Beast is an understatement. Drivers feared the first 917's Richard Atwood (the first t win Le Mans in a 917) called it a dog until the aero was worked out and still shit bricks after.
The Grand Tour S03E12 is worthy to watch about this beast, one of the best racecar ever made and I have the luck to sat in one before Jochen wemt out to race it on a classic event, man he is still fast an he was one of the pro drivers of the 962 the ultimate evolution of this car. (whilst it doesn't based on the 917, the 917 was the first of these type of cars which began the unbeatable Porsche era of LeMans)
The 917 had between 600 and 1100 horsepower, depending on the version, but - get this - it only weighed about 1700 pounds (800 kg). It was ridiculously light. After it became so dominant, the FIA had to make up an excuse to effectively ban the 917 entirely.
This car finished the GT40 era because even the 7.0 liter version did not run much faster than 350 kmh, the 917 came close to 400 quote Willy Kauhsen and Kurt Ahrens..
Great reaction! I had the privilege of seeing the 917 compete in the 1,000 km of the Argentine Republic in 1971. They were incredible! The Porsche 917 is considered the most beautiful car in the history of the Sport Prototypes category. It was perfect! You'd have to look at racing videos from the era, where they really pushed their engines. Greetings from Tandil, Argentina! 🇦🇷🤗
@@Astrofrank yes, according to Norbert Singer they repeatedly experimented with all available locking differentials and always found out that they weren't faster on the car - and also I think it's quite in line with looking at LeMans putting reliabilty over the laat bit of performance. I mean, their gearbox was also terribly slow to shift, with some drivers receiving instructions such as "shifting up: shift to neutral, count to 3, shift to next gear" stuck to the dashboard by the mechanics. At any rate: To finish first, you first have to finish 24h.
The car that destroyed Can Am Series because no McLaren or other American Monster reached it on the race track. How was the name of the guy who drove 230 miles average in it ? ?
Le Mans ,1970, Steve McQueen Fight with Ferrari 512. His opponent, Siegfried Rauch a Bavarian Actor and life long friend with Steve Mc Queen. Best from Bavaria, and Chapeau for yor European Culture Interest ( including beer)😂
@@TheD1rrtyI used to watch that movie so much as a kid on vhs but never knew the name lol. I just used to call it Car Race. One day I find out about the Le Mans movie as an adult and decided to watch it and all the memories just started coming back, I felt like a kid again, I was so happy.
Myself and a few Corner Marshal buddies once spent an evening going through the movie frame-by-frame. We knew a lot of it was filmed at the actual 1970 race. We were looking for the Salzburg car - we only saw it once!
Those things were mental, they even had the space frame chassis internally pressurised including a pressure gauge so they could tell when a weld failed, the gas would leak out and the pressure drop.
This era of sportscar racing was filled with legendary machines and marques. The GT40, The Ferrari 330P & the Matra M620 all driven by absolute legends of motor racing.
Just a little side note: The engine is a V12 with 180 degree bank angle. Most people think it’s a 12 cylinder boxer engine as Porsche is commonly known for boxers.
The first version was very difficult to drive. They noticed the front of the car was covered in dead flies and there were none at the back. That's how they came to the conclusion they needed to lift the back for more downforce. After that it was unstoppable. It's my favourite racecar ever. Love to drive it in the sims, so much fun. Project Cars 2 is a great game to drive this, the sound is spot on.
This Porsche was 1969 an early project of Ferdinand Piëch, they should demonstrate 25 drive-ready units, but only a few where actually drive - ready, some had break dummies made of wood... Piëch insisted in the beginning at the dashboard for using Balsa Wood for weigth saving...
Someone has a street legal 917 This was my heyday for Grand Prix cars. You also might enjoy checking into the Can-Am racing that was something to watch back in the early 70's. Also you may want to check out the GT-40 with the Gurney bump. {or bubble as some know it} He was so tall they had to make room for him to sit with his helmet on. So they added a little extra headspace to the car
The most extreme version of the 917 (I think was the 73's) was said to reach 380 km/h on the long straights of Le Mans. Regazzoni, former Formula 1 driver who competed in LeMans once, if I remember well, with Alfa Romeo, said the cars were so damn fast and had low downforce that to prepare a turn the driver was turning wheels 200 m before the turn. Crazy, Scary, Iconic seventies!
I have suggested a few times the video with 4 million views of the 917K posted by 19Bozzy92. It is one of the best audio of this car on RUclips... imo. Great start up and warm up. The sound just reverberates like crazy at Monza with no other cars on track. 20/10.... Interestingly, it also runs 9 minutes and 17 seconds.... something in the title about "demonic downshifts"....
Indeed! That was one of the first cars that kicked off this series on my channel 🎉 it’s just been forever.. I learned about that car on video maybe 1.5 or 2 years ago on here
The 917k is one of my most favourite Porsches. I don't know how much you read about it but in the beginning it was an absolute handful to drive because Aero problems caused massive instability. Porsche Drivers therefore refused to drive it and rather drove the 908 (Also really interesting car because it has a true Boxer 8 Cylinder engine). Only when they reworked the bodywork and came out with the 917k it became a dominant racing car. So Dominant that they killed off the 5.0l class in Sports Car racing for 1972 because the 917k pretty much won everything between 1970 and 1971. The one with the Back wheels covered is the 917LH which is the Version that is optimised for LeMans long straights. Those reached about 239,85 mp/h in LeMans in 1971. You also should give the Can Am Versions a look. This is where Porsche went after 1971 because of the discontinuation of the 5.0l class. I love the 917k more but the Can Am version is truly where the insanity goes off the rails because they decided to bolt two turbos on the 180° V12 at some point. (The engine in the 917 is not a boxer engine like the Porsche Flat 6 because each cylinder doesn't have its own crank pin) 917/10TC had 850hp-1100hp and the holy grail of insanity the 917/30 could reach up to 1570hp depending on the boost setting while weighing just ~ 1764lb. It set an average Speed Record for closed racing circuits around Talladega with 221,120 mp/h
I met the 1st Finnish Formula One driver Leo Kinnunen several times especially in the early-2000s, he lived in the city of Turku, Finland (as did Jarno Saarinen). Leo was also the World Sportscar Champion with Pedro Rodriguez in the John Wyer Gulf Porsche team. Leo told me what it was like to drive the 917; lots of raw power, extremely primitive if non-existent safety features, like a tubular-framed bathtub married with a 12-cylinder flat engine.
The car that stole Ford's cookies and never gave them back. Nothing ever will come close to this Monster. In particular the CanAm Monsters, the 917/30, the craziest of them all, nothing ever will be that Wild.
