At 4pm today French time zone, marks the 50th anniversary of our beloved 914 roadsters 1st place 2 litre GT class win at the LeMans track. In this pic is the leading 917 of quick Vic Elford, passing the Sonauto #40 914-6 GT. Vic set the fastest qualifying, and the fastest race lap of the 24 hour event, but engine failure at 18 hours claimed the car with a DNF. The #23 917 went on to the overall win, with the 914-6 GT finishing 6th overall. Both the 6 and 12 cylinder Porsche engines were designed by the late engineer Hans Mezger. It was a Great day for the boys from Weissach !
Photo credit from the internet.
Click to view attachment

Porsche 914-6 GT, Vic Elford and Hans Mezger. Can't get any better than that.

Super cool pic.

Happen to be working on something for the next issue on this race…with something of a shocker re: what really happened.

Can't wait Pete....

Congratulations! I look forward to seeing that car as it progresses on its refresh.

Have Le Mans playing to commemorate. Great movie, love how there is almost no dialogue for the first forty minutes . Awesome to see cars and race pretry much as it was. And 917s going 225 down the Mulsanne straight!

-Derek

Must be more stealth than last year's fueling issue dQ, on the Wynns Ford GT

Great pics,was it raining or just grainy photo? if raining can you imagine Mr Elford must have been busy in the 917 .
The 914/6 must have really stuffed up plans of other cars in this class,amazing result but IMO based on older race results with the 550 Spyder it was a known formula for Porsche.
Was the the winning 914/6 based on the 906 motor or the 911R,seem to remember they made just over 100hp/litre which was unreal back then.

Way more stealth! But that was Piëch. I'm learning things about 1970 that I'm not sure I ever would have, and this after studying Porsche full-time for the last 23 years.

Back into the 000 tunnel I go...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT59amOra78

#40

At the first F1 race at COTA, PCA brought Vic Elford to speak at the dinner on Saturday night. The stories he tells are incredible.

He spoke about driving the 917 at LeMans, doing 245mph into the kink at the end of Mulsanne, at night, in a driving rain storm. Crossing the hump, it would get light enough that the back tires would spin on the wet pavement... at 245mph. He had to be careful not to over-rev the motor.

Think about that for a minute. 1970s headlight and brake technology, an unstable 917 long tail, a driving rain storm, and high octane gasoline surrounding him, and he is still breaking loose the back tires at 245mph.

After his stint, he was in the garage arguing with the Porsche engineers on why the car wouldn't hit the 250mph mark they specified. The engineers said it was something about tire growth... I don't remember the exact reason.


That man has to clank when he walks.

Quick Vic sig on the #40 poster ¡
Click to view attachment

I spent a day with Vic about ten years ago, had him sign my hood. Click to view attachment

Vic is good people. Speaking with him a year ago or so, he mentioned how little he liked the 914-6 and how much he liked his wife Anita's 914-4—which was a lot. He wasn't impressed by the factory 914-6 competition cars and greatly preferred the competition-prepped 911s, but said the 914-4 was wonderfully balanced and a delight to drive.

Trying to remember if I mentioned that I had recently converted my car to a six....

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

John, that's priceless...I guess Vic likes our 914s
I met him along with Derek Bell and Chad McQueen at a (newly digitized) screening of the movie LeMans. The after-show panel discussion was very cool...then I briefly spoke with Vic and Derek.
These guys are the real deal !!

And I think he finally quit smoking (that is an older picture above) so hopefully he'll be with us a while longer...