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

Raj:

I understand your point, and it would be good to be able to get reliable documentation for these cars to sort all the history out. Your statement that the factory didn't care about VINs is true I am sure. That would account for the poor records that seem to follow these prototype RSRs.

But for me, the value of this thread has been to document how the factory proceeded to develop the 911 in a factory effort for circuit racing beginning in 72. We have pieced together through photos, race records, books, and interviews from some of those who were there in the day...the race history of several of the early prototype RSRs which began as 72 STs. Through this process we have discovered facts about these cars and factory practices that were not documented in any one book on the subject.

We don't really need to know all the VINs to understand what happened...what the success was, and how the factory developed the suspensions, brakes, engines, transmissions, wheels, wider bodies, etc. We have briefly summarized the history in more detail than was known before for a small select group of early RSRs. I would like to know the VINs and what happened to specific cars that seem to have disappeared from history, but the real value for me is what we have learned. It's not their monetary value today that makes me want to know about them, it is how they came to be...to understand the evolvement of the competitive features that were the beginning of the most successful race car platform in history.

Raj:

Here is Singer's recent comment to Jim Garfield: ..."He was quite sure that the #107 car is not the one in the museum, nor was it the car that Zasada wrecked in Poland, but he had no idea where the car did go after the race."

For me, this is pretty good evidence that 107 was not 0020 R2, since the factory has documented the museum car as 0020 R2. That for me also eliminates the theory that based on the use of "R2" (which is clarified below), 107 is 0020 R2.

From Dr. K's book, p.165 (which has been quoted many times in this thread): "Porsche's fondness for remodeling and renaming racing cars is illustrated by the following example: The chassis numbering system for the RS series did not start with 911 360 001 and 002 but rather with the number 11. This allowed Porsche to rebuild existing 911 S race cars as Carreras--which, under racing rules, could be further modified--and call them RS 1 and 2. Number 1 was used by the Pole Sobieslav Zasada as a rally car, and Number 2, after serving as a practice vehicle, was entered as number 107 in the Targa Florio."

This is the best documentation we have that 107 was 0002. (In the preceeding sentence he used the exact VINs...911 360 001 as a lead in the next statement, so I think his meaning is that RS 1 and RS 2 were 0001 and 0002.) If you accept that the Zasada car is 0001 (and I think you do), then this statement should have the same validity for the 107 Strahle car as being 0002. Both were 72 STs, and fit the scenario from both the timing of their development in the RS 491 program, and their photo documentation.

I think for the Wagenpass, the photo was incorrect for the other filled-out information. I don't know how that happened, but my guess is that since these cars got repainted over time, it is not too much of a stretch that the wrong photo could have been attached when the Wagenpass data was submitted. Both 9 and 107 were once a different color than the Martini silver, and it would be easy to confuse their repainted photos.

OR...the other possibility is that it served a factory purpose at some point in transporting the vehicles to have a sightly modified Wagenpass document to conveniently get a car through an inspection.

Does anyone know the details of the process for establishing these Wagenpass documents...how and when they were done, and what changes were made (and allowed) when a car was reconfigured or repainted and the picture did not match the original document. I don't think one Wagenpass document with a picture is an infallible source of identifying a VIN on these prototype race cars. Singer's memory is a better source for me.

I feel there is an important piece of information that's been left out of this discussion. Carnets.

When a team wished to transport a car or tools, or anyone with anything, come to that, across a European border up until the European Union did away with them, in about the early 1990s, that team/merchant had to have what was called a carnet, (from "Carnet de passage" in French), thoroughly describing the car, it's chassis number and accompanying tools. Thus a team could not simply say that they were taking a car to a race, cross a border, sell the car and get back into their home country without paying the sales tax that was due! A substantial bond was payable when the carnet was taken out, to ensure that people played the game.

So customs officials would take the carnet from the truck driver at a customs post and inspect all the cars and equipment to make sure all the numbers and quantities of tools checked out, before allowing the truck and cargo to proceed.

So: If a car was damaged at one race and had another race scheduled for the next weekend, it was sometimes easier for the team to switch the chassis plate off the damaged car onto a sister car and send that car instead. The numbers would all check at the customs post and there you were.

