The real 73 RSR TF Winner - Porsche Factory Scam??

- It's interesting to note that in a Summary of the 73 Le Mans race, "Sport Auto" (a French car magazine)mentions that the Porsche factory sent to le Mans 3 Carrera: two official RSR in Martini livery, and one lent to the Sonauto French team (confirming the car was not sold to Sonauto just lent). This indeed confirms that the factory ran only 2 official cars per race.

- On the video front of the 107 at the Targa, I do believe that the film has been "cut and paste" into sequences and only the hood has been changed, but the car remains the same. Did you find evidence besides the hood that we are dealing with 2 different 107 cars?

And finally..

having spent the day on Porsche research! The 1973 Gregg/Chasseuil RSR at Le Mans may very well NOT be the Erlen Buchet/Ballot-Lena car!

I have just found a photo of the car in Norbert Singer's "24:16" book, (P45), showing the car, now with center lock wheels and a strange tail, without rear fenders and with HUGE 15 inch wide rear wheels, being tested on the Weissach skid pad. Norbert sys 1972, so an early RSR/late 2.5S/T to begin with. So which car was this Works owned car?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by letsrollbabe

Hugh:

Great find! This shot is interesting because the RSR has silver trimmed turn signal lenses, and that rear flare looks kind of like the 107 RSR that finished 6th, which as we know was a 72S renumbered. The Martini livery on the hood looks like the #3 press car style, which is the 72S renumbered car. So this picture could be of that car before R8 crashed.

One explanation could be that when R8 (which was the other #107 at the race), was crashed, the fuel tank, and maybe because of the filler holes, the hood was replaced to match from the wrecked R8. R8 was a May 73 built RSR (0974), so would have possibly had a more suitable long distance tank, and would have had the later style Martini livery on the hood. R8 would have had black TS trimmed lenses, so I don't think it would be this car.

Gib

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From post #152

Varunan123:

I agree with you that the hood was changed between 107 cars because of the crash of R8. We are getting to what really happened I think, slowly but surely.

Gib Bosworth

Slight correction to the above:

On later page, Singer says this test took place in July 1973, so just a month after Le Mans. Chrome window surrounds, so 0001/2?

There seems to be plenty of new information to digest and analyse - Thanks for the info on the ST's John :)

Just to add one more piece of confusion to the thread the Targa site http://www.targaflorio.info/index22.htm shows that Martini Racing had FIVE cars at the 1973 Targa -
two in sport 3000 class (group 5) and two originally entered in GT 2000+ (group 4) 107 and 108 and one T car (possibly mongrel).

However only THREE were in the race and ALL were classified in S3000 class (group 5) :confused:

Martini Racing entered cars (from Targa site)

PORSCHE CARRERA RSR 3000 (#8) - HERBERT MULLER / GIJS VAN LENNEP
PORSCHE CARRERA RSR 3000 (#9) - LEO KINNUNEN / CLAUDE HALDI
PORSCHE CARRERA RSR 3000 (#107) - GUNTHER STECKKONIG / GIULIO PUCCI

PORSCHE CARRERA RSR (#108) - GIULIO PUCCI / GUNTHER STECKKONIG

Porsche Carrera RS (T) Gijs van Lennep / Herbert Müller

(There is a pattern in the race numbers. The low numbers (up to 10) are the Sport 3000 class the over 100 numbers are GT class (100 to 119 are GT2000+ and 120 to 130 GT2000). Therefore #107 was an anomaly – entered in GT2000 (group 4) upgraded to S3000 (Group 5) for the race. )

Car 108 did not qualify and does not show any practice time, and car 107, although entered in GT2000+, and numbered as such, actually raced in S3000 according to the results here http://wspr-racing.com/wspr/results/wscc/ms1973.html#6
and other reports.


HOWEVER there may be double counting with the T car being recorded twice - once as the T car and once as a competitor to replace a crashed car - and there was possibly a "phantom" car that existed in the entry books only.

There is little doubt that the winner 588 was in S3000 class and was at other events. Lets assume R2 (020) was the other car entered in S3000 as car #9 as the factory now seems to confirm.

This would leave R8 (974) and another car originally entered as the "standard" RSR's - with numbers 107 and 108 entered in GT2000+.

However I would have thought that R8 (974) would have also been in S3000 as it was the latest prototype class car.

Lets assume for a minute that it was the original 107, a car that we have no photos of but it was there, and was the car Pucci crashed beyond repair, at least at the event, when it slid off the road and crashed in a village BEFORE the event (hence no photos). (ie before practice even started:eek: )

Lets also assume that it was not certain that it would be ready in time for the Targa and that is why they entered in GT2000+ with the option of "upgrading" to S3000 if it was there in time or running a standard RSR in GT2000+ if it was not.

Finally, lets assume that car 108 was a "cross entry" and did not actually even turn up but was there only to reserve the right to run 2 cars in GT class despite the fact that the factory (Martini Racing) had made a decision at the start of the season not to run in GT class so it would not be competing against its customers.

This does not explain the inconsistencies in car 107 mentioned although I feel it may be the same car on two different passes around the track, unless there were two practice / spare cars. If R8 was the original 107 it is almost certain that there would have been spares sent with it , probably including a bonnet maybe with the U shaped livery?.

One further mystery

can anyone identify this photo by Norbert Singer? It is supposed to be in his book of photographs (which I must find and get) and is captioned Van Lennep at the 73 Targa.
However I don't recognize the car.

It appears to have a chrome "racing" mirror. 107 has a standard RS mirror, as does car 9 and car 8 has no mirror at all at the Targa.

