Porsche Transporter

[MarkP]

This one is in the U.S. - imported with the other restored one - said to be for sale, not cheap, needs total resto.

[stchilds]

I got the transporter and the service van from peoplekars@aol.com. phone #1-518-573-3452 in the New York area. They had more as of last week! Good luck.

They are great models!

Stephen

[racemor]

This shot is a little out of focus, but here's the one I got from PeopleKars at the Lit show.

[platas]

Guys i just got back from Stuttgart and will be returning in a couple of weeks, if some one is intrested in the transporter i will see how many they have, i did see one there.

[CurtEgerer]

I got the Martini version today .....

[CurtEgerer]

Some interesting reading from another forum (Atlas F1). I've compiled several posts into one to make this easier to read:

"olddude2"
Reference post #954, Porsche Race Transporter.

I was envolved in the restoration and the wicker baskets were not part of the deal. The currrent owner (Brumos Racing) added them. Probably carried snacks! The Brumos people do everything at a very high quality level and probably thought that the wicker baskets were a good, period correct, way to carry misc. items. I think they are kind of neat.

The Amelia Concours sign is not technically correct. Mercedes offered a "Cut Off" version of their city and highway buses. Porche purchase three of them. They were delivered to the Schenk truck body company, who them built them to a design provided by Porsche. The red and white sticker visible in one of the side view photos is the Schenk sticker.

You comented about the paint job and that is an interesting story. When the restoration was nearly finished and it was time to arrange for the painting a new problem came up. The original paint scheme included painting of the top. The truck/trailer paint shop that had been originally scheduled to do the work couldn't paint the top. While they regularly painted tractor trailers, their paint booth was not tall enough to paint the top. It seems that none of the tractor trailers have painted tops. It was necessary to take it to an airplane paint shop. Since the paint shop normally painted multi million dollar jets, the quality of the paint job (and price) was well beyond what normally would be expected.

As part of the team that restored the vehicle seen at Amelia Island, I am able to answer some of the questions. Unfortunately my files with all of the research and background information are now in a document stporage facility. We have recently moved and have not yet constructed the new building with the office. For safe keeping we have over 150 file boxes with my 50 year collection of car documents and automobilia temporarily in a enviornmentally controlled storage unit. I will therefore answer some of the questions from memory and the few documents, I have in hand.

There definately were 3 Mercedes chassis/Porsche transporters. When this one was acquired from the Porsche Racing Department, a second one was also sold. It now resides in California and is in unrestored condition. We were told by Porsche that the third one had been sold a number of years prior, to a private German racing team. After it became too rusty to pass TUV inspection, it was scrapped. When John Wyer Automotive Engineering (Gulf Racing) got the 917 contract, they recieved 2 of them and painted them blue and orange. The third stayed with Porsche in the burgandy color. Someplace there exists a photo of the LeMans paddock in 1970 showing the one transporter still in the burgandy color. I think it was used by the Porsche Salzburg team for their entries (and their winning car, the red #23 917). Some photos show that JW Automotive used their old English transporters for LeMans.

The Mercedes chassis used was the 317. In fact, I still have copies of the "Kraftfahrzeugbrief" and it shows the "Typ" as "0 317". The "Fabrinummer" starts out "317.234-10-.........". I believe the "234" means that this chassis was sold as a "cutoff", i.e. the only body work was the front part. It is my recollection that this is how it was shown in the parts book that I no longer have. It went to Brumos. The engine was a type 346 Mercedes diesel. It was a 6 cylinder engine, laying on it's side in the center of the chassis, i.e. half way between the front and rear axles.

I understand that the hydraulic lift gate was one of the first used on a race car transporter. We had a tough time getting it to work properly. It moved up and down quite quickly and with the balky slides, one side or the other would get ahead. The mechanism for leveling it consisted of a valve to bleed off the hydraulic pressure on one side.

Another interesting feature on the one we restored was a provision to make the attachment points on the cables on the lift gate be further apart. The handle on the sliding shaft can be seen in the photo in the post by Schlepper that shows the 910. I understand that this was done to provide clearance for the wider body on the 917 "Pig" that Porsche ran at leMans in 1971.

Someday, when I again have access to my files, I will post more information and maybe some photos of the restoration process.

[CurtEgerer]

continued ........

"rhegra"

Indeed very interesting information about the Porsches, olddude and Tarpon, thanks a lot. The story of two of them at JW is very interesting. If you take a closer look at the photos of 1976 Le Mans at the Martini-fan web site you´ll see that 9003´s (the one with the Martini-Logo in front) backdoors and loading space is Gulf-blue, 2187 (the one with the Martini-belts in front) is maroon and white. Even in Essex-times you can see these different colours of the backs.
So I think it´s clear that one (or the) transporter lent to JW in 70 and 71 (together with a small Mercedes 608 too as you can see at the auto-forum site) is the later 9003.
But the foto in "french kiss with death" shows (one of) the JW-Mercedes had YZ 32. So again - one or two at JW... or YZ 32 had an accident (any proofs for this, Tarpon?) in 71 to 76 and was rebuilt as 9003. 9003 and YZ 32 are identically in one small detail (except of the different Logos and the mirrors) that can´t be changed easily - take a look at the hold in the middle of the two front windows - at YZ 32 and 9003 it´s above the window-line fixed at the window frame between the two windows, at 2187 its lower fastening is fixed under this line at the metal. So again - YZ 32 and 9003 are identically ? and both of them were lent to JW, one got back to Porsche (9003) and the other one was sold or lent to another german race-team (in 1973 an identical looking 0307 can be seen at the Nurburgring-paddock painted white with the stripes of BMW-Motorsport). In 1980 (as the two Porsches had Essex-livery or only X- (left from the EsseX-livery) such a transporter can be seen used by Helmut Marko at the Norisring (still with the BMW-painting at the front-doors (and a gulf-blue painting underneath the backdoors???) - so this one shouldn´t be one of the ones used by Porsche in 76/77.
http://www.racingsportscars.com/pho...-06-22p-088.jpg
So I think there were indeed three different (Porsche-like)transporters in those times between 1973 and the 1980ies - two all the times at Porsche (or Wyer) and the one Marko used in 1980 (maybe the former YZ 32? - because YZ 32 dissappeared after JW?).
M 2187 stayed all the times at Porsche and was painted maroon, not Gulf-blue and orange! (it´s the maroon one seen near a 71 Gulf-917 LH), silver (martini), white (martini), in Essex- in ....X- and in Rothmans-livery.
And the other one(s)? I personally think it is the old 9003 of 1969. But this mystery has to be solved.
By the way olddude - in the "Fahrzeugbrief" there should be the date of "Erstzulassung" (date of first road registration) - this could be helpful (I think 2187 was produced a little bit later than the other ones...)
By the way - silly what grown-up men are thinking about... (but in Germany we say - if kids play they are healthy...)

"olddude2"

Ref: Porsche Transporters
To answer your last question first, the Kraftfahrzeugbrief shows that it was issued 1 Aptil 1969.

As for the question of the JW Gulf Transporters, I have some information coming from another direction. About 17 years ago, I did some detailed history research on the Porsche 917. I had access to a lot of the correspondence between Porsche and JW Automotive Engineering. From this correspondence there is a letter (a copy, of which, I have in hand) from Helmut Flegl (Porsche's 917 project manager) where in addition to a lot of things about 917's, he makes note of the use of "Transporter, polizelieches Kenzeichen S-C 9003" being used to transport a crashed 917. The very next paragraph states that 5 "Reifen" were being supplied for "Transporter, polizelieches Kenzeichen S-YZ 32". The letter is dated: 20.10.1970. This would clearly establish that both "9003" and "S-YZ 32" were with JW Gulf at the same time.

As a side piece of information, the Flegl letter also mentions "Mercedes-Werkstattwagen, polizelieches Kennzeichen S-YX 925" I assume that this is the identity of the small Mercedes truck seen in some photos.

The comment about a similar transporter fits my recollection of someone at Porsche (I think Jurgen Barth) telling us that the third one was sold to a private team. In fact I have some thoughts that he did tell us it was a BMW team.

To add further information on 2187, when we purchased it it was in Rothmans livery (plus rust!). Underneath the white and blue we found white (Essex?), silver (Martini?), and burgandy.

I will admitt to be an old man still playing with toys. In USA we say, "You are never too old to have a happy childhood".

I think the photo (below) at LeMans showing the blue on top, orange in the center, transporter, is the English chassis transporter from the previous year's Gulf Team. For another photo of the Porsche Gulf Transporter, look in Automobile Quarterly, Vol. 9, No. 2, page 177, in the article "Porsche: The Cars to Beat". This one is also orange at the top. The license plate number "S-YZ-32" is also readable which answers the other queation.

The mystery will last until a lucky man find a picture of the two gulf Mercedes ...At the beginning of 1969 Porsche decided to make Gulf WYER its official team ,but F.Piech creates Porsche SALZBURG ,its team used the burgundy transporter on the picture ,and it was a Salzburg 917 which won Le Mans ,has he kept one of the trucks previously dedicated to Gulf .As you see ,JWA did not used it.

[CurtEgerer]

A new 1:43 transporter model just released:

[URY914]

Here it is at RR III...

[URY914]

another from RR III