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

Gentlemen:

Jurgen Barth has confirmed that 911 360 0019 was built as an RSR, and delivered to Weissach without an engine.

Wonder what happened to it?..

John

My view of things is that car (0019) was the waldegaard car at the TdC LEO ZA 68, it crashed, was repaired and is the car with all the mud shown in raj's photo above, possibly went to Africa in 1973, along with S AK 1337 as practice cars.

S AK 1337 (the monte car) was damaged and left there.
by that stage 0019 would be a little worse for wear but would need to be onsold or brought back for customs duty reasons.

Either may have happened but there may be some truth in the "rumour" that Flunder heard that it was sold for the cost of bringing it back and then scrapped as it was not a viable repair proposition - after all a two year old damaged race car - possibly without drivetrain, would not have been a prized possession in those days. that COULD explain why there is no records of what happened to it - like R8, for all intents it only competed in one event and then did not cover itself in glory

Hugh,

With all due respect...The problem with that theory is that Konradsheim, (with help, I am sure), from the factory, is quite specific that Waldegard's car in the Tour de Corsica was the "altered" S/T of Zasada, the so-called 911 330 0789, which I am sure is a misprint for 911 230 0769.

If you are right, and Konradsheim is wrong, then nothing can be believed that has been printed about these cars.

Hi John

I am sorry but I cannot see, in the RS book, Konradsheim ever being specific about the origins of the Waldegaard car other to say that it was an ex 2.5ST and to give a chassis number, 911 330 0789, that we both agree it could not have had.

I understand that you believe the number is a misprint and two numbers are incorrect. However equally only one number may be incorrect (giving 911 230 0789, admittedly not a car on the ST list Raj has), or more than 2 numbers may be incorrect.

Konradsheim does call the Waldegaard car R1 on page 163 and calls the Larrousse car, identified by its chassis number 911 360 0020, R2 also on page 163.

I have postulated above, and I believe with good grounds, that the 2 TdC cars were indeed R1 and R2 (as the book says) and furthermore they were 911 360 0019 and 911 360 0020. In addition I have argued that they were both renumbered 1972 ST's and both had oil doors - indeed both were sister cars.

I have NOT sought to show what their original identity was, but indeed only stated what I believe, on the balance of available evidence, that neither was:

a) the Strahle #5 car (which possibly was 911 230 0841) and was renumbered to become RS0002 in August 1972, and in that guise became first the Martini press car, then a practice car and ultimately the Targa #107 race car and the possibly the wind tunnel car in June 1973.

My ruling out of that car was done on body shape that was consistent and different to the TdC cars from before until well after the event, and on the recorded production date of October 1972 and on the production number, I believe sourced from one of your books, both of which would also be inconsistent with the supposed August transformation of that car to a RS/RSR.

b) the Zasada car (911 230 0769) that I agree has a body shape that could be one of those cars but which I understand was converted to a RSR (911 360 0001) in August 1972 , again too early for the timelines of R1.

In trying to work out where the various cars went we can say with certainty:

• the Zasada car (911 230 0769) is now with Raj and has an unbroken history (albeit with some "time" gaps while at the factory)

• R2 (911 360 0020) is in the factory museum and has been since the mid 1970s and has a record that can be traced from the TdC until it went into the Museum, albeit with not as much confidence as one would like due to the many mutations it went through. However I am sure a close examination of the car today would dispel most doubts and may even reveal its ST origins (as can be seen on Raj’s car)
• The Strahle #5 car can be traced, with a reasonably good degree of confidence, through to the targa in 1973 and then, I think, to wind tunnel tests in June of that year. After that the trail goes cold.

• The Waldegaard TdC car (LEO ZA 63 race #6), I believe is R1, 911 360 0019, and is a car that has almost been invisible since 1972 and, with good reason, people have queried its very existence at all. You have now posted that “Jurgen Barth has confirmed that 911 360 0019 was built as an RSR, and delivered to Weissach without an engine.” That is a big step forward.

I would now like to postulate a timeline for it. Some of this I am much more certain of than the rest.

I believe it started as a 1972ST and was converted in October 1972 into a RSR sister car to R2 which was also converted from a 1972ST. The identities of both of these ST’s is unknown to me but it may be possible to narrow them down by a process of elimination given assistance from the factory.

