Porsche now had a car which was 30mph faster on the straight than anything else on the track, it was still unstable though on the corners so the overtaking strategy was to just follow cars through the corners and then blast past in the straights, although even on the straights the 917 would require a fair width of road for safety.

3 917s entered the 1969 Le Mans but none where to finish, 2 where works teams and one was a privateer driven by John Woolfe and Digby Martland. The first lap was to see disaster for the the private team and was also to have an effect on the Works teams, John Woolfe had pushed to be driving the first lap. He was a relatively unknown driver with little experience in international racing at this level and the 917 on this circuit was not a car for the inexperienced. The car spun at the White House bend after Woolfes wheels touched the grass, the car hit the barriers and the car exploded with full fuel tanks. Sadly John Woolfe died from his injuries. This was a bitter and disheartening blow for all the Porsche teams. The 2 works teams continued on only to be put out of the race by clutch bell housing problems. the only significant place for Porsche was a second place for a Porsche 908 behind a Ford GT40 driven by Jacky Ickx and Jack Oliver.

But that was 1969, 1970 was to become the start of an new era and the 917 was to usher in that new era by completely dominating the World Manufacturers Championship, winning four races with Rodriguez-Kinnunen, two with Siffert-Redman and one at Le Mans with Attwood-Herman.

One version of the Porsche 917 was capable of reaching 248.5 mph.

The next chapter is one of great success in almost every major event that the 917 would be entered into.

Here are the some of the results.