The Le Mans version of the 917 maxed out at 222mph on the Hunaudiere straight. In 1970! Later derivatives of the 917 were specified for the CanAm series looked quite different but came up to anywhere between 1100 and 1500 hp. They totally dominated the series and were actually ruled out of the series by change of regulations.
Born in Des Plaines. My dad from Park Ridge. Move to Little Rock, Arkansas in 1976. In the 60's dad would go to the June Sprints at Road America. Fell in love with Porsche cars. He bought a red 1963 356 B Super 90. Brought me from being born home in the tiny fold down rear seats. Have been addicted to Porsches since birth. He sold it in 1970. Rusted everywhere. Price of salty Chicago winter roads. In 1984 we made it up to RA for the IMSA Camel GT. Won by a 962. It had the beginnings of the PDK transmission. I was lucky enough to purchase a white 1978 928 in 1989. Got my dream car at age 23. Too early in life. Parts and repairs were very costly on a beer budget. Was a 5 speed manual with the racing pattern. What I called the slanted M pattern. Reverse where first usually is and first where second usually is. Still a fan of "Row your Own". 4.5 liter V-8. Loved to drive it. Let my brother drive it and never realised what a beautiful throaty exhaust note it had as I was behind it as he drove away. Seeing your show today brought back fond memories of that car and sound. If you can please try and first do a video of the 72' or 73' 917/30 in Sunoco livery. Rumoured to have 1500 hp. Wow!! Or the 956/962 cars that won LeMans a few times in the 1980's. Lastly I will always be a true Porschephile but the Mazda 787B with 4 Wankel rotors that won LeMans has an alien, out of this world exhaust scream that will put a giant💩eating grin on your face you won't be able to get rid of!!! Thx for the Ride.
This is such a mythical machine. In 1971 Helmut Marko and Gijs van Lennep set the distance record in the 24h of Le Mans, this record was broken in 2010.
Loved the class contenders such as 904, 906, 907, 908 and then the outright contenders 917, 956 and 962. Also love the Lola MK6 (complete with Ford Cortina rear lights) that the Ford GT was based on and even better was the Lola T70 that came after the Fords. It was a great era to live in.
The Porsche 917 was the german Ford GT. The first one weren't winning but in the second season the blew everone out of the water. And take a look on the CanAm version 917/10 ... this one was turbo charged with over 1k of horsepower. This car blew the CanAm series away. If you haven't seen the racing film ""Le Mans" from 1973 ... go for it. Spectactular racing scenes with the fabulous Steve McQueen.
@hakandelabiarritz6750 the Ford GT 40 was designed to win Le Mans and did it from 1966 to 1969. The Porsche was also designed to win Le Mans and did it 1970 and 1971 in the same racing class. And for americans the Ford GT 40 is a race legend ... so as the Porsche 917 is for germans. I think that both cars were racing heros, at least in m opinion.
For engine Symphony, the F1 12 cylinder BRM was hard to beat, as was the bigger Cosworth built for the Le Man's and Can Am cars. Also the updated V12 for the last 25 Muira SV's.....body also updated Very rare car and no photos exist on the internet.....they are all the earlier SV's with 8" tyres. The final 25 got altered engine with altered 6 dual throat Webber's and air filter body, plus flared guards for the 12" front tyres and about 14" rear tyres .....but no front spoiler . At about 160 mph the nose started to lift off the road, so rarely pushed in 5th gear. Most impressive engine music was a historic Bentley raced at the 2nd Albert Park GP....... Sounded like a slow reving V8 without exhaust or muffler. To my knowledge those racing Bentley's that made the Bentley name were only 3 and then 3 1/2 litre 4's. lol
A few years ago, The Grand Tour did a piece on the 917K and it featured a race between a new GT2, the 917 was driven by Dickie Attwood who won LM in the 70's with it. The guy is in his late 70's but doesn't drive like it.
A guy I used to work with who passed a few years ago. Awesome bloke. He got a drive a 917k while working at lamans. He also worked in the pit for F1 in the 70s and had a Citroen ds21.
It's not a "Normal" flat engine like a boxer, but it is 180° V12. And the most insane thing? Some of them were made road legal. Imagine cruising on the Autobahn at a relaxing 200km/h and suddenly such a fuel to noise converter is zipping by.
What a great car and sound, just think it's still faster than a F1 car today in a straight line, okay when going round corners it's slower, there's a family in Germany who have one of the Steve Macqueen cars from the film Le mans, it was his personal race car that they used as a camera car, a great pease of kit, it's worth millions, he will never sell it. 😊
Just imagine doing an early Sunday run flat-out at a leisurely 185mph on the German autobahn in your, say, 997 Carrera (as we Germans do, you know 😉) and then this 50+ year old monster creeps up in your rear view mirror with that terrifying noise to just shove you into the outside lane ... 😧 It will either make or break your day, I'd say. Nothing in between.
Ian I wonder if you’ve noticed that you’re in the Gulf colour scheme. Blue eyes and orange beard. You were born to drive one! Also I own a Gulf orange Porsche. I call it “The Flying Carrot”. And now I STRONGLY suggest you check out the Lancia Stratos.
Finally got around to the 917K! 😁 Shame you didn't watch 19Bozzy92's video "Porsche 917K Flat-12 Pure Engine Sound - In Action on Track". I think that's the best 917K video on youtube. The sound is incredible! I highly recommend you check that out, in your own time. The overrun is one of the best I've ever heard.
The 917 was very difficult to drive because it had no differential!!!! but 50 centimeter wide tires!!!. It was banned in the Canam series because as a turbo it had up to 1400 hp and accelerated from 0-300 km/h in 10 seconds. Mark Donohue drove a record lap at 365 km/h. At the Nürburgring, Khaussen drove 390 km/h on the Döttinger Höhe
Came here to mention the Le Mans movie featuring this car and the rest of the 1970 World Sportscar Championship, and of course someone mentioned it already 😄 Would be a great loooong reaction video for you, I reckon - not much plot or dialogue, but some of the best racing scenes ever captured. As for the 917K in sims: Assetto Corsa has it as part of the Porsche Pack Vol. 3 DLC. Make sure to grab Riverside to run it on, awesome combo. The car is one of my all-time favorites. Got a model of the 1971 Le Mans winner in its Martini colors sat atop my rig on a shelf, and it's never not fantastic to look at 😁
In 1998, we had the Porsche Festival in Melbourne, Australia, not Florida (50 Years of Porsche). They held a rally around parts of the Victoria. It culminated with a Porsche parade down the main street of Melbourne (Swanston Street, which featured in the AC/DC song "It's a long way to the top"). A 917 lead the parade down the street. We had to all line in position and be ready to go before they could fire this thing up. When they did squirt the throttle, the noise was deafening, it was amplified and echoed of all the tall buildings in this concrete jungle. Once it got moving, it was allowed to idle aloud, for the first half of the downhill run, then switched off and free wheel the rest of the way thru the denser populated area of the city. 26 years ago and it still brings back vivid memories that had faded with time. Thanks Ian.
