Ferrari Mailing List: £3million Ferrari 275 GTB attacks Goodwood hill

[Douglas Anderson (dnt]

The price of racing . . . anything.

 

So in 1975 a friend of ours, Bob, who was quite an entrepreneur and good auto crosser, wanted to go racing.  Bob (the guy who also bought Porsche #002 904 prototype which we drove home (to Marin County, CA) from Texas) scoured COMPETITION PRESS and found a local Formula V for sale.  It was Dan Marvin’s car.  Dan was moving up to Formula Atlantic where he became quite successful.  He also was one of the techs at Griswold’s in Berkeley.

 

With any race car there is or might be or should be a log book.  I guess much like an airplane.  Something goes wrong, and entry in a log book is made and the fix is noted.  A shunt happens, damage is noted in the log book and what was done to fix it.

 

So Dan had worked feverishly up grading his FV with a new suspension and engine going after a championship (I believe he got 2^nd or 3^rd) and one of the contests were at the Phoenix.  Dan an crew drove all night to make Friday practice and arrived early a.m.  they unloaded, reported in, suited up, and Dan took off to try the car.  Half way through a long left hand turn he hits an oil slick, leaves the track at full tilt, the right side hits the only tree there and sheers off the entire right side breaking the right side suspension off and parts of the new engine block.

 

All the damage is noted in the log book.  At the bottom of the repair page Dan had scribed a short note – “this just goes to show you that racing is fun, cheap, and easy.”

 

The building and racing in the under 5 liter class, the 917 was an early disaster.  And as Lash and others pointed not until John Wyer and Rodger Penske came along did the 917 escape selling sausages at Oktoberfest.  But as for stretching Porsche finances to the limit I have no personal knowledge of that. 

 

However, there is factual evidence the cars were loosing some of their glitter.  it was in the late 60’s, early 70’s that the 911 took a hit finish wise.  Minor stuff.  1970 911’s continued to see the disappearance of the wind wing that started in 1969 (except for the Targa); the normal black under coating in the trunk and under body was missing: and engine size, 2.2, was a decal affixed to the rear window rather than the silver or gold polished aluminum numbers.

 

Porsche was and always has been a design consulting firm.  Automobile manufacturing was secondary.  In 1931 or so when Ferdinand and son Ferry Porsche started their concern Ferdinand made it a point to start with “Design Type 7” – not for good luck but for eye wash.  He didn’t want his first client to think he was the Porsche’s first commission for this untried company.

 

But in 1902 Ferdinand designed the first hybrid diesel / electric or mixed drive car for the Egger-Lohner concern.  Not so fast eh Prius?  Porsche also designed a hybrid tank – the Tiger.  That pissed off the French.

 

Then, because Porsche had designed amongst other goodies, some tanks, the French grabbed him and placed him in a post war hotel ‘jail.’  Mostly for political reasons.  Subsequently they agreed to free him back to his family but for a price.  Therefore his son Ferry raised bail by making a “Porsche” car starting with the Design Type “356,” a mid-engine roadster built in a farm house in Gmund Austria followed by 22 other 356/2 coupes out of the same farm lumber yard.  Oh, and Design Type 60 was the KDF Wagen - Kraft durch Freude – Strength Through Joy - which became the VW.

 

So from Dan Marvin’s foot note that - racing is fun cheap and easy - to Ferry Porsche bailing his dad out of a French hotel jail with the sale of the first Porsche‘s the car business is expensive and i am sure that they suffered just like any other manufacturer.  Not until just recently did Porsche survive another impending dip in the economy. 

 

The secret was sprung at the annual Porsche Parade in 2000 closing dinner of 1,300 of our closest friends.  Peter Porsche made the announcemt that Porsche will NOT be racing in the near future.  We are going to put all our efforts to develop an SUV.  You could have heard a mouse pissing in cotton.  The room was stuned and thus the spawning of the Cayenne which in fact pulled their chestnuts out of the fire. 

 

But that wouldnt have surprised the Old Man – after all, like Lambrogini, he designed passenger cars, F1 racing cars and tractors in addition to engines for Harley Davidson.

