The Racing Porsches - A Technical Triumph

At the end of the 1971 international motor racing season, the Porsche 917 was the fastest and most advanced sports-racing car ever built. It had played a major role in winning second and third consecutive World Championship titles for its manufacturer, and had shattered lap and race records at circuits right across the world. Open models had appeared in North American Can-Am racing and in the European Interserie, and then for 1972, a change of regulations ruled out the cars from the World Championship of Makes and placed Porsche's emphasis squarely on the American and European competitions. Lighter open 917s were built with more powerful turbo-supercharged engines giving a shattering 900-plus horsepower, and they swept the board on both sides of the Atlantic. This crushing achievement was the culmination of nine years of intensive research and development of a basic engine and chassis concept, whose story started in 1964. The relatively simple six-cylinder engine of those days evolved from a road-going design which powers today's range of Porsche production models. In The Racing Porsches, famous racing driver, journalist and engineer Paul Frere records for the first time the detailed story of the development of these famous world-beating cars. In writing this lavishly illustrated account of such a technical triumph, Paul Frere, because of his close association with the Porsche company's management, was able to consult many jealously guarded documents and previously unpublished official records. The result is an authoritative work that traces in detail both technical design, and the successes and failures of the development of Porsche sports-racing cars from the 904, 906, 910, 907, 908 to the world-beating 917, over the period 1964-1972.