Quote:
Originally Posted by kris-kincaid
I didn't understand the Porsche 917 reference. Shelby said:
If I had built the car like a 917 Porsche, I would have been 10 years ahead of where we were.
The original 917's with the long tail were unstable disasters. It wasn't until John Wyers team hacked off the tail (like the Coupe) that the 917's became stable at speed and then began to dominate.
One positive thing to come of this: nice photos in the article!  |
About the 917, John Wyer, John Horsman and company (JWA) were invited by the Porsche race team to participate in a test session. This was soon after the Jackie Ickx/Jackie Oliver #1075 GT40 beat the 917 at the 1969 24 hours of LeMans. Drivers weren't too happy with the 917 due to its instability at high speed. After observing a few runs, John Horsman convinced the Porsche guys to allow them to retrofit, i.e. rig, a tail onto the car. It was a straight tail sloping upwards toward the rear using tin secured with pop rivets. It was ugly. The first driver to chance driving the car with its new tail came pulled into the pits after some high-speed runs to report that the car was now stable. I wouldn't call the tail anything like the Coupe, but that's basically how JWA and the Gulf connection with the 917 began. That was the beginning of the Porsche 917 domination.
As for CS's trashing of Pete Brock, I suspect it's because Pete has gotten most of the credit for the Coupe design and its success. I imagine how tough it's got to be for old Shel to share credit for the Coupe, thus, since it wasn't all his, it was the "biggest mistake of his life."