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

here is a new picture again sourced from the targa thread on forum sport auto.
it looks like Porsche used the plates LEO ZA 60 on TWO different cars at the taga at the same time.

To me the first picture looks like it was taken in practice or earlier.. It shows a car with what looks like plates LEO ZA 60 on the right. I think this is R2 (RS020) before getting its race paint (and eventually the big tail). You can see heavily flared rear guards and the "porsche" scrip on the tail which only car 9 (R2) had. It may have colour applied around the rear window but apart from that looks relatively stock.

Next to it is 107T on a 1972 shell - this can only be RS0002 the T car that became the 107 race car after R8 was totalled. That car also had plates LEO ZA 60.

However the next two pictures add some clarity. someone posted here that there are differences between front and rear plates - the rears have an extra sticker or something one the plate that the fronts do not.

The second picture shows car 107 (RS0002) with a clear picture of the plate - obviously a rear one.

The third picture of R2, car 9, shows a partially obscured front plate LEO ZA ?? . From the detail of the first picture it is now evident that this is also LEO ZA 60, and it appears that during practice Porsche was using the same registration plates on 2 different cars

No wonder it is so hard to sort out how many cars were there :eek:

this also adds weight to the view that R2 and RS0002 were BOTH used as recce or pre practice / practice cars for the race

Raj

I think that this was taken during the race - not practice

the 2 drivers in the race were Leo Kinnunen & Claude Haldi.
Here are 2 photos with closeups - one driver was wearing a full face helmet and the other an open face one. I cant tell which was which but i think the one in the photo Curt posted was the open face one.

does anyone know which was which? I tried to use a picture of the 908 in practice that Haldi drove but I was not sure who was driving it when the picture was taken (it was a full face helmet but looked different to the one shown here

also the bit under the oil cooler is there in some other race pictures - i think the angle of the photo may have made it more prominent - also it may have been pushed back during the race

here is a photo from a different angle that still shows it

Raj

i just had a message from Nikolay who has sent me some pictures of Haldi and Kinnunen in different races in 1973

haldi always seems to have a full face helmet and Kinnunen seems to always have an open face one -so I would be prepared to say that this was the case in this race as well - that means the driver in the photo you posted is Kinnunen

this photo of him looks like it might be the same helmet

Just found these infos..:

"...Three weeks before the race a training car was stationed in Cefalu, an aging Carrera RS with racing chassis well used during testing and fitted with a 2.7liter, 210hp production engine. With this very busy racing pros Herbert Muller, Gijs van Lennep and Leo Kinnunnen covered some 25-30 Targa laps each, in turn and whenever they found time. A lap is 45 miles..
The team arrived a week before the race: with the race manager, responsible for our Carreras entries, engineer Singer with two assistant engineers and seven mechanics, two cars as entries and another "hot" car for official training.

Now the fourth Porsche pilot, young baron Guilio Pucci, at home in Sicily and very familiar with the course, begann training with unhappy vehemence. While trying to match routine men like Muller and Lennep he slightly damaged one of the race cars and totalled the new training car, putting mechanics on repeated night shifts...

In time trials van Lennep and Muller who hadnt given an inch to one another troughout the season outdid themselves. Using the same car they achieved precisely the same lap times for the 45mile course - a dream time of 36.52 which has hardly thought possible for modified production cars...The degree to which driving rules the Targa rather than engine output was proven by Muller and van Lennep when they drove a production engined Porsche "Muletto" ("Muletto"-litterally translated as little mule...a Muletto has virtually the same chassis as a competition car even though many parts may be ripe for a pension..) to fabulous times of 38.36 and 38.40 respectively.

Since this "ancient" Carrera was still in one piece after so many thousands of training miles and replacement engines were untouched on the transporter it was decided to late-enter it for the race too. A 300hp engine was fitted in the tail and the good old slogger entrusted to Porsche's race and Targa-wise test engineer Gunter Steckkoenig and Baron Pucci. The seat with Kinnunnen in the second Martini Porsche was gladly accepted by swiss Driver Claude Haldi after troubles with the oil pressure in his Porsche 908/3 during training."

Manfred Jantke/Inside report on Porsche's 11th Targa Florio victory, August 1973

Hi Karim

It is interesting to see what the original source is for those comments. Most of them are repeated in one form or another in later publications including the RS book.

I am still not certain in my own mind whether Manfred Jantke bent the truth a bit in the report as to which car Pucci bent and which car he wrote off.

The "aging Carrera RS" was 002 - which was used as Tcar 107 and T car 108 and eventually came 6th in the race as 107.
Here is a photo of it with what looks like the production engine.

The two race cars and "the "hot" car for official training" were R2 (race car #9) R6 (race car #8 the winner) and R8 (original car #107).

R2 was damaged by Pucci and R8 was written off by him.

The report says that he "slightly damaged one of the race cars and totaled the new training car".

However I think that it is far more likely that the proposed race cars were R6 and R8 (as they were at Monza a couple of weeks before) and the much older R2 was going to be the hot training car.

Finally I must have looked at some of the pictures of car 107 hundreds of times..and only tonight did I see the "T" on the front of the car as well as on the side - see picture below. It just shows that sometimes you don't see things in pictures even when they are right in front of you. I had often wondered what the horizontal black line was under the number but had never visually linked it to the vertical part of the T
I think that it is possible that the Jantke report swapped these around to disguise the fact that Pucci had written off the newest race car.

Hugh, good point on a hugely interesting thread.
I am by no means on your level of investigation but I thought its a interesting info nevertheless.
About Pucci, Richard von Frankenberg wrote:

"..there is another sicilian, Count Pucci, a land owner who never had a chance on the Nurburgring. But where he knows every inch of the monster course he could be unbelievable fast. He was entered several times by Porsche and in 1964 he (and Colin Davis) even managed an overall victory. For the last two years his son has been trying to imitate the father."

Maybe Porsche wasnt so keen to let everybody know that a "national hero" (and a proud sicilian too) destroyed their most valuable race car therefore they mildly disguised their press release..

Hugh:

Good catch on race #107/ 360 002. I still wonder what happened to this car after the TF. Could it have been built into a later RSR or 934/935 and therefore renumbered again? It wouldn't have made sense to destroy it I wouldn't think. There must be some tracks somewhere in the records, or the memory of someone who was near things in the day. Maybe Jim Calzia could ask Singer about it. If it were sold to a private party, it would seem that after 35 years somone would know about it being hidden away in some barn or garage somewhere. It would be really neat to find out what happened to it. Let's get the world's enthusiast sleuths turned loose in search of this historic 911 ST/RSR Prototype.

Gib

Guys, just to revive this thread I'm posting pics for all of the Tangerine mule car from Karim's French DVD made by Sport Auto magazine, "Le Mythe 911" as well as a pic of the racing department workshop referred to by Hugh showing what looks like R2 (RS020 car #9 at the targa) after the Targa Florio being transformed into the #48 yellow Sonauto car for Le Mans. Hoping they come out.

Nick

Nick, glad you've been able to post this picture. I thought pics of this cars are looking interesting ever since I watched the DVD and read this TF thread.

here is another pic of the same scene in the garage

notice how the engine lids on the 46 and 47 cars hinge all the way back like the original 911R's