I think Derek Bell, a driver that won Le Mans and the Daytona 24 hrs multiple times and also did a few stints in F1, said that the Porsche 917 was the most dangerous race car he ever drove. The thing was made out of tissue paper and could top out at nearly 250mph; I remember reading that the early version had a lot of stability issues at very high speeds. You basically had to hope the car would stay pointed straight without much hope of doing anything about it if it decided to do something else at 200+ MPH. Initially it had a bit over 500HP, but by the time it got modified for Can-Am, the 1973 917K/30 had something like 1100HP. One of the most powerful race cars ever built.
i can recommend to yall who loves loud sounds / music.. like myself but headphones isnt enough? got a a nice headphone for myself for xmas. but pc wasnt strong enough for loudness xD
Asus Xonar SE soundcard .. shitty for amp but extreme good for headphones.. and OneOdio Pro 50 .. both here in germany about 40€ .. no links no shit, got nothing from this, but i m happy af xD .. coz all other shit is expensive af, i cant affort it
Recommendation if no one has done so: Watch Le Mans with Steve Macqueen! Awesome if you love car films. These had 5 liter flat 12s making somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 horsepower in a car the weighs approximately 1800 pounds
Well it is a very very compact design especially considering the 12 cylinder engine, and that was absolutely part of the winning formula - just 2300mm wheelbase. Thats far smaller than any modern compact car - i.e. a modern Toyota Yaris is 2560mm. In fact, the 917 had shorter wheelbase than a first-gen Renault Twingo (2347mm).
The special racing tires alone cost an insane amount of money. I don't want to know how much just one of the rear tires costs, but it's probably several thousand euros.
Also, do some research into the CanAm version called the 917/30. It's the reason the changed the rules due to its raw speed (almost double the power of the 917K!) and dominance.
Nice video. If I may, you owe it to yourself to. Find and watch the opening scenes of the 1971 movie Lemans. Actual footage of the start will tingle your spine.600 hp, 1780 lbs, aluminum tube frame and your feet are in front of the front axle…. These cars topped 240 mph on the Mulsanne straight…. Watch it man!!!!!!!
Somewhat 30 years ago I actually met a 917 in that beautiful original gulf blue/orange colour scheme. It was right before a super tiny, narrow little bridge and I had the right of way. Being so stunned, I let him go first because I wanted to appreciate that car. The driver was not showing off at all, just friendly, cruising and enjoying his piece of art.
Was reading a magazine and saw a photo from one of the testing sessions of the early 917’s from Porsche’s test track where the whole front of the car was gone and the driver’s seat was facing the guard rail. The driver was quoted with saying “when I came to I was missing my shoe and my foot was wedged underneath the guard rail.”
Cool car. And you would be right to be scared of it, it was a deathtrap. A beast to handle. Porsche made a later version with titanium chassis to make it lighter but it is really dangerous if it would be in a crash (not that it wasn't strong enougt, but flammable somehow). They didn't tell any of the drivers till afterwards, because no one would have driven it if they knew.
Lot of the cars you have been looking at are in Assetto corsa, incl the Sauber C9, the 935, and if you dip into mods for cars and tracks, Bathurst and the V8 supercars can be had as well :-)
Damn i feel patriotic about that car. Designed by a Latvian guy. Anatols Lapiņš, relatively unknown guy, who designed most of 80's porsches we love today.
There's quite a story about the yellow 917 on Laguna seca.. that is probably chassis 021, built in 1969,converted to 1970 spec and raced at Le mans.. where David Piper crashed it.. the chassis was replaced by Porsche, and sent back to AAW racing.. the original chassis emerged at gunnar racing where it was restored and then driven at Laguna Seca by Gijs van Lennep who was David Pipers teammate in 1970.. Gijs van Lennep drove The 22 Martini car, chassis 53 at Le Mans in 1971 together with Helmut Marko.. (yes.. that Helmut Marko who now works at Red Bull F1.. the guy that hired Max Verstappen..) they won with a distance record that stood for a long Time..
Wanna hear hella exotic.. you should check out old F1 engins.. tiny displacement, many cylinders and massive rpm. 50s and 60s cars are my fave from F1. I'm not super into massive aero (for looks at least) But those things were fast, they moved around alot and they would break easily if you didn't take care of them during the race Well worth a look, they still race them, historic and classic racing is brilliant.. Goodwood channel has LOADS of different historic and classic races (like mini vs V8 falcons or E-type vs Cobra or 50's F1 cars) Or any documentary on Grand Prix / Jim Clark, Stirling Moss, Juan Manuel Fangio, John Surtees and so on...
I could not believe how low the 917's roofline was when I viewed the Le Mans winning Porsches back in 1998 Melbourne, Australia. I had a photo of myself standing next to it, six foot, I dwarfed it.
7:02 You mentioned how the rear looks a bit odd considering how the rest of the car looks, and this is a great observation with a cool story behind why they did this. To put it simply; aerodynamic stability. In late 1968 or 69, Porsche engineers were working with 917 prototypes on the track and for some reason, the biggest complaint from test drivers was that at 200+ mph, the car would wander from one side of the track to the other, even with the steering wheel centered. They kept trying to diagnose the issue, but this persisted no matter if they changed suspension geometry or anything else. Finally, Porsche brought in an American who had success with Ford's GT40's in 67, 68, and 69. He watched as a 917 prototype came into the pits after a hot lap and carefully inspected the body of the car. He ended up making an odd observation: there were bugs splattered everywhere on the bodywork that was front facing, but gradually lessened the further back you got to the rear, and so he theorized that the car wasn't getting any airflow across the rear of the car. So he had the crew cut off the rear if the car, just after the rear wheelwells and, with big sheets of spare metal lying around, had them jankly craft a crude extra tall rear wing/lip on the car. It proceded to run 3 seconds faster a lap with that jury-rigged setup! By the time they were done with the final version, they had gotten that time difference up to 5 seconds! Truely incredible!