Is this the Mysterious R8? Or is it another car at another race? A couple of R cars had either chrome or black mirrors like that at different events, chrome ones include car 41at spa (R5?) and the #6 car at Nurburgring (R7?) and the 46 car at Le Mans (R7?). My best guess is that the caption is wrong and it is :confused: the 41 car at Spa the week before the Targa. That would fit with the white part of the decal and possibly with the fragments of numbers that can be seen.

That is a fantastic effort to get those pics off youtube :)
i tried but could not do it

I would not mind betting that the first set of pics was R8. It has the "newest" paint scheme and looks like it is a totally separate car to the race day car.
the next post I think is the race day car before it gets the original bonnet from R8- probably this is the T car which in a previous life was the press car and is 002 - the Strahle car.

I happen to live in a village next to where Gijs van Lennep lives.
Either i could ask him if he remembers where this picture was taken, or maybe someone at the upcoming rennsport reunion can show the picture and ask him?

He might also remember some other interesting details, as maybe what exactly happened to #107 (the one crashed by count Pucci).

Can't promise anything, but will try.....;)

Personally i think the photo of Gijs on page 14 shows indeed the upper part of #41 on the side. Also, the dark(er) coloured helmet is consistend with the picture of the 100km of Spa picture of post 32 (credit: chuck miller) of this interesting thread.
But then again, in the youtube clip, Gijs is also wearing the red helmet so I guess that doesn't mean a thing.
Very likely the editor of the magazine made a mistake indeed.

varunan123

I think that the standard of these models these days is fantastic - and minchamps is one of the best. However they are still mass produced "toys" and many different variants are made from the same mold

I think the 2.8 is an error - after all the RSR is a 2.8 -at least originally.
While the model makers have done a great job with the martini livery, especially on the scuttle, we cant expect to see perfect replicas for the price of these. They do a fair bit of research but that is only as good as the photos and info they can find and the budget they have to work to.

I think the subtleties of black v silver horn grills and 2.8 v 2.994 is way beyond what you would expect of a $40 model - but not of a $400 one.

So far as how car #9 ended up with a 72 shell in the race and whether it always had one is going to provide more posts here - unless of course someone can produce the production number of the museum car AND it explains it. I am heartened by the progress made so far and the constructive comments and contributions by so many knowledgeable posters.

To me it is what this board is all about:)

This is supposed to be a picture of R8 at Monza 1000km 25/4/1973 - the one race it entered before the Targa.

From what can be seen, it does seem to match the "initial" 107 car that varunan123 has been able to lift from the youtube video.

I am confident that it is the car that was the original 107 and that the bonnet of this car (plus the engine / drive train and who knows what else) was transferred to the T car - probably 002 the original RSR mule that ran under Strahle colours in July 1972 and then saw all sorts of service including as the Martini press car #3 - for the race.

The other pictures of 107 are most likely the car still in "press" or "PR" livery doing practice or qualifying laps before getting a transplant from R8.

As to why the race number is 107, signifying a group 4 car of 2.8 lites (another reason why the Model may show 2.8 rather than 3) , and why there was also a 108 entered (and whether it even was planned to show up) is a matter that perhaps only Norbert Singer or someone else associated with the management of the Martini team can explain.

It would make some sense that at the time of doing the entries to "cover all the bases" and enter in both group 4 and group 5. It depends on when the entries had to be in.

The accepted practice for the rest of the year seems to have been to run only 2 cars per team per class. But both 107 and 108 were cross entered against GUNTHER STECKKONIG and GIULIO PUCCI. Maybe that was only a holding matter or the whole situation was just very fluid.

After all CLAUDE HALDI only transferred to the #9 car AFTER qualifying the 908/3 he was entered in with BERNARD CHENEVIERE for Porsche Club Romand as car number 1. (28th fastest). It is recorded that he was concerned about the engine and it was not fast enough.

Maybe by the time of the race, as the Targa had such a high attrition rate, Martini Racing decided to enter the third car and utilise the entry already reserved for a group 4 car.

The other ,related, question is was there ever an intention to run car 108? and if so is John Starkey's handwritten note that he referred to that it should have been R1 but was crashed (By Pucci - he must have been busy) correct or just one other piece of misinformation surrounding this event?

Thee is no doubt that all Martini Racing entries ran in group 5 (sport 3000) in the race despite only 2 running the Mary Stuart tails and despite the car numbers indicating they were entered in a different class. They would not have qualified under group 4 (GT2000+) with the drivetrain they had (and maybe for other modifications).

Another take on this is that the Martini team may have been very wary about what class they would have been permitted to run in because a couple of weeks before they were apparently protested against by an Italian team at Monza for "homologation infringements" including the mounting points for the rear suspension (which were properly homologated and with which they had run at other earlier races). They then ran in prototype class and used the Mary Stuart spoilers because they found out that they could not win a protest against an Italian team in Italy even if they were right.

varunan123

I still think that on the most likely scenario there are 2 different cars:

002: started life as a 72 ST, The Strahle car of July 72 still numbered as an ST but essentially the frst prototype RSR 2.8, renumbered as 002, then the press car #3, then the targa practice car (in press livery?); the "second" 107 car at qualifying, then the 107 race car, then ???

020 R2: started out as a genuine 73 RS / RSR, (probably using a 72 shell but maybe even a recycled 72 car), Tour de Course, Paul Ricard RSR development including suspension, Le Mans Qualifying, car #9 at Targa, Le mans, factory museum

Somewhere in there one of these cars was probably the wind tunnel car in the RS book.