In summary:
Bonhams Goodwood Revival Collectors' Motor Cars Auction, 9 September 2023, Chichester, Goodwood
1973 3-litre Martini Racing Works Team Porsche Carrera RSR 'R7' Endurance Racing Coupe, Lot 251P
VIN: 9113600686
Engine: 6930047
Trans: -
Color: Silver Metallic/Martini Livery (Color Code: 908)
Mileage: 22,565 km (indicated)
Auction Estimate: -
Sold For: Not Disclosed
1973 Porsche 2.8L Porsche Carrera RSR 0686 - Silver Metallic 7.jpg
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1973 Porsche 2.8L Porsche Carrera RSR 0686 - Silver Metallic 10.jpg
1973 Porsche 2.8L Porsche Carrera RSR 0686 - Silver Metallic 11.jpg
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1973 Porsche 2.8L Porsche Carrera RSR 0686 - Silver Metallic 17.jpg
Auction Description:
• The Ex-works team, Ex-Herbert Müller/Gijs van Lennep 4th place at Le Mans, Ex-Peter Gregg/Hurley Haywood, Ex-Hector Rebaque
• Uniquely original ex-works Martini Porsche RSR
• Uniquely verified by 1973 team chief Norbert Singer
• Uniquely confirmed identity by US Court
• Best-finish ever at Le Mans by a Porsche RSR
• Embodies dozens of original Porsche works 'tweaks'
Here, for the first time, we proudly bring to the classic cars auction market one of the legendary 1970s period's most iconic closed-Coupé racing Porsches. This German silver-finished ex-works team car's triple-tone, blue-and-red banded, Martini Racing livery is one of the most attractive and significant of the great German marque's entire, scintillatingly successful, racing history.
What's more, this particular car - known within the factory team as 'R7' - was co-driven by works drivers Herbie Müller and Gijs van Lennep into a rousing fourth place finish overall in the 1973 Le Mans 24-Hour race, the most prestigious crown-jewel qualifying round of the FIA's endurance-racing World Championship of Makes. So why should that fourth place be so celebrated?
Because it was taken by this closed-cockpit production-derived Grand Touring car - although it was competing there in the more liberally-regulated Prototype racing category - and 'yet R7' here was headed home only by three pure-bred racing open-cockpit sports-prototype 'rocket ships', each one a 3-litre 12-cylinder-engined works team entry. They came from Matra-Simca (who took first and third places) and (in second position) Ferrari, no less.
Judge a competition car by the company it once kept, and 'R7' indeed scores stupendously high here - having shared track space with the Matra-Simca MS670Bs of Henri Pescarolo/Gérard Larrousse, of the two Jean Pierres - Jabouille and Jaussaud - and the factory Ferrari 312PB of Arturo Merzario/Carlos Pace... So here indeed is a works RSR of unique importance.
Following its success at Le Mans, 'R7' was then entrusted by Martini Racing to the junior pairing of young Austrian Helmut Koinigg/Manfred Schurti for the next World Championship round, the Osterreichring 1,000 Kilometres race, in which they finished ninth, one place behind Müller/van Lennep in the sister car that day, 'R6'.
Only one more World Championship round remained on the 1973 sporting calendar, the Watkins Glen 6-Hours in up-state New York. In preparation for it 'R7' was supplied by Porsche to the leading American marque exponents, Brumos Racing. They ran the car there in their own livery of overall white with broad red-and-blue centreline stripes. The distinctive 'ruff' type 'Mary Stuart' tail treatment used on this particular car at both Le Mans and the Osterreichring was replaced by a long-tail/narrower wing treatment, and the car was co-driven by the experienced (and earlier in the year the Daytona 24-Hour race-winning duo) Peter Gregg and Hurley Haywood.
They first competed - on July 21, 1973 - in the 6-Hour race in which this historic Porsche finished seventh overall. Then next day Peter Gregg drove the car solo in the accompanying Watkins Glen CanAm Championship round, finishing ninth there, amongst the unlimited-capacity 'anything goes' Group 7 sports-racing cars.
It appears that part of Porsche's agreement to supply 'R7' to Brumos was for them subsequently to find a private buyer for it, and they succeeded - the car then passing to Hector Rebaque Sr in Mexico for his aspiring racing driver son, also named Hector. The car would be entered under the Rebaque Rojas team title.
They then campaigned 'R7', essentially in its Watkins Glen 'long-tailed' configuration, repainted in white, red and yellow 'Viceroy' cigarette-brand/Cafe Mexicana coffee livery before Hector Jr aspired to Formula 1 with ex-works Lotus 78 and 79 Grand Prix cars, followed by his own Rebaque-Cosworth HR100 venture late in 1979. Mr Rebaque was then engaged by Bernie Ecclestone's Formula 1 Brabham factory team for 1980-81 before moving to American CART Indycar racing. His considerable driving prowess was demonstrated by winning at Road America in his first CART season - displaying the skills he had previously honed in nothing less than 'R7', now offered here.