OMG being a car guy I'm surprised you've not watched Le Man (71) with Steve Mcqueen a must-watch film about Gulf Porsche 917K against the Ferrari 512S, I've seen a documentary about 917K's it's a real beast to drive an inch travel on the gas pedal you are either on power or off no in-between, the rule for Le Man 24 vehicles had to be less than 40 inches tall, the GT40 was based on the Lola mk6 built-in Slough UK
Please react to one of the countless BMW M1 Procar videos on RUclips. It's the car that spawned the whole BMW M concept in 1978. It's always difficult to pinpoint the "best sounding car", as it's inherently subjective, but the OG M1 is certainly up there in terms of sounding like the rawest, angriest animal in machine form. In German, it "kessels" like a demon. Hard to impossible to translate what "kesseln" really means, but I hope you get what I mean. It's raw, it screams, it sounds like it's possessed. Highly recommended.
Due to homologation, they had lighting, windshield wipers, a passenger seat and even luggage compartments, wich you can see at 4.51 right behind the rear wheels
Hello Ian! I saw the comment that recommended this glorious sounding beast of a car so I will try my luck art introducing you to a car that has half the cilinders but makes the most epic mad sound you will ever hear, the Alfa Romeo 155 V6 Ti, a DTM monster with a NA 2.5 l V6 that revs to 12k rpm!!!
Hey Ian, you missed there Can Am 917/30 of Mark Donohue. Open top spyder with twin turbo boosted flat 12, that reached between 1200 to 1500+ bhp... pretty much that should be your next view about the subject of 917 ;)
All induction harmonics of the air cooled flat-12 in the back, on that onboard. Poor thing can barely stretch his legs at Laguna Seca, tho. Made to blast down the Hunaudières at 360+ kph.
The dream car of my youth in the early 1970s. Best sounding car ever IMHO. I love it! Driving this in a real race is absolute driving MASTER class only for the bravest of drivers. This thing is bonkers, mad, violent and fast af.
The 'K' stands for 'kurz' meaning short. There was a long tail version too. Somebody will probably know the top speed at the Le Mans Mulsanne straight. I believe it was close to 400 kph. Scary stuff.
The drivers such as Willi Kauhsen or Kurt Ahrens said that 400kph would have been possible in the longtail, but that a) the tires were rated to 350 and would fail catastrophically in an instant, b) the steering above 380 became light as a feather, stability and driveability were very much compromised by then - so they lifted and just kept driving at around those speeds (described as "the point when the center markers would form one solid line"). It wasn't clocked at 400 afaik from listening to a lot of drivers and engineers, but came close.
@@decnet100 Derek Bell, in an interview, said it was 396 kph. And in a longtail. But of course it's very possible that he hit that speed once or twice, but mostly thought better of it and lifted ...
@@freekfaro5606 well 396kph (once or twice) I could believe, but generally it's hard for the drivers to tell, as the tire geometry changes so much from the centrifugal forces, and also a few percent of slip become 10s of kphs... at that speed it's hard to tell for the drivers and they obviously had no gps speed readout (usually not even a regular speedometer) - also, the engineers weren't telling them everything - Kauhsen, the main test pilot in 917 development, was still slightly pissed off in an interview by the reveal that the tire manufacturers would openly say "we can only guarantee 350, at higher speeds the tires may disintegrate with no warning" to the engineers, which he as the test driver was told about AFTER hitting the rev limiter in top gear at the Nordschleife in a 1000hp+ variant - definitely 370+. Anyways, an incredible machine developed and piloted by passionate, talented madmen.
@@decnet100 I read a nice interview with Gijs van Lennep, about his win in 1971. His car was somewhat different from the other 917s in the race: magnesium frame and drilled brake rotors, which was a novelty. During the race the metal around the holes started to crack. So Helmut Marko, his co-driver, said: we don't use the brakes anymore! Well, they used them I guess, but gingerly. And won. Years later a Mercedes C9 I believe made the record at 401 kph. Those days are gone ...
The key to building a winning race car is to build it as small, and, light as you can, while shoving the biggest, most powerful engine possible. That's exactly what they did with the 917.
The 917 started the Le Mans dominance for Porsche. It's an absolute legend and beast of a car. It's the daddy.
Beast is an understatement. Drivers feared the first 917's Richard Atwood (the first t win Le Mans in a 917) called it a dog until the aero was worked out and still shit bricks after.
The Grand Tour S03E12 is worthy to watch about this beast, one of the best racecar ever made and I have the luck to sat in one before Jochen wemt out to race it on a classic event, man he is still fast an he was one of the pro drivers of the 962 the ultimate evolution of this car. (whilst it doesn't based on the 917, the 917 was the first of these type of cars which began the unbeatable Porsche era of LeMans)
The 917 had between 600 and 1100 horsepower, depending on the version, but - get this - it only weighed about 1700 pounds (800 kg). It was ridiculously light. After it became so dominant, the FIA had to make up an excuse to effectively ban the 917 entirely.
This car finished the GT40 era because even the 7.0 liter version did not run much faster than 350 kmh, the 917 came close to 400 quote Willy Kauhsen and Kurt Ahrens..
The Gulf livery is f*ing legendary man
The best!
Great reaction! I had the privilege of seeing the 917 compete in the 1,000 km of the Argentine Republic in 1971. They were incredible! The Porsche 917 is considered the most beautiful car in the history of the Sport Prototypes category. It was perfect! You'd have to look at racing videos from the era, where they really pushed their engines. Greetings from Tandil, Argentina! 🇦🇷🤗
4.9 litre F12 700 bhp and 650 nm torgue.. 0-62 mph in jus 2.7 seconds .. guite a beast.. thanks for great video again Ian
600 bhp actually, but quite a beast indeed
well yeah google gives you 600 or 700 bhp info but yes a beast definatedly.. @@Hvr0215
the performance depends on the year of manufacture. Started in 1969 with 4.5l and 530 HP until 1973 with 5.4l and 1100 HP
u have to watch the 917/30, one of the craziest vehicles ever
cause the /30 have roun d about 1500hp
@@j3llybr34d7 And the car didn't have a differential.
@@Astrofrank yes, according to Norbert Singer they repeatedly experimented with all available locking differentials and always found out that they weren't faster on the car - and also I think it's quite in line with looking at LeMans putting reliabilty over the laat bit of performance. I mean, their gearbox was also terribly slow to shift, with some drivers receiving instructions such as "shifting up: shift to neutral, count to 3, shift to next gear" stuck to the dashboard by the mechanics. At any rate: To finish first, you first have to finish 24h.
The 917/30 was such a Monster 1500hp and only 800kg
Most Badass Racecar ever
The car that destroyed Can Am Series because no McLaren or other American Monster reached it on the race track.
How was the name of the guy who drove 230 miles average in it ? ?
Le Mans ,1970, Steve McQueen
Fight with Ferrari 512.
His opponent, Siegfried Rauch a Bavarian Actor and life long friend with Steve Mc Queen.
Best from Bavaria, and Chapeau for yor European Culture Interest ( including beer)😂
Came here to say this.. Great film, footage is amazing.
