Porsche 917 - the greatest racing car in history

Priyadarshan Bawikar   14 May 2009

It's been 40 years since one of the most iconic racing cars ever built made its world debut. We take a closer look at the Porsche 917, a car which in its heyday dominated nearly every race it was entered in.

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The title of "greatest racing car in history" is not one to be taken lightly. But when a jury of 50 motorsports experts from across the globe nominated the iconic Porsche 917 for this coveted title, the powerful Porsche's legendary reputation just got cemented. First unveiled 40 years ago at the 1969 Geneva International Motor Show, no one could have imagined that it would go on to become one of the fastest and most successful racing cars of all time, and prove to be extremely potent even by today's standards.

Project 917 was fired off by Porsche in June 1968 when the FIA had announced a class of "homologated sports cars" with engine capacity up to 5.0-litres and a minimum weight limit of 800kg. Though the stipulated 25 units necessary for the homologation process were completed by April 1969 under the supervision of Dr. Ferdinand Piech , it dropped out of the first three races of the season due to technical problems. Finally in August of that year, the 917 got its first victory at a 1,000km race at the Osterreichring with Jo Siffert and Kurt Ahrens behind the wheel. What followed from here on out was utter domination of nearly every category the 917 raced in.

For all its prowess, the design of the 917 was fairly simple - a 4.5-litre air-cooled horizontally-opposed (boxer) 12-cylinder engine behind the driver, an all-aluminium tubular frame and a body made out of fibreglass reinforced synthetics which came in various shapes and sizes particular to a specific racing formula. The 'short-tail' model was designed for heavily twisting roads that demanded a high contact pressure for fast cornering. The famous 'long-tail' body gave the 917 a very high top speed - something that a track like Le Mans demanded. And last, but not least, was the 917 Spyder, an open top version of the 917 that raced in the CanAm and Interseries races.