 

Onward

Doug

 

 

From: Hans E. Hansen <FList [at] hanshansen.org>
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2021 7:23 PM
To: Douglas Anderson <dnt [at] dock.net>
Cc: The FerrariList <ferrari [at] ferrarilist.com>
Subject: Re: [Ferrari] £3million Ferrari 275 GTB attacks Goodwood hill

 

Doug:

 

Heard that the 917 program stretched Porsche's finances to the limit. If it was unsuccessful, they could have been relegated to serving sausages at Octoberfest. Obviously it worked.

 

Any truth to that? Or urban legend.

 

Hans. 

 

On Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 12:08 PM Douglas Anderson <dnt [at] dock.net> wrote:

Peter notes “. . . figure out that ain’t no four cylinder!”

 

Oh yeah.

 

Some short 40 or so page B/W document booklet (Cars in Profile?) put out by one of the motor books publishers (there was a collection of such booklets – Brabham, Alfa Romero Type 8, etc) that goes over the development of their subject had a booklet on the 917.  So someplace I read when Porsche mounted up the Type 912 air cooled vertical fan motor in the testing room and pulled some high RPM’s the fan evacuated the room and dislodged (I believe it said sucked in but I don’t trust my memory and honestly, that sounds pretty ludicrous) the windows.

 

Interesting crankshaft(s).  To minimize torsional vibrations the engine had another ‘crankshaft’ beneath the regular crankshaft.  Really not a crank shaft but a simple power take off shaft located in the center of the 12 cylinders.  This arrangement also drove the oil scavenge pumps and fan.

 

It was really quite a motor.  As you may already know, the Porsche dealer who was quite involved on the west coast as a racer and subsequent race car preparer was Vasek Polak.  He was the first exclusive Porsche dealership in the U.S.  Others were tied to VW of America.

 

Anyhow – Vasek was privy to factory firsts and as such had a bevy of the first 917’s and CanAm 917’s.  I recall his driver, Milt Minter, at a gathering talking about the 917 normally aspirated CanAm 917 that became a turbo charged 917.  To begin with, Joe Seifert had raced the regular (as if there is such a thing) 917-10 in 1971 in the CanAm’s and settled for some 2nds and thirds and a 4^th place over all.  Then Penske came along and with Donohue developed the car into a McLaren Killer Car.  And that it did.

 

But back to Uncle Milty – so Milt is driving the car early in the 1972 season, pre-Penske L&M sponsored 917, and getting waxed.  Vasek tells Milt – skip the next CanAm and send the car back to us at race Hq in Hermosa Beach, CA.  Milty did as requested.  The car then returns and shows up to the next scheduled race, I forget the track. 

 

So Milt suits up – notices things look a bit strange in the engine compartment but was told never mind – test it out.  So he takes a few warm up laps and then gets on it.  The track has a long back straight and a slight rise – as he cleared the rise the engine redlines and fills the open cockpit with smoke.  Oh MY Milt tells the audience – I think I just ruined the clutch.  He continues – I immediately returned to the pits and as I entered I saw people clapping and giving me a thumbs up.  What’s that about?  When I make it to my pit the crew starts slapping me on the back . . . you were smoking the rear tires down the back stretch.  Vasek had put in the factory turbo engine.  Handle with care.

 

In the early 1980’s Vasek’ s race Scuderia curator, Carl Thompson, who oversaw Vasek’ s huge collection of race cars.  Those were stacked two or three high in individual cubby holes, nose pointing out, in a very large ware house in Torrance, close to the Hermosa Beach Hq.  We were invited down there for a look-see and a chat with some of the crews – no cameras please.  In one of the aisles I noticed stacks, as in at least 4 high and many feet long, 917 engine crates.  Open crates, not boxes.  It honestly was the first time I ever had a chance to look at a naked engine.  On all of them, the spark plug wires were about as big around as a #2 pencil.

 

Some time later, 1997, Vasek crashed a 911 Turbo S on the Autobahn and was severally injured.  He was 82 and old folks don’t heal quickly.  On his way home in a special private jet made up like a hospital room, he had a heart attack and died.  Then the sea gulls came in to raid Vasek’ s treasure trove.  As I recall there was a questionable number of items missing.  I believe it got worked out.

 

                    

 

Vasek’ s old store.

 

Ach – the memories

Doug

 

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