Masterpiece.
@@TheD1rrtyI used to watch that movie so much as a kid on vhs but never knew the name lol. I just used to call it Car Race. One day I find out about the Le Mans movie as an adult and decided to watch it and all the memories just started coming back, I felt like a kid again, I was so happy.
Erheben Sie ein Glas auf Dunkel Friend
Myself and a few Corner Marshal buddies once spent an evening going through the movie frame-by-frame. We knew a lot of it was filmed at the actual 1970 race. We were looking for the Salzburg car - we only saw it once!
Those things were mental, they even had the space frame chassis internally pressurised including a pressure gauge so they could tell when a weld failed, the gas would leak out and the pressure drop.
The 917 is probably my favourite sounding Porsche ever
This era of sportscar racing was filled with legendary machines and marques. The GT40, The Ferrari 330P & the Matra M620 all driven by absolute legends of motor racing.
Just a little side note: The engine is a V12 with 180 degree bank angle. Most people think it’s a 12 cylinder boxer engine as Porsche is commonly known for boxers.
👍
You might look at the 917-10 and 917-30, both developed for CanAm with Penske racing. Amazing.
Mark Donahue quote "If you can leave two black stripes from the exit of one corner to the braking zone of the next, you have enough horsepower"
The first version was very difficult to drive. They noticed the front of the car was covered in dead flies and there were none at the back. That's how they came to the conclusion they needed to lift the back for more downforce. After that it was unstoppable. It's my favourite racecar ever. Love to drive it in the sims, so much fun. Project Cars 2 is a great game to drive this, the sound is spot on.
You must hear the Old BMW M1 Procar oder the 911RSR from 2017 😍🤌🏻🤌🏻🤌🏻
If i remember it right, in one of his videos about something else, Ian said he knows the BMW M1 Procar...
The downshift pops are my favorite . My all time favorite just in front of the GT40
This Porsche was 1969 an early project of Ferdinand Piëch, they should demonstrate 25 drive-ready units, but only a few where actually drive - ready, some had break dummies made of wood... Piëch insisted in the beginning at the dashboard for using Balsa Wood for weigth saving...
Someone has a street legal 917
This was my heyday for Grand Prix cars. You also might enjoy checking into the Can-Am racing that was something to watch back in the early 70's.
Also you may want to check out the GT-40 with the Gurney bump. {or bubble as some know it}
He was so tall they had to make room for him to sit with his helmet on. So they added a little extra headspace to the car
The most extreme version of the 917 (I think was the 73's) was said to reach 380 km/h on the long straights of Le Mans. Regazzoni, former Formula 1 driver who competed in LeMans once, if I remember well, with Alfa Romeo, said the cars were so damn fast and had low downforce that to prepare a turn the driver was turning wheels 200 m before the turn. Crazy, Scary, Iconic seventies!
I have suggested a few times the video with 4 million views of the 917K posted by 19Bozzy92. It is one of the best audio of this car on RUclips... imo. Great start up and warm up. The sound just reverberates like crazy at Monza with no other cars on track. 20/10....
Interestingly, it also runs 9 minutes and 17 seconds.... something in the title about "demonic downshifts"....
When I read 917 in the preview I was hoping he would react to this video
Mazda 787B defo has to be on one of these videos.. the quad rotor insanity!
That's an awesome sound.
It was such a monster of a car that those in power got it banned. Too many interests in those lobbies.
Indeed! That was one of the first cars that kicked off this series on my channel 🎉 it’s just been forever.. I learned about that car on video maybe 1.5 or 2 years ago on here
@@IWrocker in that case look up the Jaguar XJR-8 LM. probably the greatest racing car Jaguar ever made.
Mazda 787B > BRM V16 > 1995 Ferrari 412 T2
The 917k is one of my most favourite Porsches. I don't know how much you read about it but in the beginning it was an absolute handful to drive because Aero problems caused massive instability. Porsche Drivers therefore refused to drive it and rather drove the 908 (Also really interesting car because it has a true Boxer 8 Cylinder engine). Only when they reworked the bodywork and came out with the 917k it became a dominant racing car. So Dominant that they killed off the 5.0l class in Sports Car racing for 1972 because the 917k pretty much won everything between 1970 and 1971.
The one with the Back wheels covered is the 917LH which is the Version that is optimised for LeMans long straights. Those reached about 239,85 mp/h in LeMans in 1971.
You also should give the Can Am Versions a look. This is where Porsche went after 1971 because of the discontinuation of the 5.0l class. I love the 917k more but the Can Am version is truly where the insanity goes off the rails because they decided to bolt two turbos on the 180° V12 at some point.
(The engine in the 917 is not a boxer engine like the Porsche Flat 6 because each cylinder doesn't have its own crank pin)
917/10TC had 850hp-1100hp and the holy grail of insanity the 917/30 could reach up to 1570hp depending on the boost setting while weighing just ~ 1764lb. It set an average Speed Record for closed racing circuits around Talladega with 221,120 mp/h
I met the 1st Finnish Formula One driver Leo Kinnunen several times especially in the early-2000s, he lived in the city of Turku, Finland (as did Jarno Saarinen). Leo was also the World Sportscar Champion with Pedro Rodriguez in the John Wyer Gulf Porsche team. Leo told me what it was like to drive the 917; lots of raw power, extremely primitive if non-existent safety features, like a tubular-framed bathtub married with a 12-cylinder flat engine.
The car that stole Ford's cookies and never gave them back. Nothing ever will come close to this Monster. In particular the CanAm Monsters, the 917/30, the craziest of them all, nothing ever will be that Wild.
The Le Mans version of the 917 maxed out at 222mph on the Hunaudiere straight. In 1970!
Later derivatives of the 917 were specified for the CanAm series looked quite different but came up to anywhere between 1100 and 1500 hp. They totally dominated the series and were actually ruled out of the series by change of regulations.
It wasn't just a flat 12, Porsche basically flanged two flat sixes together to create this beast.
In Le Mans their top speed record was 239,8 miles!
