Trying to understand competition long-hood 911s and the Sports Purpose program

[911MRP]

I once or twice heard Vic Elford, the Monaco winner and racer, say that the 911 wasn’t designed to be a race car. It was a car to sell to the public.
He said he had to talk the factory into lending him one for a race, for a race on Corsica, he did well and then he talked them into a 911 for Monaco, after winning there the second year around, then he gave the impression that Porsche started to think the car could go racing more often.

This post with the well known story underlines the point I was making while the 911 was evidently long used in motorsport with much success, it wasn’t until the FIA meeting hosted by the ASN for the UK (the RAC) in London that the rule changes to be adopted that marginalised the prototypes such as 908, 917 thereby forced Porsche’s hand to take steps to reposition the 911 front and centre of the factory racing programme. That action was a deliberate strategy by the new non-family executives. Decision to set up a programme to invest to develop a limited edition homologation special the 911.744. This was in an unprecedented scale ( unit volume 500) and marked a very important point in the 911 models history. Of course the 911 had been supported in competition in parallel to the racing specials /prototypes with Sports Purpose etc and there had been 911R and others built in small numbers and often through. customers. Factory drivers used 911 in motorsport. But the 911 being front and centre of the factory racing efforts (rather than the specialised racers eg 904/906* through 917 having that role ) happened at the end of the pre impact bumper 911 era. The 911.744 ( aka Carrera RS/R) that won the Daytona 24 as M491 form in the first week Feb was actually entered as a prototype because the homologation of the Carrera RS was only certified early April 73 but the tale was spun as a 911 road car based model beating the prototypes — probably suited various stakeholders as that was the coming direction from the regulators plus rather the limited edition homolgaton programme that until that point despite selling out 500 examples was probably still financially underwater due to the unusual cost and effort from breaking just about every automotive operation principle to get 500 examples built in an odd way. The racing win in early fairly prominent event by a 911 based racer (even if with Brumos and perhaps fortunate due to more exotic competitor falling by wayside ) was no doubt seized upon as proof of bring on course. The restructuring KG to AG was underway and the new management replacing family in early stages so lot after as thus had been a difficult perhaps controversial set if changes and the RS no doubt a high profile test case. The wording of that win in the announcements and press is carefully chosen and makes interesting reading as strictly doweling still a prototype and not rally factory . As does Jenk’s in passing comments about the first appearance of the model that would become the Carrera RS in Austria in June 72 — it is noteworthy that the entry there was through customer Strahle ; while he notes it seemed a thinly veiled factory effort in I think group 5 with Waldegaard behind wheel it wasn’t yet actually a factory effort. After the RS homologation was certified 9th April 73 the important broader goal of the programme in context of racing was achieved. While the impetus came from their rule changes with limit of 3.0 litres and so forth it is recored by some writers the new CEO Furhmann was keen to make the link of Porsche factory racing more direct to the 911 models. The 917 continues in CANAM but the new direction was set.
Whatever the exact series of events and decisions of governing body and Porsche it was a deliberate choice and significant milestone in the motorsport history of the 911. The point being while the 911 has of course long been used in all manner of motorsport the 911R being a notable low volume example and there had been competition cars made and deployed over the years ( dubbed S/T T/R etc) there was in 72 a clear inflection point where in response to particular FIA CSI decision (and the uncomfortable truth of 2.5 911 variants being pressurised by blue oval Ford and other marques said famously observed and commented on at a race by a disappointed new CEO) the decisions by the new
Porsche professional executive/s at the helm set a clear strategy for the factory
racing approach even in the face of doubts (resistance) by VW-Porsche the sales and marketing JV. The outcome was that the 911 which had had been conceived as road car (and had in that with various parts and support had seen success in competition) truly took over the factory’s racing mantle from the “factory racing specials” such as the 917. And from that limited edition programme basis did so very well indeed seeing extraordinary rapid innovative development of the 911 that probably would have happened if the model remained in the shadow of the factory racing specials. Plenty 911 still bought and deployed in competition — ranging from important very professional well funded customer teams down to privateers … but it was different as despite rapid innovation and some incredible bodywork changes still was identifiable with “911” became the factory racing spearhead. An important inflection point and from that foundation a fabulous new period of success picking up from the bespoke specialised racer models like the fabulous 917. The 911 in various form R TR ST and many other modified forms has had long and great success in motorsport throughout its long lifecycle(s) —however it is possible to pinpoint when the 901/911 conceived as as a road car for the public first emerged from the shadow of its 906-917 pure race brethren to become the factory’s racing torchbearer.

Steve

*904/906 deemed street legal but their designs are more evidently racing cars compared to the then contemporary 911 that was intended (as noted in the Elford comment ) to be a road car.