In a post above I postulated that it should have an oil door. Tonight I received a photo from Nikolay clearly showing that oil door in a photo of the car at the TDC.

That photo is attached, as is a closeup. I think that this is a photo of an almost brand new R1 – the car and tyres (can even see it is Dunlop) are pristine.


Next is a picture of R2 (car #2) at what appears to be the start of the event and a closeup of its oil door.

I think that as stated in the RS book and many other places Waldegaard crashed his car (proceeded to demolish it was one description) on the event and DNF. The RS book then says it was repaired and used on the Panzer test track before being used in Africa as a practice vehicle for the Safari. (the book says 1978 but I now believe that it was 1973)

A picture of a car, that looks like the TdC cars posted here before, but with 3 areas of damage highlighted be me, is the final one attached. I believe that this is R1 on the test track and the damage shown is the aftermath of the TdC “off” from Waldegaard but before the car was used in Africa as one of (at least 2) practice cars for that rallye (the other being S AK 1337).

I have no knowledge of what happened next but find the explanation of being bought from the factory for about the cost of shipping it back, and it being found to be too damaged to repair by the new owners and scrapped, to be more than plausible. We have been told that the other practice car was sold on while still in Africa – certainly there would have been no incentive for the werks to keep damaged cars.

This account, the information from Jurgen Barth and the photos Nikolay has provided, I believe has advanced the knowledge of these earliest RSR’s.

The next step would be to try and determine, with a degree of confidence, the original ST identities of both of these cars.

The Carrera RS book, p. 160:
"The Tour de Corse on November 3, 1972, was the first official race for the Carrera RSRs. Although both cars had reached their final form, one of the Carreras was actually a re-constructed 2.5-liter coupe. The advantage of this rally, which was raced entirely on asphalt on the island of Corsica, was that prototypes were also allowed to start. This gave Porsche the opportunity to test its Carrera---which was not yet homologated--under rally conditiions.......Theoretically, the two 300-HP Porsches, piloted by Waldegaard/Thorszelius and Larrousse/Delferrier, had a good shot at victory...."

In John's R-RS-RSR, 3rd Edition '98:
factory prototype R1 was identified as 0019 R1, 911/72 type, 2.806 cc, 300 hp, built 10/72; and prototype R2 was 0020 R2, 911/74 type 2993 cc, 315 hp, built 11/72. (These 3.0 engines became the very successful 74 RSR engines)

I tend to agree with Hugh (and John's 3rd Edition) that 0019 R1 was a renumbered 72 ST, and that 0020 R2 was also a converted ST. While the Carrera RS book description differentiates them by saying that one was a reconstructed 2.5 coupe, I don't necessarily think we can assume the other wasn't also. The fact that both 0019 and 0020 had 72 style oil doors so late in 72 is unlikely for newly built cars, and the very similar details in the C-RS book of the build would seem to indicate they were both "sister 72s". We can't seem to find much in the way of factory records about the renumbering process, and as Hugh suggests, we need to dig further into it.

Jurgen Barth's comment that 0019 was built as an RSR (without an engine) would seem to be consistent with the C-RS book, in which both are described as RSRs in final form...except both cars had ST style rear flares (not suitable for the wide 11 Fuchs). Waldegaard was quoted as saying his car was 'too soft', so maybe they didn't yet have the "helper springs" of the RSR, and they didn't yet have the raised spindles and maybe the relocated rear arms (so to Raj's point, were they in final form for track work...NO). According to John's 3rd Edition, two different engines were used in these cars, a 2.8 (R1) and 3.0 (R2), and it makes sense that R2 would be the one to get modified for track testing at Paul Ricard with the larger, more powerful engine.

The C-RS comments regarding what happened to 0019 R1 do suggest it went to the Safari rally ('78-probably wrong year, but right continent) after being wrecked at Corsica seems to be consistent with why it has never resurfaced.

And John, if we are going with the validity of the C-RS book, if Raj's car is RS Number 1 (0001) modified from Zasada's ST as described in C-RS, p.165, then "Number 2, after serving as a practice vehicle, was entered as number 107 in the Targa Florio" seems to confirm that 107 is 0002. The only question for me is which ST was it in the beginning?

As we have seen above the RS book identifies the Waldergaard car at the TdC, that I / we now believe is R1, as originally being ST 911 330 0789. It then goes on to say that the car was used as a practice car in the 1978 Safari. I / we have taken that to be a misprint for 1973 given the large period of time between the two events.