This ex-works Porsche RSR's 1974 season had also seen it entered by the Rebaques in its second consecutive Le Mans 24-Hour race, running there in Viceroy colours co-driven by young Hector with Guillermo Rojas and Fred van Beuren Jr as his team mates. Suffering this time from ignition problems, the car failed to finish.
In Rebaque's hands 'R7' featured most prominently in home Mexican events - as one of no fewer than five RSRs which the Rebaques owned in all (of the 55 built) - before its story became distorted by a long-time commonly-held belief - within some Porsche circles - that it had been damaged beyond economic repair in an incident which involved it having fallen from the Rebaques' trailer in an accident on the public road.
In later years the story developed to suggest that after that incident the car had been dismantled as a source of spare parts. Some of what were alleged to be those parts found their way via one Diego Febles to an American Porsche enthusiast who built up an approximate look-alike 'R7' finished in 1974-style Viceroy livery, and making claim to the identity of the original Le Mans fourth-place Martini car.
In fact the apparent disappearance of the real 'R7' - now offered right here - had come about because it had been discreetly exported from Mexico - we believe as early as 1977 and in complete assembled form after having been only lightly damaged by falling from its trailer.
It had passed to a very private, security-minded Italian collector named Massimo Balliva. This historic ex-works/Martini Racing Porsche Carrera RSR then remained within his care for over thirty years, effectively hidden away, almost entirely out of sight of the international Porsche fraternity, and out of mind...
In 2009, prominent Porsche specialist Yvan Mahé of Equipe Europe was then running a rather similar RSR at an historic race meeting at the Monza Autodrome, outside Milan, Italy. During that meeting he was approached by a gentleman who expressed great interest in his car, later mentioning that he had an apparent sister RSR "back home". They talked about their shared interest and some time later - apparently unheralded - an open truck delivered the genuine and effectively long-lost 'R7', now offered here, to Mr Mahé's workshop in Paris, France, for some remedial work to be undertaken.
In fact the car was returned cosmetically to more or less its 1973 Le Mans form by French specialist Raymond Touroul, restoring it to its distinctive so-called 'Mary Tudor' rear wing/aerodynamic spoiler form, and renewing its original-style Martini Racing livery.
Subsequently another well-known Porsche-world figure found a purchaser for the car - the current vendor - in the USA. With the re-emergence there of this perfectly genuine ex-Martini Racing/Brumos/Rebaque/Balliva 'R7' - the owner of the supposedly reconstructed 'parts-based'' vehicle then initiated litigation to bolster his rival claim to this car's historic identity. This litigation was vigorously resisted, yet ground on for some seven years until May 23 this year when the case was ordered dismissed by a New York court, following a settlement. As part of that settlement the replica owner was permitted to keep his car but agreed to make no further claim to ownership of 'R7' - while continuing to represent his vehicle as "...a reconstruction of the long tail RSR, currently presented in Viceroy livery raced by the Rebaque Rojas team..." - only.
As part of the background to this litigation - to establish authenticity, as far back as April, 2016, 'R7' as offered here had been transported to Porsche Classic in Germany where it was inspected by the manufacturer's veteran senior engineer and former works team manager, Norbert Singer.
He had supervised construction and preparation of the factory's Martini Racing RSRs in 1973, so was uniquely placed to comment on the cars' originality. After a full day of careful examination, covering every part of this car, Mr Singer positively identified it as RSR 911 '360 0686' (aka 'R7') and provided a formal statement to that effect, comprehensively confirming this body shell's historic identity.
Mr Singer recalled: "When we were building the 911 prototype race cars...there were certain reinforcements which we had to add to certain components of the regular production Porsche 911 to enable them to withstand the extra stress of racing...in particular, the cross tube and the cross-member (ahead) of the engine. From my original inspection of those reinforcements, I am confident they are the original reinforcements from 1973. I noted that the welding...appeared not be done with the precision which one would typically see in a production Porsche 911. This is consistent with my recollection of the time pressure we were under to convert regular 911s into the R-series racing prototypes. Because of these time pressures, we had to quickly add the extra reinforcement to the cross tube and the cross member in the engine compartment...so we...did the welding ourselves rather than bringing in specialized welders...as was typically done with production cars. This poorly done (but effective) welding (is) present...around the cross tube and the cross member in the engine compartment. In my opinion, it is highly unlikely that this fact would be known except to those of us who were involved in the development of the Porsche RSR series...".
