Miguel Sánchez
As in war, psychological combat plays a very important role in motorsports. In this way, we can find examples where lies have been used in order to create panic in the adversary. Communication campaigns in which, without shame, the mistake has been openly played with the sole intention of sowing confusion. In fact, in this sense Porsche has one of the best examples in relation to the world of racing. But let's go in parts.
Thus, we have to set ourselves in the World Cup of Brands at the end of the sixties. Dominated by Ford since 1966, the 24 Hours of Le Mans were about to become the feud of the Porsche 917. Introduced in 1969, this model came to overcome the hegemony imposed by the GT40 due to an excellent weight/power ratio unfortunately for Ferrari. Not surprisingly, in Maranello they still had hopes of returning to their golden years in endurance racing.
In fact, for the 1970 season it presented its 512 S. Powered by a powerful V12 engine, this one mounted liquid cooling making their guts a complex set of tubes and fluids. In addition, its large radiator did not help to reduce the marked weight of around 900 kilos. Some 100 more than those exhibited by the first first-series 917s approved just a few months earlier.
However, despite everything, Ferrari continued to defend its mechanics against the air cooling typical of the Porsches. In this way, the German house entered the rag of the media combat proposing a master move in terms of deception and trompe l'oeil. At this point, in 1970 he presented a press release where claimed to be working on a new flat sixteen-cylinder engine.
What's more, he even accompanied it with several photographs of it in order to worry the Maranello technicians. Not surprisingly, they showed an engine with the same size as the twelve-cylinder already mounted on the 917.
That is to say, they were betting on making Ferrari believe that this was destined for the World Cup of Manufacturers, thus beating their 512 S. However, I really wasn't going anywhere. In fact, what appeared in the photographs was a simple model without any correspondence to any real design.
In any case, in the midst of so much deception there was a grain of truth. And it is that Porsche was testing with a sixteen-cylinder engine. Of course, neither designed to win at Le Mans nor with the same size as the one shown in the press release. far from it, all this had come at the request of Jo Siffert with the idea of being competitive in Can-Am against Chevrolet engines with displacements above seven liters.
PORSCHE 917 16 CYLINDERS, FALLEN BEFORE THE TURBOCHARGER
Although the Porsche 917 was born with Le Mans in mind, the truth is that its history in Can-Am began during the same year as its launch. Without a doubt a truly exciting moment. With the American series fully devoted to a devilish performance escalation thanks to models like the McLaren M8.
At this point, driver Jo Siffert had already competed in an open-body Porsche 908 at various Can-Am events. And wow, the truth is that his engine with six cylinders and three liters was far behind the powerful mechanical Chevrolet V8. This way, at Porsche they built two units of the 917 with an eye on the Cam-Am. They were chassis 027 and 028. The first was intended for testing while the second went directly to compete in white with blue stripes under the name 917 PA. Letters corresponding to Porsche-Audi, importer of the German house in the United States.
However, its flat 12-cylinder with 4,5 liters did not reach the power exhibited by the Chevrolets mounted on the McLarens. In addition, even wearing the Porsche emblem, its lightness was not the most outstanding in the championship either. It's more, he was going about 100 kilos above the most concise Lola and McLaren with around 650. Thus, at the end of 1970 the commitment to Can-Am was redoubled, starting the 917/10 project.
Conceived as a vehicle with an open body, with respect to its motorization everything was based on the idea of gaining power. In fact, in order to mount somewhat larger engines, the wheelbase was lengthened while really wide rear tires were incorporated. With all that, Variations with 4,5 and 4,9 liters of the atmospheric flat 12-cylinder were tested in this Porsche. In addition, because this was not sufficient, the performance of an engine with sixteen cylinders was tested on chassis 027 of the 917.
With two units manufactured, it used the elements of the 4,9-liter to increase the displacement to 6,5. Regarding horsepower, this it stood at about 755 hp. Not inconsiderable figures - the McLaren M8D winner of the Cam-Am in 1970 stayed at 670 CV - although, at the same time, it delivered a whopping 320 kilos on the scale. In short, his first track tests were not very promising.
In addition, since Porsche sensed how this could happen, facing the 917/10 it was developing a version with a turbocharger in parallel starting from the block with 4,5 liters. And yes, that ended up being the most suitable. Not surprisingly, for the 1972 season this mechanic no longer presented reliability problems. At the time, it delivered 850 CV at 8.000 revolutions per minute, still being about 50 kilos lighter than the 16-cylinder engine.
What's more, when Porsche trusted Roger Penske's team, he started his project based on said engine. In fact, soon they had a version with 5 liters with 1.000 hp tuned. Base for the legendary 917/30 with an elongated chassis - stability had to be improved in the face of such power - with 5,4 liters and up to 1.100 CV. A true beast of the asphalt capable of lapping its competitors up to four times during a Can-Am race.
Undoubtedly, one of the great icons for turbocharged vehicles. Which could only be defeated by a new regulation, much more restrictive in terms of consumption after the impact of the Oil Crisis. And it is that, during the seventies, the turbocharger began to win the battle against those who continued to bet on the simple increase in cylinders or cubic capacity as a way of gaining power.
Photographs: Porsche
