Originally Posted by Ecurie Bowden
1971 911 2.2S
German Delivered factory RHD.
1st owner Porsche factory.
1st private owner Porsche factory 917 racer :)
In Australia since 1978.
Matching numbers.
Factory logbooks.
"VERSUCH" car with some cool and quirky options.
$POA.
It’s June 1971 and you’re driving a beautiful new 911S through the French country side. You know in the pit of your stomach, that a life defining weekend is about to start. You know that today, just like every other day that you strap yourself into your Gulf Wyer 917 Porsche, might be your last, but you’re now OK with that, it’s the other details that are stirring the pit of your stomach. After filing down a majestic row of oak trees, you drive into the Le Mans village square and you see a pretty blonde girl in a blue dress buying flowers, you stop at the intersection and stare out the window in her general direction. To the casual passer-by, you’re a handsome young man in a brand new Porsche 911S, looking at a pretty girl, nothing out of the ordinary there... Little do they know, you are staring past the girl, straight out into space, wondering to yourself; how the actual f#ck are you going to be quicker than Pedro… again…
Because the handsome young man isn’t Steve McQueen in a Slate Grey 911S “SB 2795”, and this setting isn’t the famous opening scenes of the cult flick Le Mans (AKA Greatest movie ever.) this is Jackie Oliver in a Signal Orange 911S “LEO ZA 24” and this isn’t a Hollywood production, Jackie’s life and his career is really on the line. The girls can wait until after the 1971 Le Mans 24Hr, he just has to go faster than Pedro… and then what about Seppi and Derek and Vic and Ickx and Richard and Gjis and Helmut and Herbert and Donohue in that bloody Penske, hot rod Ferrari…
Your team mates and peers are the hardest charging men on the planet and your seat is only there, because you are not only one of them, but on your day, you can beat them. Your Le Mans win in 1969 is an instant classic as is winning the Daytona 24Hr just recently, but your qualifying efforts just a few months ago, where you set an all- time fastest lap, that was 4.8 seconds faster than the next guy, has given them all notice. You do know they are all pushing harder than common sense allows, but you don’t know that your team-mates are pushing so damn hard, that Pedro has only weeks to live and Seppi only months. These are heady and dangerous times, but they have defined Porsche for the last 45 years and will forevermore, with Steve’s seminal movie “Le Mans” becoming a documentary of sorts, cementing the 917 era as one of, if not THE greatest of times. But right now, on the 11th of June 1971, you’re the fastest man in the Gulf - JWA team, enjoying a quiet moment in your 911S that Porsche gratefully gave you for your death-defying efforts and you’re staring far, far off into space, wondering how you can best Pedro et al… again…
How did all of this danger and high tension, coupled to such an amazing era, come about? With the FIA getting a dash parochial and ruling out the 7 litre monster GT40’s, Porsche saw an excellent opportunity to develop their beautiful 908, into the soon to be iconic 917, with its impressive 5 litre Flat 12. Ford Motor Company had won 4 x Le Mans 24Hr on the trot and Porsche could easily see that the mighty FOMOCO, were now of the opinion that the job was done and were looking to spend their mighty budget on USA soil. Their other great rivals Ferrari, had from 1965 onwards, no answer to the FOMOCO juggernaut and were “on the ropes”, in the terms of development; To quote David Piper; the “512 was a Truck”. Dr Ferry, Ferdy Piech and Helmut Bott could see great things looming and acted accordingly.
Just a quick indulgent observation about Ferrari please: The makers of the “World’s greatest sports cars” have not won the Le Mans 24Hrs, the world’s greatest Sports car race, for over 50 years. Ahem… If the red team could please remove thy finger…
The 917 was by anyone’s standards a rushed development and she had a few idiosyncrasies on introduction; trying to kill the occupant was a major one. Our own Frank Gardner and privateer extraordinaire David Piper, finally tamed the beast at the Nurburgring 1000 in 1969 and with a few aero and chassis tips from Frank, they started to make the beautiful 917 a little bit friendlier.
The 1970 917 was a different animal to the 69 variant, and the results sheet show it. A golden era of Porsche sports car dominance had dawned and they stamped their authority with typical German precision and early-era aero beauty, that’s now sadly redundant. The cars back then looked better, sounded better and were absolute missiles in a straight line and the world loved the 917. Steve McQueen’s seminal 1971 movie “Le Mans” certainly did the legend of the Gulf Wyer 917 era no harm either… Did I mention that I love that flick?
