Porsche Picture of the Day !!

[2POINT7]

The blonde with Vic Elford in post #947 looks an awful lot like Leslie Mitcheltree, past vice president of the Peachstate Chapter of the PCA. I'm pretty sure that's who it is.

[Jens]

That little Zagatto #411 is adorable.

[Joe993]

So is the 166MM Barchetta the same as the "Red Barchetta" in the song by Rush?

[Flieger]

Indeed it is. Nice to know there is another Rush fan here. I thought I was the only one who knew about the song. It is a well-written song, if not the most hard-core rock-and-roll tune. Kind of a Mad-Max-esque theme about a world after peak oil. Sound familiar?

<iframe width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/FAvQSkK8Z8U" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[Flieger]

By the way, the correct pronunciation of the "ch" is generally regarded to be a harder "k" sound as in "cat", rather than the songs "ch" as in "church". I heard that Rush were told this after releasing the song, then they made up a story that the narrator was in a world after the Barchetta and so knew little about it, like the pronunciation.

I did not know that it was inspired by a Road and Track article, though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Barchetta

[John Z Goriup]

Day twohundred-fifteen

With patience, a little more luck in the future and continuing to unwittingly find myself in the right place at the right time, I think we'll achieve something I did not even consider at the time of the first post last New Year's Day........: to actually have posted photos of every air-cooled Porsche type made. As stated in Day 1 you'll never find water-cooled 911s, sedans or SUV here, but other than those, I believe we'll have covered all the other models by year-end.

A significant step towards that new & unexpected objective is today's series of shots of a Porsche Beutler. There was an initial series of 6 convertibles built by the two Swiss-based Beutler brothers firm while the Porsches were still operating out of Gmünd. In spite of some alleged disagreements concerning the end-users point of contact to get their Beutler serviced ( Ferry felt customers should deal with Porsche and its dealers exclusively, while the Beutlers had insisted on always maintaining direct contact with buyers of their products ), and due to lack of the capacity to engage in building the number of cars Ferry had in mind at the time, Reuter ( from whom Porsche rented a corner of their factory in Zuffenhausen when they moved production to Stuttgart ) became the coach builder of choice. Beutler continued to build a small number of VW & 356 Porsche based four seat coupes up until about 1960. The VW pan was preferred because it offered almost a foot longer wheelbase, thus simplifying the accommodations for the four seat arrangement. The presence of a Porsche drive train, running gear, and several important exterior elements, ( hood handle, door handles, badges, bumpers, grilles, etc. ) all bear testimony that the parting of ways in the early '50s couldn't have been too acrimonious.

These are extremely rare cars, with less than a dozen apparently having been produced. Unfortunately I was unable to obtain additional information regarding this particular '58 vintage car.

[John Z Goriup]

Day twohundred-sixteen

At RR III there was a strong contingent of 9 owners from the Mexico City area who brought a total of 15 cars I believe...........with some nicely done and well maintained historic examples among them.

Todays subject is one of those 15, a '74 3.0 RSR.

[John Z Goriup]

Day twohundred-seventeen

Major changes at all levels swept through the Porsche organization during the years of '72 & '73. Henceforth, all family members would act in ownership roles exclusively instead of being assigned to key management positions, and a racing policy was announced which would concentrate on customer-entered and campaigned, production-car based entries in Group 4 GT. Luckily Martini & Rossi, the Vermouth & drinks Company stepped up & offered to sponsor a factory Group 5 racing program, allowing a factory based racing effort to continue. Norbert Singer was placed in charge of the Racing Department.

It was widely expected that the FIA / ACO rules would change in '74 & '75 as well, favoring production-based machinery in a new "Silhouette" Class, as opposed to the large displacement prototypes. A displacement limit of 3 liters was in effect for Group 5 entries, but, a 1.4 equivalency factor for supercharged engines ( exhaust or mechanically driven ) would allow Porsche to fall back on their recent, hugely successful experience in turbocharging cars like the 917 / 10 & 917 / 30, resulting in the 2142cc turbocharged '74 911 RSR Turbo Carrera, the full official designation for todays iconic subject............Porsches car of choice to compete against the lighter, much more pure racing cars entered by the competition.

To lighten the car as much as safely possible, "stock" RSR bodyshells were employed but had their oil tanks moved to the location previously occupied by the fuel tank, which was moved to the approximate center of mass, i.e. next to the passenger seat, resulting in a permanent 30/70% weight distribution, and in the rear the stock torsion-bar tube and box-shaped longitudinal and cross members were simply discarded and replaced with a strong aluminum tubing sub-frame to support the air-cooled, flat six, single KKK turbocharged & inter-cooled motor and 915 transmission. At 20 to 22 psi of boost the engine would be good for approx. 475 to almost 500 HP, but it was the 365 ft.lbs of torque this package developed reliably that were the good and bad news.........astonishing performance, but the transmission was at its absolute capacity limit, causing several subsequent DNFs.

Aerodynamically, the rear was radically altered to a much flatter, flush rear window, and a huge wing which so dominated the rear section of the car, that Ferry personally ordered it painted black to minimize the visual impact of this enormous appendage. To aid cooling & airflow the rear panel was simply left off, exposing the engine & turbo. The rear quarter windows were sheeted over with aluminum panels with NACA ducts to provide for engine cooling.

Titanium coil-springs replaced T-bars F & R, and Fuchs 10-1/2" and 17" wide F & R wheels were used. Weight was in the 1820 lbs ( up from a planned 1650 lbs ) range with a top speed of nearly 190 mph.

What made this model so sensational was the fact that here was a production 911 based race car, competing against specially developed, pure dedicated race cars ( Matra, Alfa-Romeo, etc ) and doing spectacularly well. In the '74 24 Hours of LeMans race, the Van Lennep / H. Muller driven #22 RSR placed second overall, and would surely have won the race had the transmission not lost all but 3rd & 4th gears.

[Jens]

An astonishingly good car, and very well represented here John. One of my all-time favorite liveries. Martini!

[Flieger]

Remind me again, where did it place second? Dijon or something? I don't feel like pulling out my books.

Also, I believe it ran in group 6, not group 5.