Unfortunately, this external filler confused some innocent gas station attendants who did not know Porsche’s fuel filler was still in the trunk. They pumped gasoline into the oil reservoir. For 1973, recognizing the confusion and concerned that U.S. regulations for side-impact safety might restrict importation, engineers returned the tank to the rear fender behind the engine.
For 1972 the sales staff made the Boge hydro-pneumatic struts optional equipment on the 911E. Engineers had learned the struts leaked, and owners discovered they were more costly to replace than standard units or even the expensive Konis. Deleting the Boges reduced the 1972 911E price by DM 300, from 26,680 in 1971 to 26,380, or $7,995 in the United States. The T settled at DM 23,480, or $7,367 in America, and the S reached DM 31,180, or $9,495. Porsche charged an additional DM 1,000, $735, for the Targa on any platform.
Despite its slightly lower top speed, 140 miles per hour (225 kilometers per hour), the S still was a potent automobile, accelerating from 0 to 100 miles per hour (160 kilometers per hour) in 15 seconds. Wider tires and fenders increased the frontal area from 17.4 square feet at introduction in 1964 to 18.4 square feet for the 1972 S, raising the coefficient of drag from 0.38 to 0.41. At high speeds, air pressure tended to lift the nose of the car.
The coupe sold for $7,607 (26,473DM). Records suggest the company manufactured 3,028 coupes from 1969 through 1971.
YEAR
1970-1971
DESIGNATION
911T
SPECIFICATIONS
MODEL AVAILABILITY
Coupe, Targa
WHEELBASE
2268mm/89.3 inches
LENGTH
4163mm/163.9 inches
WIDTH
1610mm/63.4 inches
HEIGHT
1320mm/52.0 inches
WEIGHT
1020kg/2244 pounds
BASE PRICE
$5,471 coupe - $6,003 Targa
TRACK FRONT
1362mm/53.6 inches
TRACK REAR
1343mm/52.9 inches
WHEELS FRONT
5.5Jx15
WHEELS REAR
5.5Jx15
TIRES FRONT
165HR-15 radial
TIRES REAR
165HR-15 radial
CONSTRUCTION
Unitized welded steel
SUSPENSION FRONT
Independent, wishbones, MacPherson struts, longitudinal torsion bars, hydraulic double-action shock absorbers
SUSPENSION REAR
Independent, semi-trailing arms, transverse torsion bars, hydraulic double-action shock absorbers
BRAKES
Discs, 2-piston cast iron fixed calipers
ENGINE TYPE
Horizontally opposed DOHC six-cylinder Typ 911/03
ENGINE DISPLACEMENT
2195cc/133.9CID
BORE AND STROKE
84x66mm/3.31x2.60 inches
HORSEPOWER
125@5800rpm
TORQUE
130lb-ft@4200rpm
COMPRESSION
8.6:1
FUEL DELIVERY
2 Weber 40 IDT 3C carburetors
FINAL DRIVE AXLE RATIO
4.428:1
TOP SPEED
127mph
PRODUCTION
11,019 coupes; 6000 Targas
1972-1973 911S
Tilman Brodbeck, a young racing engineer, joined Porsche in October 1970. He had earned a technical degree in mechanical engineering and aerodynamics. Early in 1971, Helmuth Bott assigned him to work on the 911S front-end lift in Stuttgart University’s wind tunnel. Design chief Tony Lapine sent one of his modelers to join Brodbeck, in case the engineer got any ideas.
A technician in the wind tunnel moved an oil vaporizer wand over the front end of the car. Brodbeck watched the oil stream disappear directly under the front valence below the bumper. Wondering how to stop it or redirect it, he stuck his finger into the path of the oil stream. The air detoured around it. They scrounged around the facility for other things that might deflect that stream. By the end of the first day, Brodbeck had taped a piece of rope across the bottom lip. The oil stream caught on the rope and swerved left or right. The control room technician read encouraging results. By the end of the third day, they had roughed in a smooth fiberglass piece that had an even greater effect. It reduced lift from 183 pounds to 102 and dropped the drag coefficient from 0.41 to 0.40. Bott gave the project high priority to develop and introduce this spoiler as a production part and as an accessory that owners could mount on earlier cars.
The E series 1972 models gave way to F series 1973 models. The company earned revenues of slightly more than DM 300 million (roughly $94 million) in 1972, and its motorsports efforts had cost more than DM 30 million ($9.4 million). The economic downturn in the United States in 1971 and 1972 reduced Porsche exports, decreasing revenues anticipated for future projects and planned models. During this time, the phased withdrawal of Porsche and Piëch family members matched the numbers of new engineers, stylists, and managers arriving almost weekly. The company was in transition, its resources were limited, and few at Porsche had a clear view of the future.
1972 911S Targa
Porsche sold the Targa for 32,900DM, $10,313 at the time. It weighed 1,075 kilograms, 2,365 pounds.
Porsche hurried the front spoiler into production in time for 1972 models. The company introduced a new 2,342cc (142.8-cubic-inch) Typ 911/53 engine for the 1972 S. It developed 190 horsepower at 6,500 rpm.
