The original Porsche 917 was a "wild and crazy guy" given that it was almost undriveable and potentially deadly. Brian Redman got out of the original 1969 test mule and did not want to get back in, stating "it was incredibly unstable, using all the road at speed."
Porsche had so much trouble getting the 917 to work properly on the race track that they contracted arch-rival John Wyer Racing, who had been regularly beating them with their beautifully prepared Gulf colors Ford GT40s to do the development work on the car. Wyer's chief engineer, John Horsman, noticed a pattern of gnats smooshed on the bodywork, show the pattern of the airflow. The tail was clean of gnats, demonstrating that no aerodynamic downforce was being created at the tail.
They basically chopped the classic Porsche-style Langheck style tail off the back of the car and created a wedge-based design to obtain some real downforce at the rear, the Kurzheck (short tail) version, thus the designation: Porsche 917K.
The car depicted here ran at Daytona in the 24 hour endurance race in 1971 with Vic Elford and Gijs van Lennep sharing stints. Pretty!
The 1971 Martini Porsche 917K
The 1971 Martini Porsche 917K
Last edited by Puma Cat on Sun Aug 03, 2014 3:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: The 1971 Martini Porsche 917K
Thanks for synopsis 917K, once again the photos are stunning!
- StratosWRC
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Re: The 1971 Martini Porsche 917K
Indeed. I have two 917s. They say the rear end used to lift off on the Mulsanne! That must have been terrifying, especially in the rain. How they ever won with those things, I don't even know.
Re: The 1971 Martini Porsche 917K
Thank you very much for the nice words. And for putting one of the images on the Main page banner![KRAFTIG] wrote:Thanks for synopsis 917K, once again the photos are stunning!
Re: The 1971 Martini Porsche 917K
Back in the days when men were men and....oh, never mind!StratosWRC wrote:Indeed. I have two 917s. They say the rear end used to lift off on the Mulsanne! That must have been terrifying, especially in the rain. How they ever won with those things, I don't even know.
Re: The 1971 Martini Porsche 917K
No problem. Now its twoPuma Cat wrote:Thank you very much for the nice words. And for putting one of the images on the Main page banner![KRAFTIG] wrote:Thanks for synopsis 917K, once again the photos are stunning!
Re: The 1971 Martini Porsche 917K
Nice photos! It's gonna be a little cliche but, it looks too real.
I love the huge rear tires on this. Looks like stock drag cars from the back, little car, large tires. And still unstable? No matter how powerful a car is, it has to have downforce.
Who had the 'road version' of this?
I love the huge rear tires on this. Looks like stock drag cars from the back, little car, large tires. And still unstable? No matter how powerful a car is, it has to have downforce.
Who had the 'road version' of this?
Re: The 1971 Martini Porsche 917K
Another take on the 917K using black seamless.
Re: The 1971 Martini Porsche 917K
Great photos and model.
But this is not Le Mans winner.
This was raced in 1971 Sebring and didn't win the race.
AutoArt did the winner also as DE which has the same livery but red accents instead of yellow and is #3.
But this is not Le Mans winner.
This was raced in 1971 Sebring and didn't win the race.
AutoArt did the winner also as DE which has the same livery but red accents instead of yellow and is #3.
- StratosWRC
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Re: The 1971 Martini Porsche 917K
Didn't #22 win the race that year.
Re: The 1971 Martini Porsche 917K
My bad...I just noticed on the box this the car that ran at Daytona in 1971. I got it confused with the Martini car that ran at Le Mans.
Re: The 1971 Martini Porsche 917K
awesome pics...can't ever have enough 917's. I have the #3 Martini car (Sebring winner), but wouldn't mind picking up at least one more.