Fashion model Mallory & the "David Goodwin" Porsche RSR, sorta. Sorta better, actually. Wonderful Location: Ted's Garage.  Makeup & Styling by Linda Thacker

World-Conquering Little Porsche RSR
Text and photos by Jack Criswell © 2005

Even if you know nothing of cars, you know this car is a Porsche. Look at those bulging flares – it’s as if they put so much power into the little car (remember, its Great Grandfather was a Volkswagen Beetle) the body could no longer retain it. It’s bursting out at the seams with power.

The reason everyone instantly knows that this shape is “PORSCHE,” is that the Porsche RSR is what made Porsche what it is today, in more ways than one.

Sure, the RSR was victorious. Overwhelmingly victorious. Like so many racing Porsches, it won so many races that, by one point, one had to get an RSR just to be in the race.  Here’s a short list of only the top trophies:

1973 Daytona Rolex 24-Hour
1973 Sebring 12-Hour
10 national championships in 7 countries.
1974 IMSA GT Champion.
Targa Florio win
4th place LeMans
FIA World Cup for GT cars.
European Hill Climb Champion
1975 Daytona Rolex 24-Hour
1975 IMSA GT Champion.
European GT Champion
1st in GT - LeMans

This list comes from the Norbert Singer Fan Club (http://www.adpix.biz/singer.htm). Herr Singer was Porsche’s brilliant engineer and RSR Project Director.

That string of victories would make any car famous. But the RSR vaulted the entire company’s fame. It is the quintessential Porsche because it was the quintessential underdog story (cue “Rocky” theme, no, please don’t) – a diminutive David killing a world of Goliaths.

Porsche had been making cute little hand-built sports cars since 1948. Light and amazingly nimble yet tough, they had already won races and rallies, and were the preferred “Gentlemen’s Race Car.” But to prove they were really serious, they were possessed with the desire to win the world’s most difficult and prestigious race, LeMans. It may have been the most impressive, single-minded, corporate, effort ever. And after many years of trying, they won it overall in 1970 with the amazing 917K (This effort was portrayed beautifully in the movie “LeMans” by Steve McQueen, a classic for car nuts.) The 917-10 version is still the most powerful race car ever built, at 1,500 hp, and holder of the Land Speed Closed Course Record at Talladega.

The Porsche 917 won everything so many times that world racing organizations outlawed it as Officially Unfair in 1972.  What to do after that? How could anyone top a 917? Porsche did not exactly have a deep team, with only the 2.7 liter 911 for any basis. It would not even make 200 hp. And they did not have the engineering and testing resources to start over with an entirely new car. Back then, like today, victorious cars on that level of “Prototype” were essentially F1 cars with two seats. The only companies regularly playing there had F1 teams, like Ferrari, Matra, and companies using the Ford Cosworth. The 911 had been successful – a great rally car and winner of Tour de France. But it was a full-bodied street car and hardly a world-beater like the 917.

They may not have had a deep team but Porsche had just hired the equivalent of Wernher Von Braun – a brilliant young aerodynamic engineer named Norbert Singer.  “Let’s see what he can do” they thought, and gave him the 911.  He was up against the Ferrari 365 GTB Daytona 'Competizione', with almost twice the displacement, and everyone’s favorite. Some would have quit right there.

Now every Porsche tuner knows what things make 911s so fast. Singer invented those things. He flared the fenders, stuffing as much rubber as possible under there, with larger rear wheels than fronts.  He bored out the motor to 2.7 liters and massaged it to 210 hp. He was ruthless in lightening the body, eventually carving it down to 950 kg. The result was the 911 RS “Rennsport” or Race Car, one of the fastest production cars in the world.  

For its racing sibling, the RSR (“race car race”?), they bored it to 2.8, and increased compression, ending up with over 300 hp. Singer fitted actual 917 racing brakes because Porsche’s not-so-secret philosophy has always been that the faster road race cars are the ones that stop faster.  More horsepower and lighter weight is not that unique. But Singer did it in the RSR with bulletproof longevity, overpowering brakes, and a wicked intentional oversteer that let the drivers corner like they had rear-wheel steering, if it didn’t kill them first.

The Porsche Carrera RSR 2.8 debuted at the 1973 Daytona 24-hour enduro, facing giant 3-liter prototypes from the Big Boys of racing, plus 7-liter Corvettes and 4.4 liter Ferrari 365 GTB4’s, and Matra and Mirage prototypes – angry herds of experienced, big-money Goliaths that looked down their long cylinder blocks at the tiny Porsche. For Porsche to show up at this race with only a 911? What a joke.

Porsche beat them all. Every one of them. Porsche won it outright with a little street car. Then it won six of the nine rounds of the European GT Championship, and the title. By the end of 1975, the RSRs developed 345 hp and dominated GT racing for 3 years. Only once in 1973 did a Carrera RSR fail to finish a race.

It won ten national championships in seven countries. Then in 1974, Porsche came back and won the Daytona 24 Hour outright with it again! Winning a 24-hour enduro outright with a 2-year old race car was even more outrageous than winning it the first time with a street car in its debut.

It was bored out again, to 3.0 liters, as RSR “Prototypes”, and these eight factory hot rods were modified into the 934, the 935, and so on, all beating bigger competitors (with Norbert Singer behind them), but it was the RSR which made Porsche no longer the underdog.

The owner of this car, David Goodwin, knows why RSR are so special. He used to sell Porsches for Porsche. He sold this one to its first owner back in the ‘70’s. It was a special made-to-order custom; he knew it was the only one in the world. He’s also a Porsche Club driving instructor and could actually use the oversteer the way God intended.

David also wanted a fun daily driver. So he had a newer, reliable 3.2 motor, with its complex of electronic controls, installed in place of the tired original. After stripping it “all the way down to the wiring harness,” he pulled Julius Cook, one of the Porsche body-shop artisans, from retirement to have him add the flares in steel. Then Mike Trammell coated it in "Carerra GT Silver" to highlight the sensuous body. Astute readers note that manufacturers use silver to show off cars with amazing lines, like the new Shelby GR-1.

Custom 9" & 11" x 17” forged wheels were wrapped in 275-40 front and 335-35 rear tires.

With Bill Mitchell's Eurasian Auto Service doing the engine work, they’re hitting an easy 350 horsepower, without fancy gimmicks, turbos, intercoolers or superchargers – without even too much motor stress. This was what Porsche set out to prove they could do – a nice, reliable and comfortable street car, that, Oh, by the way, can beat most any car in the world on Sunday.

  

Mallory & Porsche RSR