He identified not just one but numerous detail features demonstrating the amazing hand-built care and forethought which Porsche built into each of its team cars to maximise their competitiveness on track.
Each tiny, detail feature surviving today exemplifies Porsche's sheer contemporary investment in manpower, manufacturing commitment and money, to produce a specialised, lightweight, pure competition version of their revered Typ 911 Coupé production car design.
As background, in the early 1970s, a new European Grand Touring Championship was giving the competition 911s a fresh lease of life. Race grids were almost completely filled by this model. By the Autumn of 1972, Porsche launched its new 911 'Carrera' with engine capacity raised from 2.4 to 2.7-litres, and a batch of 500 lightweight-bodied 911s was built to achieve governing-body sporting acceptance (homologation) for it. Three variants were offered – the RS (RennSport), RST (touring) and the ultimate racing RSR of which 'R7' here is one of only four such Martini Racing works team cars - from the eight built - known to have survived.
Evidently when Porsche first considered what became their 911 RSR model in preparation for the 1972-73 racing seasons it was believed that model homologation could be achieved by manufacturing only 25 special lightweight-bodied 911 Coupés. However, the FIA governing body then decreed that the minimum acceptable batch size to achieve the lowest possible model weight would be 500 units. The German company's decision to blast ahead without prior dealer commitment to buy such cars bears testimony to their racing bloodline. And overall some 1,580 units would be produced with 0.88mm thick body skins instead of the accepted standard 1mm, saving some 9Kg, 19.8lbs, in bare body shell terms. Further weight was saved by the RSR's unique use of 3mm thick Belgian-made Glavabel glass in its windows. In engine terms, 1973 was the last year of the naturally-aspirated pre-turbocharged 911 RSR series.
Today, 'R7' is considered to be the best-preserved of that rarefied group of only eight works cars built - of which two were written-off in period, and only four then surviving extensive subsequent modification - and now resplendent in its classical Martini Racing livery.
Production Porsche RS cars originally featured two separate batteries mounted individually well forward in the nose. Subsequently, to achieve a subtle change in weight distribution while also providing better protection from crash damage, a single bigger battery was mounted further back, set into the forward trunk floor in what became known as 'The Smuggler's Box'. The works RSRs' rear crossmember was double-skinned, then welded to the rear engine-bay firewall. On its right-hand side, two small brackets were added to carry the oil catch tank.
RSRs also featured a floor-mounted recess for double hydraulic-brake system master cylinders allowing front to rear brake-bias adjustment. The shell's centre tunnel was reinforced, while in the forward end of each rear-wheel arch, welded-on torsion tube reinforcement plates are visible. The rear seat-bucket panel was welded to the cross-member skin.
Under the right-side rear wheel arch the inner body skin was ball-peen hammered to accept recessed oil pipes, providing space to clear wider rear wheels and tyres. Another distinctive feature of 'R7' is the hammered relief in the right-rear seat bowl to facilitate faster changing of the starter motor, should that prove necessary. Like all long-time works racing teams, Porsche's painstaking car preparation reflected years of often painfully hard-won experience... For the connoisseur, it is surviving fine details such as this which make 'R7' such a valuable - and unique - surviving document today...
Where customer Porsche RSR rear spring plates featured rubber bushes, the Martini Racing works cars had them replaced by needle-roller bearings. The front wheel-bearing axles were moved further up the damper bodies to lower ride height without affecting wheel travel, and wider-rim centre-lock wheels instead of bolt-on type would also be adopted.
During the celebrated 'Unsafe at Any Speed' Ralph Nader excitement of 1967, Porsche had altered the weight distribution of its contemporary production 911 Coupés by adding cast iron or lead within the front bumper. As 'the Nader case' rattled on into 1969, Porsche lengthened their 911s' wheelbase by 2 1/4-inches, reducing the rear end overhang. In a test at the Ricard-Castellet circuit in France, driver/engineers complained of bad handling in long high-speed corners. A geometric 'stiction' point was identified within the rear suspension which was corrected by adding a 2 1/4-inch extension bracket to the torsion tube to fit short-wheelbase trailing arms in an LWB 911 body shell. This facilitated fitting short trailing arms. The modification was made to some production cars for homologation purposes but was apparently unique to works RSRs. Of course it is one of the myriad confirmatory characteristics of 'R7' today.
The car also features a factory anti-roll bar mount modification, highlighted by Norbert Singer. It has ventilated Porsche 917-type competition brakes - has an alloy front cross-member versus production steel - adjustable front and rear anti-roll bars - and the bigger RSR oil radiator. These works cars were copper piped for their chosen onboard extinguisher system, while the roll-over cage is founded in unique works-specification forgings.