3 Attachment(s)
THE LOST ARCHIVE book - 1971 S homologation efforts translated from factory letters
I own a silver 1971 S with seat extensions. I've done a fair amount of research on the 1971 S homologation cars and even communicated with Jurgen Barth last year to ask him questions about these cars. I have a database of 71 S cars with seat extensions and have found fewer than 15. Interestingly I have spoken to a few owners who commented that they found some "headrests" in the trunk when they acquired their 71 S cars and threw them out because they had no idea what they were. The question remains, how many cars were delivered with seat extensions?
Further research (pertaining to the rear seats mentioned in earlier posts) revealed that one of the issues was the rear seat-back inclination angle that became the sticking point with FIA homologation rules pertaining to Group 2. Jurgen Barth confirmed this. In the pursuing the question about seat backs, I discovered that my car had two snaps in the rear seat-back straps. I think this is directly related to the homologation efforts and I postulate that all 1971 S coupes had two snaps in the rear seat straps to adjust the rear seat-back vertical inclination angle to comply with the FIA rules. I have yet to find an original 1971 S coupe without the double snaps. The ones I've seen with a single snap have been restored examples to match 1970 cars or Targas.
Last year a fellow 71 S owner and Registry member pointed me to an auction of Porsche factory documents and papers belonging to Rico Steinemann, the head of Racing and PR from 1969 to 1971. I won the auction and being in possession of over a hundred pages of original documents in both German and French, I was compelled to organize and translate them so I could make sense of the story. The result is a 120 page "coffee table" book that I self-published titled "The Lost Archive." The papers tell the story of a conflict between Steinemann and the FIA culminating in Porsche threatening to sue the FIA in the spring of 1971, for revising homologation regulations without adequately informing manufacturers. They eventually backed down from the suit but the relationship between Porsche and the FIA was damaged.
I'm trying to determine how much interest there is from Registry members in the purchase of The Lost Archive book. I printed a 1st run of five copies and now trying to determine if I there is enough interest in 25 or maybe even 50 books. I'd like to maintain the quality of the linen-backed, hardbound book so printing is expensive. At this point I have a significant financial investment in the project (not to mention the hours of translation and organization) so I'm currently pricing copies at $275.
Anyone interested please reply to this thread. I will eventually create web page so buyers can make a purchase and track their orders. Thanks for reading this post.