2:55 spa francorchamps ❤
Born in Des Plaines. My dad from Park Ridge. Move to Little Rock, Arkansas in 1976. In the 60's dad would go to the June Sprints at Road America. Fell in love with Porsche cars. He bought a red 1963 356 B Super 90. Brought me from being born home in the tiny fold down rear seats. Have been addicted to Porsches since birth. He sold it in 1970. Rusted everywhere. Price of salty Chicago winter roads. In 1984 we made it up to RA for the IMSA Camel GT. Won by a 962. It had the beginnings of the PDK transmission. I was lucky enough to purchase a white 1978 928 in 1989. Got my dream car at age 23. Too early in life. Parts and repairs were very costly on a beer budget. Was a 5 speed manual with the racing pattern. What I called the slanted M pattern. Reverse where first usually is and first where second usually is. Still a fan of "Row your Own". 4.5 liter V-8. Loved to drive it. Let my brother drive it and never realised what a beautiful throaty exhaust note it had as I was behind it as he drove away. Seeing your show today brought back fond memories of that car and sound. If you can please try and first do a video of the 72' or 73' 917/30 in Sunoco livery. Rumoured to have 1500 hp. Wow!! Or the 956/962 cars that won LeMans a few times in the 1980's. Lastly I will always be a true Porschephile but the Mazda 787B with 4 Wankel rotors that won LeMans has an alien, out of this world exhaust scream that will put a giant💩eating grin on your face you won't be able to get rid of!!!
Thx for the Ride.
This is such a mythical machine. In 1971 Helmut Marko and Gijs van Lennep set the distance record in the 24h of Le Mans, this record was broken in 2010.
Loved the class contenders such as 904, 906, 907, 908 and then the outright contenders 917, 956 and 962. Also love the Lola MK6 (complete with Ford Cortina rear lights) that the Ford GT was based on and even better was the Lola T70 that came after the Fords. It was a great era to live in.
As a kid this was THE legend.
I saw in a documentery (long ago) that they even tried to fill the tube structure, with Helium, in order to try to gain weight. Nice video, take care!
A 917 was recorded at 217 MPH on the Mulsanne Strait at Le Man .
There are some 917 owners who have converted their cars for road use 💀 can you imagine this thing pulling up next to you at the traffic lights?? 😂
The Porsche 917 was the german Ford GT. The first one weren't winning but in the second season the blew everone out of the water.
And take a look on the CanAm version 917/10 ... this one was turbo charged with over 1k of horsepower. This car blew the CanAm series away.
If you haven't seen the racing film ""Le Mans" from 1973 ... go for it. Spectactular racing scenes with the fabulous Steve McQueen.
no. please. Porsche is not a german gt40. its like saying corvette is a us-trabant
@@hakandelabiarritz6750 How could someone even compare a mere GT40 to a Porsche.
@hakandelabiarritz6750 the Ford GT 40 was designed to win Le Mans and did it from 1966 to 1969. The Porsche was also designed to win Le Mans and did it 1970 and 1971 in the same racing class. And for americans the Ford GT 40 is a race legend ... so as the Porsche 917 is for germans.
I think that both cars were racing heros, at least in m opinion.
@@hakandelabiarritz6750
A bit harsh, mate.
Calling a GT40 a Trabant.
That's like calling a Porsche a 3 wheeled Messerchmidt, or a VW Beetle ?
For engine Symphony, the F1 12 cylinder BRM was hard to beat, as was the bigger Cosworth built for the Le Man's and Can Am cars.
Also the updated V12 for the last 25 Muira SV's.....body also updated
Very rare car and no photos exist on the internet.....they are all the earlier SV's with 8" tyres.
The final 25 got altered engine with altered 6 dual throat Webber's and air filter body, plus flared guards for the 12" front tyres and about 14" rear tyres .....but no front spoiler .
At about 160 mph the nose started to lift off the road, so rarely pushed in 5th gear.
Most impressive engine music was a historic Bentley raced at the 2nd Albert Park GP.......
Sounded like a slow reving V8 without exhaust or muffler.
To my knowledge those racing Bentley's that made the Bentley name were only 3 and then 3 1/2 litre 4's. lol
A few years ago, The Grand Tour did a piece on the 917K and it featured a race between a new GT2, the 917 was driven by Dickie Attwood who won LM in the 70's with it. The guy is in his late 70's but doesn't drive like it.
A guy I used to work with who passed a few years ago. Awesome bloke. He got a drive a 917k while working at lamans. He also worked in the pit for F1 in the 70s and had a Citroen ds21.
That low growling is incredible. It's smooth. No screaming.
It's not a "Normal" flat engine like a boxer, but it is 180° V12.
And the most insane thing? Some of them were made road legal.
Imagine cruising on the Autobahn at a relaxing 200km/h and suddenly such a fuel to noise converter is zipping by.
What a great car and sound, just think it's still faster than a F1 car today in a straight line, okay when going round corners it's slower, there's a family in Germany who have one of the Steve Macqueen cars from the film Le mans, it was his personal race car that they used as a camera car, a great pease of kit, it's worth millions, he will never sell it. 😊
Just imagine doing an early Sunday run flat-out at a leisurely 185mph on the German autobahn in your, say, 997 Carrera (as we Germans do, you know 😉) and then this 50+ year old monster creeps up in your rear view mirror with that terrifying noise to just shove you into the outside lane ... 😧
It will either make or break your day, I'd say. Nothing in between.
the 917 LH means Langheck= long tail, and could reach round about 380kph, in the 70s!!
Over 400kph on the Mulsanne Straight
I think it is the second fastest ever car on Mulsanne, after that Matra in 1971 I think.
917/30 best of this beast 1500BHP .....
Up 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Holy smokes 🤯
Ian I wonder if you’ve noticed that you’re in the Gulf colour scheme. Blue eyes and orange beard. You were born to drive one! Also I own a Gulf orange Porsche. I call it “The Flying Carrot”. And now I STRONGLY suggest you check out the Lancia Stratos.
Finally got around to the 917K! 😁
Shame you didn't watch 19Bozzy92's video "Porsche 917K Flat-12 Pure Engine Sound - In Action on Track". I think that's the best 917K video on youtube. The sound is incredible! I highly recommend you check that out, in your own time. The overrun is one of the best I've ever heard.
The 917 was very difficult to drive because it had no differential!!!! but 50 centimeter wide tires!!!. It was banned in the Canam series because as a turbo it had up to 1400 hp and accelerated from 0-300 km/h in 10 seconds. Mark Donohue drove a record lap at 365 km/h. At the Nürburgring, Khaussen drove 390 km/h on the Döttinger Höhe
The 917 is on a good number three, on my list. Check out the 1947-54 BRM V16. Its way up there with the 1936 Auto Union Type C.
Came here to mention the Le Mans movie featuring this car and the rest of the 1970 World Sportscar Championship, and of course someone mentioned it already 😄
Would be a great loooong reaction video for you, I reckon - not much plot or dialogue, but some of the best racing scenes ever captured.
As for the 917K in sims: Assetto Corsa has it as part of the Porsche Pack Vol. 3 DLC. Make sure to grab Riverside to run it on, awesome combo.
