Porsche News
Moderator
- Joined
- 8 Feb 2008
- Messages
- 7,361
Endurance racing stands for fighting and nail-biting, tears, cheers, and sweat. That's what makes the drivers heroes. But it's not just the people who become legends. Cars do, too.
Porsche 917 KH Coupé (1970)
There's no shortage of prominent number combinations at Porsche, but the sequence 9-1-7, at least when it comes to racing, is the most famous of all. It stands not only for the most powerful and fastest Porsche race car to date, but also for an entire generation of racing cars that only changes to the rules"”not competitors on the track"”could stop.
When the new rules for the International Championship for Sports Cars were made public at the end of 1967, the team in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen decided to build a new race car for the under-five-liter class. As the successor to the successful 907 and 908 types, the 917 got an air-cooled twelve-cylinder engine whose power in 1970 was an imposing 426 kW (580 hp)at 8,300 rpms. On June 14, 1970, Porsche bagged the first of 16 overall victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
After exactly 4,607.81 kilometers, or 343 laps, drivers Hans Herrmann and Richard Attwood took the checkered flag in the legendary Porsche 917 Kurzheck (KH) from Porsche Salzburg, with start number 23. When Gérard Larrousse and Willy Kauhsen took second in the Martini-917 Langheck and Rudi Lins and Helmut Marko came in third in the Porsche 908/02, the Porsche sweep of the podium was perfect.
Build year: 1970
Class: Sports car
Engine: V12 (180°)
Displacement: 4,494 cc
Power: 426 kW (580 hp)
Weight empty: 800 kg
Top track speed: 340 km/h
Most important win: Le Mans victory 1970
Drivers: Hans Herrmann, Richard Attwood
Porsche 917 KH Coupé (1970)
There's no shortage of prominent number combinations at Porsche, but the sequence 9-1-7, at least when it comes to racing, is the most famous of all. It stands not only for the most powerful and fastest Porsche race car to date, but also for an entire generation of racing cars that only changes to the rules"”not competitors on the track"”could stop.
When the new rules for the International Championship for Sports Cars were made public at the end of 1967, the team in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen decided to build a new race car for the under-five-liter class. As the successor to the successful 907 and 908 types, the 917 got an air-cooled twelve-cylinder engine whose power in 1970 was an imposing 426 kW (580 hp)at 8,300 rpms. On June 14, 1970, Porsche bagged the first of 16 overall victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
After exactly 4,607.81 kilometers, or 343 laps, drivers Hans Herrmann and Richard Attwood took the checkered flag in the legendary Porsche 917 Kurzheck (KH) from Porsche Salzburg, with start number 23. When Gérard Larrousse and Willy Kauhsen took second in the Martini-917 Langheck and Rudi Lins and Helmut Marko came in third in the Porsche 908/02, the Porsche sweep of the podium was perfect.
Build year: 1970
Class: Sports car
Engine: V12 (180°)
Displacement: 4,494 cc
Power: 426 kW (580 hp)
Weight empty: 800 kg
Top track speed: 340 km/h
Most important win: Le Mans victory 1970
Drivers: Hans Herrmann, Richard Attwood