development of the ducktail

[HughH]

Most of us will be aware of the fact that in July 1972 at the Osterreichring 1000Kms Strahle ran a car in prototype class, crewed by factory mechanics, and obviously as a part of a factory effort, which was effectively a prototype RSR. The picture of the experimental tail has been posted on a number of threads but is posted here again for reference.

Given that this was July 1972, it was after the first 4 or 5 RS's were completed but before series production got properly underway.

The RS book documents a lot of wind tunnel testing of different front and rear spoiler arrangements on an ST in 1970 to reduce lift and air resistance and again more in March and May 1972 with different versions of front and rear spoilers. (Indeed wind tunnel testing continued right through the life of the RS resulting in the "Mary Stuart" tails on the 1973 Le Mans entries following wind tunnel tests on them in June 1973 and practical tests on the Martini cars at the 1973 Monza event and the Targa Florio that year)

What I was unaware of, until Jim Calzia and Nikolay Karazlatev showed me recently, was that in one of Brian Long's books he quotes Denis Jenkinson from late 1972 about the Strahle car at the Osterreichring testing two different rear spoiler arrangements. (see extract in picture).

I have found a video of that race and captured a couple of shots of the rear of the car with the "other" spoiler which is IN FRONT of the engine grill.

Obviously that arrangement did not work out in practice and we got the ducktail behind the grill.

However it, and the recent thread covering the front spoiler and central oil cooler arrangements in the ST's, set me thinking as to whether there is documentary evidence of other aerodynamic evolution out there that has not really been noticed.

If there is I am certain that this forum is the place to dig it out and document it

[Zithlord]

Varunan, sorry to bother you, did you get my PM about 934/RSR?

John

[HughH]

Hi Raj

this is the link

the actual footage is at the 4 min mark

i am certain it is the Strahle car from that race. Here is a screen capture of the front of the car. It is a bit hard to see but it is the same as the well recognized photos - the colour, the placement of the fuel filler, the placement of the race number and its orientation and the strahle logo on the front of the car.
I am not aware of strahle running such a car anywhere else at that time.
Also all the decals at the side and rear of the car line up - the shell ones the strahle one etc.

compare it with the well known pics - also attached

[HughH]

Nikolay

Thanks for the link-i can't tell where the race is,but race results for that race lists the entry as porsche-here's the kicker-guess who the drivers are-ok-steckkonig/waldegaard number 5 car is listed as a 911S 2.7Litre-makes you wonder if it is possible that this is car-0863 or1632-listed on fred hampton's list as Factory 2.7Twin plug.Someone correct me if i am wrong but this is a formula 1 circuit so i would think it would be a race set up.They came in tenth not a bad display.


Raj

Raj

I thought that this car WAS 911 230 0841 and then became RS 0002.

that is listed on Fred Hamptons list as factory test car scrapped 25. 8.72 then RS2.

also the aerodynamics chapter of the RS book goes into some detail of this test and race saying the team, overseen by Norbert Singer, stayed around the next day to continue to test and the final conclusion was the rear spoiler improved lap times at the circuit by 2.5%

The book also notes that as at June 27, 1972 a decision still had not been made whether to have a engine lid spoiler or not, so I guess these were important tests with this car.

Also the final decision was not taken until further test drives had been made at Hockenheim but there is no mention of that being done under race conditions as this video shows.

[Jim Garfield]

Another interesting topic Hugh. I've often wondered if the seed for the idea of the ducktail was sown in the NART 250 that raced at LeMans in 1961?

[911T1971]

Much less known is that German/Swiss engineer and racer Michael May (who 1956 famously first used a roof spoiler on his 550 RSK and subsequently got banned from Porsche factory people and Huschke von Hanstein to race at 1000km Nurburgring because his car was initially faster than factory cars) later worked briefly for Mercedes at their fuel injected engine program and about 1961, for Porsche.

May worked on Porsche's F1 program and among others build a proto 1.5l engine w fuel injection putting out 182hp instead of 158hp, more than Porsche's planned 8 cyl F1-engine. May later moved to Ferrari helping developing the V6 Dino engine and from 1965 on worked as an independant engine consultant based near Geneva, Switzerland.

It was him who helped developing the worlds/german first 1973 BMW Turbo 2002 engine as well as giving inputs about aerodynamic downforce theories on race cars he pioneered in the 50ies.
...
Porsche probably did'nt liked that nimble Bavarian cars with help from a ex-Porsche engineer well known for its superb engine knowledge outpaced the 911S on race tracks...

BWM moved on with its aerodynamic tuned CSL "Batmobile" and M1 program and in 1983 won Formula 1 with a world first F1-turbo engined Brabham-BMW car based on a 2002 engine block tuned by Klaus Rosche and initially developed with the help of Michael May back in the mid-sixties.
http://www.early911sregistry.org/for...t=9074&page=43


1956: adjustable wing w flabs on a 550 RSK using downforce developed by Michael May:

[HughH]

Hugh

I agree with you the car is 0841,I included the others as possibilities only because those two cars had twin plug 2.7litre and have not seen a pix of either of those cars-and the entry list lists number 5 as a 2.7 litre car from Porsche and not Strahle-makes you wonder with the drivers involved whether strahle bought adverts like the other stickers on the car.Just a thaught.It is listed as factory test car on frampton's list and like zasada's both were renumbered by the factory and thus must have belonged to the factory

Raj

Raj
In my mind there is no doubt that it was a factory owned and controlled car.

The "official entrant" on my information was Strahle. But the car was crewed by werks drivers and mechanics and overseen by engineer Singer.

This would have been an attempt by the race / development team to "fly under the radar" - at least until the day of the race.

My understanding is that Porsche (and some other manufacturers) used such teams with close ties (and Strahle was about as close to the factory as any) to effect give "plausible deniability" to their development efforts - after all it cannot be factory if the factory was not officially involved - so there is no PR downside to the car failing at such an event, and no high expectations for it there.
this is from my records
10. 5 Günter Steckkönig (D)Björn Waldegaard (S)
Porsche 911 S 2.7 E. Strahle KG
142 5. S3.0 18. 2:01,410

[HughH]

Karim

I agree. Michael May was a brilliant and innovative engineer.
It is hard to overestimate his influence in all things automotive.

It wasn't only the BMW's that Porsche did not like. It was also the Ford Capris.
The RS book recounts a story of Ernst Fuhrmann, then recently made director of engineering, attending a touring car race at Hockenheim in early 1972 and seeing the Capris and BMW's with the track to themselves with the Porsche well behind.

He is supposed to have asked engineer Berger why the Porsche was eating the other cars' dust and the story has it that was the germination of the RS project.

The RS book states that engineer Berger, working directly for Fuhrmann rather than through normal channels, then became the project manager for what became the Strahle car.

I understand that this was a parallel programme to the series production 2.7S programme and essentially they merged to become the RS programme, driven to a large extent by changes to the FIA group 4 rules proposed at a meeting on May 16 1972.

[gulf908]

Further to Hugh's last post(!),it was also timely to change Porsche's direction in racing.
After the mega D mark extravaganza of the 917 to 917/30 programmes,Porsche/Fuhrmann wanted to re focus more on the production race cars to have a better profile with the race going fans ,as well as getting a few more D marks into the coffers with their customer race car programme.
This turn around went from the 2.7 RS/2.8 RSR way through to the unbeatable 935s and their subsequent derivatives.
Here endeth the lesson.

..ps - I wonder if the mechanics took bets as to how many laps the expensive experimental motor would last before frying while using the spoiler above the fan air intake ??

Cheers,
Dennis.

[911T1971]

..In 1971 there was an economic recession in Germany, leading into cost-cutting measurements at Porsche (and probably also to eliminate the external 72 oil filler flap on 73 cars which was very expensive in tooling).
Also, the DM-US$ exchange ratio was much in favor of US$ therfore making german export products very expensive and lowering 72/73 profit rates for the factory.

In 1969, VW-CEO Nordhoff died therefore ending a very close relationship (his daughter Elise married the brother of F.Piech) with that company including 914 and 917 developments. Volkswagen co-founded the 917 development program "as long as they had air-cooled engines".
As a director of Porsche's race program F. Piech was very successful but in terms of financing he drained the factory budget considerably.

Named Porsche CEO in 1972, Fuhrmann probably had another vision of racing programs. Having seen the (market) success in the 1950 with close-to serie racing cars (Spider, RSK, Carrera) he opted most likely to develop the 911 into a pure-bred race car rather than continue the costly 908, 910, 917 philosophy.

By developing the 2.7 engine (initially planned as a 2.7S and then rebadged 2.7RS "Carrera") Ernst Fuhrmann not only had a perfect marketing tool for racing, the "Carrera" badge was a also reminiscent of the famous 50ies "Carrera" engine he helped to develop while working as an engineer at Porsche and since then is also known as "Fuhrmann" engine. Even the famous Carrera logo applied to the 1973RS cars was similiar to the one written on 50ies Carrera engined Porsche's.

F. Porsche once said the difference between Ferrari and Porsche was "that Ferrari builds production cars just to do racing while Porsche does racing to build production cars".

The whole Porsche racing development after 1972 could be interpreted as going back to a philosophy which startet with the 911R and leading into a 1970-ies program we all know.

It wasn't only the BMW's that Porsche did not like. It was also the Ford Capris.
The RS book recounts a story of Ernst Fuhrmann, then recently made director of engineering, attending a touring car race at Hockenheim in early 1972 and seeing the Capris and BMW's with the track to themselves with the Porsche well behind.

In 1969, with Michael May's help BMW won the "European Touring Car Championship" with his 2002 therefore beating Porsche on its own home turf.
It was also May who entered in 1969, as a privateer, a prototyp Ford Capri Turbo ("Turbo May") with 320hp on a local race in Germany and setting the pace for Ford's 2600RS Capris which he initially consulted too on fuel injected system for their engines.