Furthermore we have agreed that R1/ the TdC car could not possibly be that car (911 330 0789) because a car with such a number could not have been produced that early (especially if you take into account that the production numbers of R1 and R2 are just over the 1000 mark.)

However Nikolay has emailed me an interesting piece of information from a book by Jurgen Barth - I am not sure which one - that he says uses this chassis number twice in relation to the TdC.

He says that in his book Jurgen Barth quoted “Fahrgestell-Nr. 911 330 0789” two times: as 1972 Carrera RS2.8 ”Corsica” and as "Trainingswagen for 1978 Safari Rally”

I have no idea what all of this means except to still postulate that the car number should be 911 230 0789 and both the RS book authors and Barth have taken the information from an original factory source that has a misprint in it, or from a third party source that has a misprint.

However I now have an open mind again as to whether the TdC car did actually hang around the factory for long enough to be used as a training car on the 1978 safari. If it did it may have had a transformation to a "big bumper" car along the way as the only cars - practice or otherwise - I have seen from that event were short hoods.

If it did get transformed into a short hood, and was used as a practice car for that event, it would not be surprising if it later disappeared without a trace. It would also mean that it had at least 3 separate lives - as an ST, as a RSR long hood and as a short hood rallye car, and with a gap of 5 years between the last two who knows what else it might have done!

and given that this still is the targa thread :D here is a picture of R8, the original car 107, that Pucci wrapped around something and wrote off, causing one of the cars that we have been debating, 911 360 0002 (probably the ex Strahle #5 car) to be drafted into the race instead of being used as a practice hack.

this picture was posted on forum sport auto a couple of weeks ago

Great new picture of the crashed car Hugh, this was the only one I had seen up till now:

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y25...inprova2-1.jpg

Perhaps being loaded leaving Sicily, always wondered who the guy is, and someone's already had the 11's!

Mike

Raj:

I think that the reason for using 0019, and 0020 could be as simple as a timing issue with a decision to go to the TdC with 2 cars to test, putting these 2 ST cars they had sitting around that had already been modified somewhat to match the test specs, and as they stuck them into the Werks shop to do final prep, these were the sequence numbers for other RSs going through the shop at that time. It could also have been influenced by other business conditions...budgets (only so much money available for the test program and these 2 cars could be built cheaper than starting from scratch), aiming for 500 RS units, how quickly they could get a pair of cars ready after a late decision to run the TdC. There are many 'business reasons' that could have caused them to use these numbers, and I don't think we can speculate about all those that could have been factors by looking simply at how many lower numbers could have been used.

The facts Hugh sites are pretty strong evidence that is not undone or over ridden by sequence numbers or lower numbers that could have been used...just my opinion.

Raj

Gee you have been busy:)

that is a great photo of LEO ZA 69 - i have not seen it before but we do have one taken at the same place and time but a slightly different angle
- posted below.

I don't know why they used 19 and 20 as sequence numbers.

As Gib says there could be a lot of business and timing issues involved. On which cars counted for the 500 and which ones did not I don't think it was cars held at the factory that did not count - it was any cars that were taken off the line and sent to the competition area for modification before they went thru the weigh in process - this included all M491 cars and probably a couple of other specials as well.

Why not use other numbers under 11? - maybe at that stage they had hopes
of converting more cars - and maybe they did but we dont know.

On the existence of 19 and 20 - i think there is very strong evidence that 20 exists in the museum and a lineage can be shown - apart from what the factory says that this indeed is 20. On 19 it has been problematic but more and more circumstantial evidence is coming to light on this board that it was indeed 19 and maybe , if Nikolay is right it was a 1978 safari car - but i understood not an entrant but the yellow practice car.

However i am intrigued at the photo of the engine compartment you posted (and the car has martini stripes - not the practice car. It does look like an early car hidden under there.

On the S AK 1337 car 54, I dont think this is the monte car. It is supposed to be 1972 and there are a number of features of that car that are different to the monte car before, and as far as I can tell, AFTER that time (the photos at the Tdc practice) that suggests a number plate swap may have occurred

IF the photo was in 1973 - after the monte car was sold and left in africa a number plate swap would make more sense but we have been told it was a mid 1972 photo