The car is one of my all-time favorites. Got a model of the 1971 Le Mans winner in its Martini colors sat atop my rig on a shelf, and it's never not fantastic to look at 😁
For me Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 Stradale from 1967 is most interesting car in design and engine 2.0 litre V 8
In 1998, we had the Porsche Festival in Melbourne, Australia, not Florida (50 Years of Porsche). They held a rally around parts of the Victoria. It culminated with a Porsche parade down the main street of Melbourne (Swanston Street, which featured in the AC/DC song "It's a long way to the top"). A 917 lead the parade down the street. We had to all line in position and be ready to go before they could fire this thing up. When they did squirt the throttle, the noise was deafening, it was amplified and echoed of all the tall buildings in this concrete jungle. Once it got moving, it was allowed to idle aloud, for the first half of the downhill run, then switched off and free wheel the rest of the way thru the denser populated area of the city. 26 years ago and it still brings back vivid memories that had faded with time. Thanks Ian.
That thing is 50 years old!
Hard to believe 😮
Brm v16 got an insane sound.
My Top 5 alltime Pro Racecars are:
1.Sauber Mercedes BenzC11
2.Porsche 917 K
3.Ford GT 40
4. Ferrari 512 S
5. Jaguar XJR 12
I think Derek Bell, a driver that won Le Mans and the Daytona 24 hrs multiple times and also did a few stints in F1, said that the Porsche 917 was the most dangerous race car he ever drove.
The thing was made out of tissue paper and could top out at nearly 250mph; I remember reading that the early version had a lot of stability issues at very high speeds. You basically had to hope the car would stay pointed straight without much hope of doing anything about it if it decided to do something else at 200+ MPH.
Initially it had a bit over 500HP, but by the time it got modified for Can-Am, the 1973 917K/30 had something like 1100HP. One of the most powerful race cars ever built.
i can recommend to yall who loves loud sounds / music.. like myself but headphones isnt enough? got a a nice headphone for myself for xmas. but pc wasnt strong enough for loudness xD
Asus Xonar SE soundcard .. shitty for amp but extreme good for headphones..
and OneOdio Pro 50 .. both here in germany about 40€ .. no links no shit, got nothing from this, but i m happy af xD .. coz all other shit is expensive af, i cant affort it
The greatest car ever made, period!!!
Recommendation if no one has done so: Watch Le Mans with Steve Macqueen! Awesome if you love car films. These had 5 liter flat 12s making somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 horsepower in a car the weighs approximately 1800 pounds
I saw it just a few years back in the Porsche museum.
Yes, it's very low, but you dont call it small.
Well it is a very very compact design especially considering the 12 cylinder engine, and that was absolutely part of the winning formula - just 2300mm wheelbase. Thats far smaller than any modern compact car - i.e. a modern Toyota Yaris is 2560mm. In fact, the 917 had shorter wheelbase than a first-gen Renault Twingo (2347mm).
As a big Porsche fan, this car amazes me. Could not have clicked faster when saw reaction!
The special racing tires alone cost an insane amount of money. I don't want to know how much just one of the rear tires costs, but it's probably several thousand euros.
Check out the Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 Stradale.
2.0 V8 that revs to 10 000 rpm in a roadcar.
Over 240mph down the Mulsanne Straight at LeMans
In the middle of the night as well!
Also, do some research into the CanAm version called the 917/30. It's the reason the changed the rules due to its raw speed (almost double the power of the 917K!) and dominance.
Nice video. If I may, you owe it to yourself to. Find and watch the opening scenes of the 1971 movie Lemans. Actual footage of the start will tingle your spine.600 hp, 1780 lbs, aluminum tube frame and your feet are in front of the front axle…. These cars topped 240 mph on the Mulsanne straight…. Watch it man!!!!!!!
Somewhat 30 years ago I actually met a 917 in that beautiful original gulf blue/orange colour scheme.
It was right before a super tiny, narrow little bridge and I had the right of way.
Being so stunned, I let him go first because I wanted to appreciate that car.
The driver was not showing off at all, just friendly, cruising and enjoying his piece of art.
that has indicators on it or turn signals in america
The K in the name stay for Kurz (short in english), there’s also a longer version, the 917 LH (LangHeck that means Longtail)
Interesting fact is that the pedal box is actually in front of the front axle.
Basically zero protection for the legs and feet 😬
Yikes! 😱
Was reading a magazine and saw a photo from one of the testing sessions of the early 917’s from Porsche’s test track where the whole front of the car was gone and the driver’s seat was facing the guard rail. The driver was quoted with saying “when I came to I was missing my shoe and my foot was wedged underneath the guard rail.”
Like you said "what a era." For drive this cars you must have big nuts, not only pushing buttons. No PC, only you, car and your brave.
Cool car. And you would be right to be scared of it, it was a deathtrap. A beast to handle.
Porsche made a later version with titanium chassis to make it lighter but it is really dangerous if it would be in a crash (not that it wasn't strong enougt, but flammable somehow). They didn't tell any of the drivers till afterwards, because no one would have driven it if they knew.
Lot of the cars you have been looking at are in Assetto corsa, incl the Sauber C9, the 935, and if you dip into mods for cars and tracks, Bathurst and the V8 supercars can be had as well :-)
maserati mc12 corsa or maserati quattro forte both sound amazing aswell
Ian why did you not mention the twin turbo 917's.. they had over 1500 hp..
Damn i feel patriotic about that car. Designed by a Latvian guy.
Anatols Lapiņš, relatively unknown guy, who designed most of 80's porsches we love today.
There's quite a story about the yellow 917 on Laguna seca.. that is probably chassis 021, built in 1969,converted to 1970 spec and raced at Le mans.. where David Piper crashed it.. the chassis was replaced by Porsche, and sent back to AAW racing.. the original chassis emerged at gunnar racing where it was restored and then driven at Laguna Seca by Gijs van Lennep who was David Pipers teammate in 1970..
Gijs van Lennep drove The 22 Martini car, chassis 53 at Le Mans in 1971 together with Helmut Marko.. (yes.. that Helmut Marko who now works at Red Bull F1.. the guy that hired Max Verstappen..) they won with a distance record that stood for a long Time..
the downshift are brutal
Make a video on the Group 5 Zakspeed Ford Capri that was insane car
Wanna hear hella exotic.. you should check out old F1 engins.. tiny displacement, many cylinders and massive rpm.
50s and 60s cars are my fave from F1. I'm not super into massive aero (for looks at least)
But those things were fast, they moved around alot and they would break easily if you didn't take care of them during the race
Well worth a look, they still race them, historic and classic racing is brilliant..
Goodwood channel has LOADS of different historic and classic races (like mini vs V8 falcons or E-type vs Cobra or 50's F1 cars)
Or any documentary on Grand Prix / Jim Clark, Stirling Moss, Juan Manuel Fangio, John Surtees and so on...
