68 911T Homoligation

[Rennman]

I am trying to find out the difference between the 68T with a Porsche body vs. a Karman body. The 68T was homoligated for group 3 but only for the Porsche body cars. It is my understanding the Porsche T was lighter than the Karman T as well as the Porsche body T being the lightest of the 911s excluding the R of course. What would make these cars lighter? Is it more than the deletion of undercoating/less undercoating and no sound pads? The only difference that I can see between a T and an S are the decos and carpet which does not add up to much. A lot of these 68Ts were used/converted for racing (the Hart Ski car comes to mind as well as the Gulf blue Gulf rally car) as well as to homoligate the T Rally so I am trying to find out the rest of the story on these almost forgotten cars. I have an Ivory 68T that was ordered with LSD, Konis, S instruments and tank and has some cues that it saw some action.

Don

[Flieger]

I thought it was all because Porsche homologated it with no luxury options and smaller wheels and everything else was the lightest it could be. The S had all the luxo stuff so had to run heavier. But the T could get all the S performance options and run at the lower weight since the homologation was based on the standard car.

[Rennman]

There really is not much in the way of luxury on the S that adds up to much weight to account for the difference in cars but the main question is why are the 68 T Karman cars not homoligated and why is the Porsche body T lighter?

Don

[911T1971]

The main question is why are the 68 T Karman cars not homoligated ?
Don

Maybe factory build cars would be relegated into compet/homologation while still on the manufacturing process line. Why ship Karmann bodies from Osnabrück if they would be built to spec's next door.

[HughH]

I am trying to find out the difference between the 68T with a Porsche body vs. a Karman body. The 68T was homoligated for group 3 but only for the Porsche body cars.
Don

Don

I am interested in where you got the information that the 68T was only homologated for the Porsche built bodies and not the Karmann ones.

my reading of the FIA 577 document which homologates the 1968T into Gp 3 is that it applies from chassis number 118.20001 onwards. see below

Given Porsche build bodies are all 118.20xxx they clearly qualify , but why don't the Karmann 118.25xxx ones? They still start with 118.2 and just because the next number is 5 should not disqualify them as 5 is greater than 0.

The ex 1969 targa florio class winner 118.25233 (car #86 at that event), currently for sale at Elevenparts is apparently a documented Gp 3 car, rebuilt as such at the werks and obviously by its chassis number was a Karmann car.

I know you have a lot of history with these cars, and have owned quite a few, so I was particularly interested in your views on this.

[Rennman]

Hugh,

I have experience with some of the SWB Factory race cars but not the T so much. At Rennsport I spoke with a gentleman who races a Rally Spec 68 T groupe 3 car and he gave me this information. I was trying to confirm the information he gave me.

Don

[HughH]

thanks Don

it sounds like some further work is required - but I suspect the information you were given may be incorrect. That said all of the competition 68T's I have records for, except the one mentioned above, have Porsche built bodies.

i don't think i have anything else but will look for you

One thing to ponder though is that I thought 1000 units needed to be produced in 1968 to be homologated in group 3, and that is what is showing on the page I posted above. Given Porsche only produced 928 T coupes and the other 638 were Karmann bodies, I cant see how the Karmann ones could have been excluded.

regards

hugh

[gulf908]

Don,

Just a couple of thoughts to throw into this discussion.
Production 911 Ts -
There should be no or little difference in the weights of a Porsche or a Karmann 911 T.
Porsche would have asked Karmann to build 911s they were not able to do,production-wise,and given Karmann jigs and measurements so Karmann could build these excess 911s for Porsche and to Porsche's standards.
Why would there be any significant difference in weights between the two ?
As Hugh says,adding the two production numbers together qualifies the T for group 3.
This should be where Karmann's involvement in the excercise would end,not on the track.
Race/Rally 911 Ts -
These should have been built to order in Porsche's customer race department ,or whatever it was called in the day, alongside any R and T/R orders they received.
This is how Alan Hamilton ordered his orange 911 T/R in 1968 for Australian racing.
I can't see Karmann being in the position to have a race car department - their business was building cars,not racing them.
Just my 0.02c worth ...

Cheers,
Dennis.

[Bantam]

Don

Sorry I didn't make myself very clear......I was suggesting that maybe the car(s) presented for weight verification (I don't believe 500 or 1000 thousand would have been weighed) were not quite "standard" and that with the additional weight saving of the deletion of the front bumper weights, cars that appeared to be of standard production established the homologation weight. If there is anything in this then it would probably preclude Karman "standard" production.

All of the above could be way off the mark but I have noticed that even things like the photos of the car used on some of the homologation documents could raise questions:

FIA Homologation Document No. 577 (approval date 1/1/68) shows a car with tape rather than any bumper/sill trim and I believe rubber catches on the engine lid. The car in question also looks like a '67 model year car?

FIA Homologation Document No. 607 (approval date 1/1/69), so well into the '69 model year, shows a '68 model year car with full bumper and sill trim.

........the point I am trying to make is that we tend to look back at these documents etc and take the fact that they have "FIA" printed on them as a sign of definitive historical record when maybe they were subject to some "inconsistencies".

[blue72s]

One thing to ponder though is that I thought 1000 units needed to be produced in 1968 to be homologated in group 3, and that is what is showing on the page I posted above. Given Porsche only produced 928 T coupes and the other 638 were Karmann bodies, I cant see how the Karmann ones could have been excluded.

I know what you mean but there's a typo on that page you posted above - the typed date (30. November 1967) should have been on the 500, not 1000. Read Article 262 in the Sport Purposes manual, here: