1973 saw a return to normality for the Daytona 24-hour race. The distance was set back at 24 hours, after running only a 6-hour length in 1972. Ferrari in 1972 had petitioned the FIA to keep races at 6-hours, as the reliability of the 3.0-litre prototype cars (312PB) was suspect over a 24-hour distance. For 1973, Bill France petitioned to have the Daytona race returned to … [Read more...]
Porsche 917 – Zuffenhausen’s Le Mans and Can-Am Champion
Porsche 917 – Zuffenhausen’s Le Mans and Can-Am Champion, is the third title we have reviewed in the Ludvigsen Library Series. The other two have been Porsche Spyders 1956-1964: Type 550A, RSK and 718 models, and the White Racers from Zuffenhausen: Porsche models 904, 906, 907, 908, 909 and 910. As with the other titles we have reviewed in this series, the Porsche 917 book also … [Read more...]
Hairy monsters – the Porsche 917/10 Can-Am Spyder
Jody Scheckter was born in East London on the east coast of South Africa, a sleepy seaside town that actually carried the honour of being the country’s motorsport centre up until the early 1960s. In 1973, Scheckter, by then a 23-year old fast-climbing motorsport star, had moved ‘overseas’ and had been criss-crossing the Atlantic between England and America, competing in … [Read more...]
Can-Am 50th Anniversary
First impressions – Can-Am 50th Anniversary is a big book! It’s not that it is so thick, but dimensionally it is large in length and breadth, so you had best find yourself a nice big, comfy armchair, and settle back for the ride of a lifetime. The publisher’s marketing blurb puts it this way, “Feel the speed in this dazzlingly illustrated book on the over the top, no … [Read more...]
Porsche 919 Hybrid Evo is faster than Formula One
In the year following a third consecutive WEC title, Porsche is taking its World Championship winning race car around the world on a ‘goodbye tour’. The Stuttgart company is well aware that a little bit of good PR never did anyone any harm, and so in an attempt to show that the Porsche 919 Hybrid Evo is faster than Formula One, a challenge was set up. Read on and find out just … [Read more...]
Weissach – Centre of Porsche Excellence
By the late 1950s, the German Wirtschaftswunder was well underway and as the economy grew, so traffic density increased. This was particularly noticeable around Stuttgart often making testing on local Autobahnen inconvenient and it caused Ferry to think about creating his own test track. Thanks to its close relationship with VW, Porsche could always use the vast Ehra-Lessien … [Read more...]
The Unfair Advantage
The story of Mark Donohue’s racing achievements has been told in numerous magazine articles over the years. His achievements too, in the famous #6 Sunoco Porsche 917/30 in the 1973 Can-Am series, have been similarly covered many times. But until I read The Unfair Advantage, I had little knowledge of Donohue’s struggle through the various other racing cars and series that he … [Read more...]
