Oh man, where is that winning lottery ticket?
"Chassis 906-007, the famous ‘Kangaroo’ 904-based works prototype that finished second overall in the 1965 Targa Florio, and was subsequently converted to full ‘906’ specification for the 1967 season, is on the market. West Coast exotic and specialist car dealer and broker David M. Gizzi of Euro-Classics is marketing the car that was a vital part of the decade-long process that culminated in wins for the magnificent Type 917 at Le Mans in 1970 and ’71.
The early- to mid-Sixties saw an explosion in R&D at the Stuttgart manufacturer, with a multiplicity of engine/chassis/bodywork combinations for works and private cars that were to win an increasing number of world championship sports car races and important European Hill-climb Championship rounds.
The principles were simple: less weight, more power from the still small-capacity six- and eight-cylinder boxer motors, ever more slippery bodywork and constantly revised/amended/stiffened/lightened chassis. The cars were tested at the wind tunnel, the Weissach steering-pad, the Nürburgring, and then the most extreme versions were entered in hill-climbs where light weight was at a premium.
In 1965 the workhorse of Porsche’s long-distance racing team was the 904/6, but the factory had experimented with flat-eights and an open car based on several bought-in British Elva chassis, known as the ‘Kangaroo’. The spider, chassis 904-007, was heavier than an Elva but still some 120 kg lighter than a regular 904 coupé.
In that year Davis and Mitter finished second in it at the Targa, with hill-climb specialist Mitter then driving at the Rossfeld hill-climb, finishing third and marking the car’s final works appearance.
As was the case in those days, ex-factory cars were sold to privateers, and oddball machines like the ‘Kangaroo’ often found a home in far-flung comers of the world. So it was to Australia that the open car was shipped, where it enjoyed considerable success in the hands of Alan Hamilton, scion of the Hamilton Porsche dealership.
In 1967 he purchased a spare 906 body and chassis, with which to update the ageing car, re-numbering it 906-007 in the process (a fact confirmed by Jürgen Barth of Porsche in correspondence collected by Gizzi).
This then is the car you see here, restored to ‘excellent ready-to-race mechanical condition’ and ‘cosmetically also very nice’. Note the bare expanses of glass-fibre and sparce instrumentation, seating and finish - the way Porsches of that period were completed. This is the company that, after all, computed that the 906’s windscreen wiper and washer switch, which weighed only 53 gm, could be lightened by 7 gm by machining down the large nut securing it to the dashboard...
So no fuse box covers (12 gm), and the substitution of many aluminium and steel parts by beryllium, titanium and magnesium. That’s the way Porsche did it in the ‘60s and the car that’s shown here is a perfect example of the genre."
Link to more pics.
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