The 917 was called Der weisse Riese (the white giant) km also a laundry detergent...🤣🤣🤣
I could not believe how low the 917's roofline was when I viewed the Le Mans winning Porsches back in 1998 Melbourne, Australia. I had a photo of myself standing next to it, six foot, I dwarfed it.
If you like the sound of the 917, try a Matra Simca from the same era.
7:02 You mentioned how the rear looks a bit odd considering how the rest of the car looks, and this is a great observation with a cool story behind why they did this. To put it simply; aerodynamic stability. In late 1968 or 69, Porsche engineers were working with 917 prototypes on the track and for some reason, the biggest complaint from test drivers was that at 200+ mph, the car would wander from one side of the track to the other, even with the steering wheel centered. They kept trying to diagnose the issue, but this persisted no matter if they changed suspension geometry or anything else. Finally, Porsche brought in an American who had success with Ford's GT40's in 67, 68, and 69. He watched as a 917 prototype came into the pits after a hot lap and carefully inspected the body of the car. He ended up making an odd observation: there were bugs splattered everywhere on the bodywork that was front facing, but gradually lessened the further back you got to the rear, and so he theorized that the car wasn't getting any airflow across the rear of the car. So he had the crew cut off the rear if the car, just after the rear wheelwells and, with big sheets of spare metal lying around, had them jankly craft a crude extra tall rear wing/lip on the car. It proceded to run 3 seconds faster a lap with that jury-rigged setup! By the time they were done with the final version, they had gotten that time difference up to 5 seconds!
Truely incredible!
Interestingly, the first Porsche electrodynamic bodies have a lot in common with the Tatra car company. The same person worked on it.
You kind of missed the twin turbo 917/30, perhaps the most powerful race car EVER.
OMG being a car guy I'm surprised you've not watched Le Man (71) with Steve Mcqueen a must-watch film about Gulf Porsche 917K against the Ferrari 512S, I've seen a documentary about 917K's it's a real beast to drive an inch travel on the gas pedal you are either on power or off no in-between, the rule for Le Man 24 vehicles had to be less than 40 inches tall, the GT40 was based on the Lola mk6 built-in Slough UK
WE NEED MORE CAR CONTENT FROM YOU.
Much more to come 🎉 and way more often 👍
the track in the video is SPA in belgium in europe
Please react to one of the countless BMW M1 Procar videos on RUclips. It's the car that spawned the whole BMW M concept in 1978.
It's always difficult to pinpoint the "best sounding car", as it's inherently subjective, but the OG M1 is certainly up there in terms of sounding like the rawest, angriest animal in machine form. In German, it "kessels" like a demon. Hard to impossible to translate what "kesseln" really means, but I hope you get what I mean. It's raw, it screams, it sounds like it's possessed. Highly recommended.
Was there also a license plate version by the 917? 🤔
Due to homologation, they had lighting, windshield wipers, a passenger seat and even luggage compartments, wich you can see at 4.51 right behind the rear wheels
you should hear this Car: mazda 787b! this is freaking awsome!
this engine helped kill the can-am series. it was a monster.
Hello Ian! I saw the comment that recommended this glorious sounding beast of a car so I will try my luck art introducing you to a car that has half the cilinders but makes the most epic mad sound you will ever hear, the Alfa Romeo 155 V6 Ti, a DTM monster with a NA 2.5 l V6 that revs to 12k rpm!!!
Hey Ian, you missed there Can Am 917/30 of Mark Donohue. Open top spyder with twin turbo boosted flat 12, that reached between 1200 to 1500+ bhp... pretty much that should be your next view about the subject of 917 ;)
All induction harmonics of the air cooled flat-12 in the back, on that onboard.
Poor thing can barely stretch his legs at Laguna Seca, tho. Made to blast down the Hunaudières at 360+ kph.
Hi Ian. I mentioned this to you a few days ago. I appreciate you looking at this monster 👍
It’s time for you to check out the classic Can-Am race series. They have some legendary cars and absolutely monstrous sounding engines
The dream car of my youth in the early 1970s. Best sounding car ever IMHO. I love it!
Driving this in a real race is absolute driving MASTER class only for the bravest of drivers. This thing is bonkers, mad, violent and fast af.
The 'K' stands for 'kurz' meaning short. There was a long tail version too.
Somebody will probably know the top speed at the Le Mans Mulsanne straight. I believe it was close to 400 kph. Scary stuff.
ruclips.net/video/3mM1Ms0vqjc/видео.htmlsi=WkeXbUPZdmtTwr_5
The drivers such as Willi Kauhsen or Kurt Ahrens said that 400kph would have been possible in the longtail, but that a) the tires were rated to 350 and would fail catastrophically in an instant, b) the steering above 380 became light as a feather, stability and driveability were very much compromised by then - so they lifted and just kept driving at around those speeds (described as "the point when the center markers would form one solid line"). It wasn't clocked at 400 afaik from listening to a lot of drivers and engineers, but came close.
@@decnet100 Derek Bell, in an interview, said it was 396 kph. And in a longtail. But of course it's very possible that he hit that speed once or twice, but mostly thought better of it and lifted ...
@@freekfaro5606 well 396kph (once or twice) I could believe, but generally it's hard for the drivers to tell, as the tire geometry changes so much from the centrifugal forces, and also a few percent of slip become 10s of kphs... at that speed it's hard to tell for the drivers and they obviously had no gps speed readout (usually not even a regular speedometer) - also, the engineers weren't telling them everything - Kauhsen, the main test pilot in 917 development, was still slightly pissed off in an interview by the reveal that the tire manufacturers would openly say "we can only guarantee 350, at higher speeds the tires may disintegrate with no warning" to the engineers, which he as the test driver was told about AFTER hitting the rev limiter in top gear at the Nordschleife in a 1000hp+ variant - definitely 370+. Anyways, an incredible machine developed and piloted by passionate, talented madmen.
@@decnet100 I read a nice interview with Gijs van Lennep, about his win in 1971. His car was somewhat different from the other 917s in the race: magnesium frame and drilled brake rotors, which was a novelty. During the race the metal around the holes started to crack. So Helmut Marko, his co-driver, said: we don't use the brakes anymore! Well, they used them I guess, but gingerly. And won.
Years later a Mercedes C9 I believe made the record at 401 kph. Those days are gone ...
And you can buy the 917 Porsche as legal streetcar 😅
Check out the AMG Mercedes-Benz 300SEL 6.8 'Rote Sau' next!
The key to building a winning race car is to build it as small, and, light as you can, while shoving the biggest, most powerful engine possible. That's exactly what they did with the 917.