Tag: Porsche

Le Mans Car

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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 9th 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!

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

Porsche – again…

In a previous post, I described a near-accident in a Porsche and how its extraordinary capabilities both got me into and out of trouble. It is the blessing and curse of driving a high-performance car and not paying attention to or respecting that fact. I also mentioned there was another incident in that car where I believe it saved my life or at least prevented serious injury.

I was headed from Amarillo to the city of Canyon, 19 miles away, for a fraternity gathering. It was 10:00 on a Friday night and I was running late…

I had made that trip many times and knew the roads very well. Just south of the city limits of Amarillo, I was on a familiar, but very lightly traveled country road. I was observing the 65 mph speed limit before rounding a curve onto a long, straight stretch with a slight drop before a small incline in the middle of that stretch. To make up some time, I increased my speed…to 110. With my halogen lights on, I could see fairly well, but quite honestly, not for that speed. Then, way off in the distance, I saw the taillights of a car ahead.

“Knowing my luck, that’s a cop…” I backed off of the accelerator some. I was now heading into that slight down slope so my headlights were shining onto the road, not parallel to it because of the beginning of the slight upslope. My distance vision was radically reduced.

“What was that?” I thought I saw a small flash in front of me. I moved my foot from the accelerator to the brake. I reached the bottom of the slope at about 95. When the headlights were shining parallel to the road again, I saw them! The flash had been the reflection of my headlights in a cow’s eyes!

Two black steers were walking head-to-tail across this narrow road. It was blocked! I hit the brakes hard but was so close I was upon the cows going somewhere between 70 and 80. I couldn’t go off road and around them at that speed, so I took my only option – go between them. Great idea, but the space was smaller than the width of the Porsche.

I hit the front leg of the second cow, then I felt it hit the side of the car and things got squirrely. The car headed left, so I cranked the steering wheel back to the right. The car got a little sideways pointed to the right and as I looked out across the grass on that side of the road, it looked flat, but there was a barbed wire fence probably 20 yards away. I remember thinking, “If I go off the road here, at least it’s flat. But I might hit that fence…” I twisted the steering wheel back to the left then adjusted to the right. The car fishtailed, straightened up and I pulled it off the road.

“There’s a dead cow in the road…I need to get it off the road before somebody else hits it!” I tried to open the driver’s door – no luck. I crawled over the shifter to the passenger seat, opened the door and stepped out. I walked around the front and looked at the u-shaped dent in the bumper. Then I looked at the completely collapsed left front fender that was shoved back against the door wedging it shut. As I walked to the back and saw the dent in the left rear fender, it was beginning to register that even if there is a cow on the road, I’m not going to be able to drag over a thousand pounds of literally dead weight off the pavement. But I did want to see if the cow survived. It was nowhere to be found! I knew he couldn’t have gone far because the dent in the bumper said his leg must be broken…

I walked to a nearby farmhouse and called the Department of Public Safety. When they arrived, they agreed that the cow couldn’t have gone far. Shining their spotlights at the fence, they noted that the fence was down. Texas is not an open-range state, so the cows were definitely guilty of jaywalking.

When they finally located the cow, it was dead. Its neck was broken. It was lying in a ditch hidden by tall grass on the left side of the road. When they were finished, they told me I could drive the car home. There was only one problem. By then, my father had come to pick me up and using a crowbar, we couldn’t bend the metal fender off of the left front wheel enough for me to turn the steering wheel more than an inch in either direction!

Saturday was very sobering intellectually and emotionally. I went back to the scene of the crime. On the left side of the road was the hidden ditch where we found the cow, but on the other side of the road, was another hidden ditch about 10 feet wide with a 6-foot drop-off. Based on the skid marks, it was where I thought the ground to the right was flat. It would have been much worse had I gone off the road there! At that point during the accident, I remember turning the steering wheel through more than 90-degrees in each direction from center. Afterward, I couldn’t move it more than about 10-degrees because of the fender collapsed around the wheel.

The car was back on the road in three weeks – a testament to Porsche’s engineering and construction quality. I have no good explanation why the steering wheel turned so easily during the accident and almost not at all afterward…other than to say that my faith that God has a plan for me was strengthened.

Don’t Be Looking Over My Shoulder!

A few days ago, my daughter’s car was parked behind mine in our driveway.  As she moved her car while I backed out, I noticed that one of the headlights of her car was not working.  Obviously, that would need repair before dark if possible.  A little bit later, we swapped vehicles, leaving me the cyclopean car.

Working on cars is not like it used to be.  In my younger days, I didn’t hesitate to tackle any maintenance job – rebuilding the engine in my parents’ old station wagon, replacing the clutch in my Porsche, rebuilding the disc brakes of my SAAB 900 Turbo, and so on…  The automobile manufacturers have not cooperated, however, and it has become increasingly difficult to do even the simplest things.  I pulled up a YouTube “How To…” video showing the necessary steps to replace the headlight bulb on a Ford.  Amazingly, it can be done without the full resources of a dedicated auto rebuild facility.  I opened the hood and in two minutes was holding the dead bulb. I headed to the nearby parts store confident that this was not going to require a second mortgage to pay for the repair. I was right!  The new bulb was less than $40 – but still an outrageous price for a light bulb.

After paying for the parts, I walked out and decided to do something that is very unusual for me.  Normally, I would go home to make the repair, but this was such a simple job, I would just raise the hood and install the bulb before I left. I opened the car door, removed the bulb from its packaging, applied the silicone grease, and opened the hood.

As I bent over the engine of the Ford to replace the bulb, I had just stopped moving when I heard a flapping noise to my left and behind me.  I turned my head in that direction and caught just a glimpse of shiny black movement.  As I turned my head back toward the engine, I felt it…a large bird had just landed on my back!  I have no idea what he was thinking because I was definitely a moving landing site!  I was not sure if he thought he could pick me up and carry me away, if he had been influenced by Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” or if he thought I was a pirate and he was my parrot.  I was not comfortable with this arrangement no matter what his thinking!  Not to mention that he was distracting and I was busy.  I tried to reach back and brush him off – he just hopped farther up toward my shoulders. I quickly twisted and raised up.  That got his attention and he apparently decided my back was not sufficiently stable after all.  I heard more flapping, felt the weight lift and caught a glimpse of black wings heading off to my right side…

I straightened up, but he was gone.  I don’t know what type of bird he was – he was big enough to be a medium-sized crow.  At least he didn’t claw or peck.  Fortunately, he also didn’t leave a messy reminder of his visit!

I don’t know what he was thinking, but I do know this – even simple car repairs now have new and unexpected consequences, delays and risks…and I REALLY don’t like somebody looking over my shoulder while I work!