Speaking of Steve and the movie Le Mans; do you remember the scene stealing Slate Grey 911S at the start of this spiel? If you have read this far, then of course you do! The reason I ask, is because that car and its driver were just handsome and talented actors, pretending to be what Ecurie Bowden proudly has for sale here:
Ordered in March 1971, for a delivery date of 5th of May, 1971 chassis number 9111301207 was destined for a great life. This German delivered, factory owned car was designated “VERSUCH”, or for the Porsche research division. She was factory ordered with:
Signal Orange, with black trim.
Right Hand Drive (Headlights adjusted to LHD).
Electric windows.
Electric sunroof.
Michelin 185/70/15’s.
The first clue to the great life she was going to embark on, were her license plates, noted in her factory books as; “LEO ZA 24”. These Weissach (Porsche Motorsport factory) designated plates were only seen on early 911’s of note and the occasional Porsche racing utility vehicle. True early 911 connoisseurs’ understand the significance of these plates, as every 911S, 911ST, 911 RS and RSR they were placed upon, were always something quite special. The 1973 RSR’s that raced in the Targa Florio are personal high points in the “LEO ZA” series.
Along with fellow Gulf Wyer racers, Pedro Rodriguez and Jo Siffert, prodigal son Jackie Oliver was gifted a 1971 911S, registered by Weissach as, yes, you guessed it, LEO ZA 24. Jackie personally picked up the 911S from Stuttgart and used it for daily transport during the successful 1971 World Endurance Championship. A particularly cool snippet in LEO ZA 24’s life as a werks racer’s daily ride, is the thought that when Jackie was racing at Le Mans in 1971, he was driving LEO ZA 24 to and from the track. When he won the Spa 1000 and Monza, he was using LEO ZA 24 at both of those exotic locations. She even gets a quick cameo in the Nurburgring documentary, when a gorgeous RHD “Gulf Orange” 911 appears in the pits next to the Gulf team. As awesome as her bit part in Porsche’s golden era is, perhaps the coolest part was yet to come!
Jackie’s late 1971 falling out with Porsche is pretty well documented. It culminated with the Gulf Wyer team rocking up at Zeltweg’s Österreichring, for the 10th and penultimate round of the championship, with Jackie doing a no-show. After a few heated phone calls, they found the lad up in Canada, embarking on a relationship with SHADOW in the booming Can Am series that would further define Jackie’s amazing career. (FYI, The great Richard Attwood was dusted off and won the Österreichring with Pedro, subsequently winning the 1971 World Sportscar Championship, so Porsche got over their huff soon enough.)
LEO ZA 24’s life was already a bit special, in being a German delivered 911 in RHD, but an already extraordinary life was about to become more so. Jackie quite liked his 911S, so she became a part of his luggage, making her way over to Riverside California, USA, where he was to reside for the next 4 years. He used to enjoy startling the natives with his rapid steed that had the “steering wheel on the wrong side mister!..”
Jackie’s career in the USA was varied and successful. F5000, NASCAR and of course CAN AM, which he won the 1974 title, in the bonkers and beautiful DN4 Shadow, were all part of his time abroad. The whole time LEO ZA 24 (Now sporting Californian plates) was in his garage. In this period she suffered perhaps the only serious indignity of her 45 years; Jackie had to fit the larger “impact bumpers” to get her federalised. As bad as that may sound to the puritans amongst us, this act left a few scars on her otherwise unblemished chassis, which helped this Porsche enthusiast uncover her true history 40 years later. Anyway, back to the swinging 70’s and Jackie had an itch with Formula 1 that he had to scratch. The mysterious Don Nicholls was getting even more mysterious and Jackie could see that to get ahead in F1, he needed control of his own team. From this necessity, was where the famous ARROWS F1 team was founded. Unfortunately for Jackie and ARROWS, the design of the first ARROWS F1 car was conspicuously similar to the SHADOW F1 car of that year (Same designer, go figure!) and Don launched a law suit against the fledgling team. It was about this time that LEO ZA 24 was no longer required, perhaps to help fund the fight against SHADOW, or just to get the next generation of ARROWS F1 car out on the track? Either way, funds must have been a bit tight and she was suddenly off on her next adventure; Australia.
