Le Mans Car

A 1970 John Wyer/Gulf Porsche 917K (chassis # 917-013) in 2006. Photo by Brian Nelson from Hockley, Essex, England

The 24 hours of Le Mans, 1970.

An odd car was entered into the race and completed 282 laps – quite an accomplishment considering it was underpowered compared to most other competitors, was carrying additional weight, and its aerodynamics were dramatically impacted by the added objects. The car was a Porsche 908/02 owned by the actor, Steve McQueen. What made it less competitive were the cameras it carried. It was the camera car to obtain film footage of the actual race for a movie coming out in 1971. It not only had to make the regular pit-stops, but also additional ones to load more film. It still finished in 9^th place. (By the way, Porsche is a two-syllable word – pronounced close to ‘porsh-eh’, where the sound is like a mix of a short ‘e’ and ‘uh’, but certainly not ‘porsh’…)

In June, 1971, the movie, Le Mans, was released in the U.S. It was a fictionalized film about the race and one of its drivers (played by Steve McQueen). It also starred the Porsche 917. Specifically, the 917K (for Kurzheck – ‘short tail’). The 917K was the culmination of development and testing by the John Wyer Gulf Racing Team. The original long-tailed 917L (Langheck) was more teardrop shaped with smoother aerodynamics giving it a lower drag coefficient. It was a great machine for acceleration with its flat, air-cooled, 12-cylinder engine, but it was a handful to drive. It was considered dangerous by many who drove it because it was so unstable at high speed. By shortening the tail and raising it to create more down-force (but also increasing drag), the car became a little more wedge-shaped and much more stable. The increased drag was not a problem. That 4.5-liter 12-cylinder engine developed 520 horsepower in a car that weighed under 2000 lbs. For comparison, a current Ford Taurus weighs between 3900 and 4400 pounds and has a maximum of 365 horsepower. It could accelerate from 0-60 mph in 2.5 seconds and had a top speed of about 250 mph – the Porsche, not the Ford!

(As a side note – the open-top 917/30 used in the 1973 Can-Am races had a 5.4-liter engine with twin-turbochargers. It literally had an adjustment nicknamed the “horsepower screw” with which the turbo boost pressure could be adjusted up or down depending on the needs dictated by the race track conditions. At low pressure, the engine developed only 1100 horsepower…at high pressure, it reached 1580 horsepower – in a car weighing 1800 pounds!)

The Porsche 917K used in the movie (chassis # 917-024) was owned by Jo Siffert and leased by the production company. For the movie, it was painted in the light blue and orange colors of John Wyer’s Gulf Oil Racing Team. (As mentioned in a previous post, my own Porsche was the same Crystal Blue color.) During filming, the engine was damaged and to locate a replacement, they contacted the Porsche factory. Porsche was going to get some publicity from this film, so they were happy to loan the filmmakers an engine – but it had to be returned as soon as possible because they needed it. The filming finished, the engine was removed and returned to Porsche, and the car…disappeared…

In 2002, in a barn outside of Paris, the car finally turned up. It had been sold to a French enthusiast and had apparently been housed there collecting dust the whole time. It was sitting largely undamaged on the now rock-hard Firestone racing tires from the 1970s, despite the Goodyear sticker on the nose. The damage was done by a family of mice who had taken up residence and chewed up the electrical system. How and why it was parked and left are the questions, but it is considered the most original 917 left in the world. All of the other 917s have been wrecked and repaired, cannibalized, or scrapped. Another oddity – when last seen, in the movie, the car was marked with the number 22, but mysteriously, when discovered, it had the number 65 on it. Why? And where did that Goodyear logo come from and why was it stuck on there? The car still had no engine, but as restoration began, one was located in the U.S. The efforts may have concluded now, but the car was still undergoing restoration in 2014. No expense has been spared in making this car as original as possible.

It has got to be one of the most amazing barn finds ever!

The “Number 22” Porsche 917K during filming. Photographer unknown.