 917 - Part 1
A strange car, the one pictured above. Can you spot it? There is written 'ear lobe' and 'ham' or 'snout'. The car is also affectionately called the 'Pink Pig'. Ferdinand Piëch mentions it in his autobiography, although it was
actually intended as a provocation directed against him by the chief designer Anatole Lapine.
With this paint finish, he complained about the exclusion of all Porsche designers from the production of this body. Piëch, on the other hand, described this, which was developed externally, as particularly successful. In any
case, the painting was done so late that the the superiors could no longer have it changed, and so it was accepted with equanimity. More on that towards the end of this chapter.
What is that actually, a 917? Today it is not even possible to say whether it is the largest or the most powerful racing machine that Porsche has ever built. But at the time it definitely was. And what was it for? Quite simply, at
Le Mans there are always many winners in the 24 Hours, although those should actually be called 'class winners'. Porsche has always been there. But with this car one wanted to be the overall winner.
You have to know that the Porsche company was actually founded very modestly. Initially, only 500 units of the 356 were expected. According to Ferry Porsche, it ultimately became 78,000. But still that was only about 30 cars
per working day. So one work shift, all the wagons are loaded and taken away and the apprentices sweep the somewhat larger yard.
But it is precisely the racing successes, including and especially those of private drivers, that make up by far the largest proportion of advertising for Porsche. Perhaps one can accept as a start the winning of the German
championship by Harald Glöckler with a 1.1 liter Spider and an estimated 43 kW (58 hp). In the meantime, it is said to have grown to over 30,000 winnings.
In addition to its racing victories, the 550 Spider also gained notoriety through James Dean's accident. This was followed by the complex construction in the Fuhrmann engine with four overhead camshafts and participation
in Formula 1 with a 1.5 liter eight-cylinder. This unit was then further developed and finally had 3 liters displacement. Ferry Porsche then also reported on tests with twelve and sixteen cylinders.
The twelve-cylinder topic was not particularly strange at Porsche, especially since a twelve-cylinder boxer engine with two overhead camshafts each driven by vertical shafts had already been built for Cisitalia in 1948. And yet
Ferdinand Piëch described the 917 as the 'riskiest car of his life'. According to the FIA, 25 such cars had to be built for homologation.
With one, a privat driver had a fatal accident during his first drive at Le Mans. On the occasion of mentioning this accident, Piëch told us that the price paid by the Brit was DM 170,000. It remains uncertain whether that covered
the costs or whether it should only flush a certain amount into the till for a vehicle that was to be built anyway. In any case, it was already more than four million DM.
However, even at this time there was yet a certain relationship. In view of the facts, it would probably be too low to describe the Volkswagen factory as just a sponsor. Ferry Porsche, for example, described his first demands
from VW in 1948 as 'moderate'. That may be so, but he managed to get all the parts he needed delivered, sold and serviced through the VW dealer network, and DM 5 for every Beetle sold.
And that at a company that otherwise only supplied Hebmüller, Karmann and later Westfalia with parts, or allowed them to participate in the production process. And then there was the ominous clause that VW would be
“supported in an advisory capacity on construction tasks”. And why is this agreement worth mentioning before the development phase of the 917?
Because there was another contract in which, according to Piëch, 'Volkswagen pays two-thirds of the entire racing budget with no upper limit'. That was linked to the only requirement that the racing successes should be
achieved by vehicles with air cooling. Piëch said he could live with that: a little less performance, but also less weight.
At VW they had obviously believed that if they switched to liquid cooling (and maybe also front engine) the acceptance of the Volkswagen product would be gone. Other manufacturers, such as BMW in the transition from
standard to front-wheel drive, had fewer scruples and were obviously successful. VW almost failed in this internal struggle.
Piëch may not have cared about all that, he had his budget, although it is said that it was difficult for Porsche to raise its own third in the course of the very short development time. And how did the boss behave in the whole
thing? Piëch says that in private they agreed on the step in terms of technology, but in front of the family he complained violently about the enormous costs.
Ferry Porsche was not only an obviously gifted negotiator, he was also a master at not interfering. He sent signs, e.g. that he was not present at the first presentation of the 917 in Geneva in 1969, but in his autobiography he
is proud of the fact that 'after nineteen years of impressive class victories, we achieved to win overall victory with this vehicle at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.'
And what role did the pink pig pictured above play, also known as 'Truffle Hunter', 'The Pig' or 'Cochon Rose'? That was due to the 917's botched entry into the racing scene. It was by no means a success right from the start,
but rather difficult to get a grip on in terms of aerodynamics due to its outstanding driving performance.
In this context, Ferdinand Piëch points out that 'thirty years later Mercedes, Porsche and BMW cars achieved insane performances'. On the other hand, the performance in the record attempts by Mercedes and Auto Union in
1937/38 must be reassessed, because speeds of over 400 km/h were reached here.
Piëch said the problems had been so great that he pitted the Englishmen of John Wyer's Gulf team against his own people. The anger of the Porsche chief designer then also hit an all-rounder that is almost independent of
short and long tails and has a favorable cW value of 0.387 despite many openings, developed in a French wind tunnel with local specialists.
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