Now...I'm not saying that Porsche did such things but a lot of teams did! Think on...

Several versions available in 1:43 -

Arena Modelli

Nor sure if this helps.

1. That is the power cord to the licensplate lightning.
2. Can´s se that.
3. I had cars where the rubber gasket is "whimsy", that what it looks to me. That is due to that the rubber is sqweezed in and gets differently stretched. So it it´s "long" and "short" and therefor fall in and out.

Hard to tell.

Regards,
pär

Have we seen these images before?

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From: http://www.flickr.com/photos/targa19...7614461109759/

Quote:

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Originally Posted by varunan123

This picture not only shows the 72 oil tank in the back.And in addition what looks to be a backing plate for a front wing oil cooler on the passenger side-genuine RSR's did not have front oil cooler on the passenger side.

Raj

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Raj:

It does look like there is an oil cooler in there, although it is hard to see for sure...but I don't know what else would be in that position. These two sister cars appear to have front oil coolers like an RSR, but I agree with your conclusion, they would not have had a passenger side cooler if they were new RSRs. This seems to help the case for the view that 360 0020 R2 (#2 at TdC) was not a 'new RSR build', but rather a converted ST as some of us have concluded.

I keep thinking about that Wagenpass for 0020 with the #3 press car picture...and you are right about the point that the car mentioned above from the TdC (#2)...which became the #9 Martini RSR at the TF..had a 2.8L 300 hp engine according to Dr. K's book, and this Wagenpass doc describes the engine as a 2.7L. Also, we know that this car...#3, Strahle/Martini press car had a 2.7 engine at the Targa before it was swapped out for the race engine out of the original #107. It is a little hard to believe that the factory would have fudged this doc with both a wrong picture and engine description (for VIN 0020) just to get a car across a border when it was convenient for some other ill-timed complication. I can't come up with a scenario to explain it, other than it was just a mistakenly written VIN which should have been 360 0002.

We can document the pictoral history of the Strahle car all the way to the TF race, which didn't change except for paint scheme, and it was the #107 car not the #9 car. But the above Wagenpass scenario means that Dr. K's book is wrong when describing which car (#2 as VIN 0020 R2) was at TdC , and the factory's documentation for the history of the 0020 R2 car which is now in the Museum.

It must have been just a transposed number on the Wagenpass.

Raj:

I went back to look at that wagenpass again, and noticed one small detail....the only page that is not stamped with the inspector's mark ("41") is the page with the VIN and car specs, including the engine. All the other pages have stamp on them, and both the pics have stamps to confirm they are the pics for this wagenpass it seems.

The #3 Martini car, which had been a press car was now managed by the 'Porsche test division' (according to Dr. K) was sent ahead of the Targa race for practice by the participating drivers. Would this car have required a wagenpass when it wasn't planned for race use, but just for practice.. apparently so. The date on the wagenpass was Mar. 73...why would it have been issued on this date, other than because it was required for it to be used as a practice car at the TF.

Lots of questions, and hopefully someone will enlighten us with the answers.

Raj:

There does appear to be a faint stamp on the spec page, but it was made at another time...not when the others were stamped. It looks like that also on the 906 and 914-6 pages too...very faint. This seems to suggest that the spec page was done earlier, and simply copied for the new wagenpass doc.

This makes me wonder if the spec sheet with a picture of the #3 press car was used for the #9 Martini RSR wagenpass doc which would have been on its way to the LeMans test race in April as #61. This car was painted with Martini silver as shown in the following photo, which Hugh uncovered on p. 34, post 497. But maybe the factory didn't have a picture yet of the #61 car in Martini silver, so they used the one of the #3 press car, which was very similar. The inspector probably wouldn't worry about numbers on the car.

I am back to being somewhat suspicious that since this spec sheet could be copied or used for later ONS passes, this wagenpass may not represent a correct factory document that should be considered infallible for which car was 0020.

so when's the book due out ???? :rolleyes:

there's more than enough info here...

this thread is a legend!!! :D