<< Prev Page 2 of 2 The Porsche 911 R made its competition debut at Mugello early in 1967. Vic Elford and Gijs van Lennep finished a commendable third behind two works Porsche 910 sports racers. An experimental example fitted with a Sportomatic gearbox was next raced in the Marathon de la Route by Jochen Neerpasch, Hans Herrmann and Elford. The three experienced drivers won the 84-hour event on the combined Nord- and Südschleiffe of the Nürburgring. In 1968, the four-cam 911 R was wheeled out, which proved very fast but fragile; the car was so light and powerful that it frequently jumped over the bumps, which caused regular driveshaft failures.
In November of 1967, the first production 911 R was driven to Monza for a series of high speed record runs by a Swiss team. They had originally earmarked a 906 for the effort but they found the very bumpy banked track suited the production derived 911 R much better. They went on to set a total of 19 world records for two litre cars. Among them was an endurance run of 20,000 km, completed with an average speed of 209 km/h. For longevity a modified gearbox was used with the same ratios for fourth and fifth, so the gears could be alternated. Not known at the time. the engine fitted to the car had already been subjected to a 100 hour test on the bench back in Stuttgart.
Further competition success for the 911 R came in 1969 when the Tour de France was re-established and now also allowed prototype cars. Gerard Larousse promptly won the event and later also claimed victory in the Tour de Corse with the same car, equipped with the Type 916 engine. With a pair of Matra prototypes on the entry for the 1970 Tour de France, Larousse urged Porsche on to produce an even lighter car by offering a case of champagne for each kg removed from the 800 kg target. This ended up costing him seven cases yet it still proved insufficient to fight off the 3-litre, V12 engined Matras. Larousse did finish third behind the pair of French prototypes.
Having outlived their use to the factory, the 24 examples were eventually sold to privateers. Only very few of these were raced with no notable results. Whether Porsche was right to suspend 911 R production after just 20 cars were built we will never know but only a few years later the 911 Carrera RS and RSR derivatives proved that there certainly was a market for stripped down, high performance 911s. The 911 R remains as one of the rarest 911 derivatives and it holds the distinction as being the very first purpose built 911 competition car. << Prev Page 2 of 2
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911 R
The Porsche 911 R made its competition debut at Mugello early in 1967. Vic Elford and Gijs van Lennep finished a commendable third behind two works Porsche 910 sports racers. An experimental example fitted with a Sportomatic gearbox was next raced in the Marathon de la Route by Jochen Neerpasch, Hans Herrmann and Elford. The three experienced drivers won the 84-hour event on the combined Nord- and Südschleiffe of the Nürburgring. In 1968, the four-cam 911 R was wheeled out, which proved very fast but fragile; the car was so light and powerful that it frequently jumped over the bumps, which caused regular driveshaft failures.