The man in charge was a performance enthusiast. Ernst Fuhrmann admitted that one of his motivations for conceiving four-cam heads and designing the Typ 547 Carrera engine was to obtain something fast to power his company 356. In early 1972, he went to Hockenheimring for a touring car race with other Porsche engineers.
“I was in the pits,” Fuhrmann recalled during an interview nearly 20 years later. “I watched many nine-elevens. Fords and the BMWs were passing them. Even our fastest nine-eleven was lapped by a Ford and a BMW. I went looking for one of our engineers, Mr. [Norbert] Singer, to ask him why this happened. I found another one, younger, one of Mr. Singer’s protégés.”
Singer’s protégé was Wolfgang Berger, who told Fuhrmann that Ford had developed a small series of rennsport models, racing prototypes in effect, that took advantage of every loophole in FIA racing regulations. Berger went on, volunteering what Porsche might need to win against them.
“Your analysis is interesting,” Fuhrmann recalled telling him. “Think about it and then tell me what you will do.” Berger reported the conversation to Singer, who passed along the information to Bott. Within days of the race, Bott summoned Tilman Brodbeck back into his office.
“Porsche nine-eleven race drivers have a lot of trouble when they go for the curves on the racetrack,” Bott explained. “Even the Ford Capris and the BMW coupes are quicker through the curves. You must do something. Anything! Without changing the whole car, it must be possible that these racers can buy something to make the car better. Think about it!”
“We went back into the Stuttgart University wind tunnel,” Brodbeck recalled, “the same one where we had done the front lip for the Carrera. Now we started with welding wire to make a form. The front had needed such a little bit. We thought about how to change the shape of the rear. Over the next two or three days, we formed this new shape. We moved it forward and back, up and down the rear end. It was trial and error.”
The S engine accelerated the Targa and coupe from 0 to 100 kilometers per hour in 7.0 seconds. Top speed was 230 kilometers (140 miles) per hour.
Brodbeck’s final version was flat sheet metal wrapped over welding wire. His colleagues in engineering laughed when they saw it mounted on the back of a car, but Brodbeck remembered it was nervous, stress-relieving laughter. Günther Steckkönig, a Porsche test driver since 1953 and a factory race driver by the mid-1960s, drove it around Weissach’s test track. He came in and said, “Wait, the car feels much better.” The project went fr
om Weissach’s test track to Tony Lapine’s design studios, where Brodbeck asked them to make something smoother and better looking without changing the aerodynamics. “We told them the important points for the aerodynamics, where they have to be. Then they made this little thing, this ducktail, the bürzel.” Then it went back into the wind tunnel, this time to Volkswagen’s, since Mercedes-Benz had just acquired the Stuttgart University facility. A former classmate of Brodbeck’s was working at VW in aerodynamics. Hearing that Tilman was there to “manage the lift,” he said that Porsche was wasting its time. “The only thing we are working on is the drag coefficient. That’s the most important thing.”
Shortly after that, Bott took the mocked-up prototype to VW’s test track at Ehra-Lessien. Bott had a series of handling exercises that could unsettle a car. One involved a violent lane-change maneuver. Acceptable chassis and suspension development allowed just three fishtail swerves for the car to stabilize or it went back for more work. Bott invited Brodbeck along for the first ride.
“He was driving about one-hundred eighty kilometers [roughly 112 miles per hour] on a straight,” Brodbeck explained. Bott suddenly yanked the steering wheel hard to the right. “You can imagine what that does. I got pale. Without the spoilers it was awful what this car did. And with the spoilers it was amazing. Everybody said, ‘Well, something else must be changed, the tires, the suspension. It cannot just be these two small spoilers.’” For the tests, Bott had used a single 911, so everyone could watch his mechanics exchange only body panels.
Wolfgang Berger, Singer’s protégé, had kept Fuhrmann informed of progress. Berger had direct access, bypassing normal chain-of-command reporting hierarchy. Inspired by lightweight 911R models, Berger gutted a 911T in preparation for what other engineers were doing to meet Fuhrmann’s challenge
In the engine, the Biral cylinders used on production 911s had reached near-maximum bore at 88mm. Much more and the cylinder walls got too thin for reliability. Helmut Flegl and Hans Mezger had specified Nikasil, a nickel-silicon carbide, to line the engine cylinders on 917s, and this allowed a few extra millimeters. Mezger increased the production 911 bore to 90mm from 88, which enlarged total displacement to 2,687cc, or 163.9 cubic inches. This advanced the 911 to the next racing class, Under 3-Liters.
The FIA’s “production” classifications allowed entrants to run wider wheels. This encouraged Berger to enlarge rear fenders. Brakes from the 917s fit in these new wheels, and these ran a prototype ABS system from Teldix. Fuhrmann asked Paul Ernst Strähle, a longtime Porsche racer and company friend, to enter the car as his own in the Group 5 prototype category for the 1,000-kilometer race in Austria. Berger fitted the front end with a special spoiler derived from what Peter Falk, Norbert Singer, and racer Mark Donahue had devised for Donahue’s Can-Am 917-30. This incorporated an oil cooler even as it channeled airflow off the front. Berger mounted a large version of Brodbeck’s ducktail, which reached the height of the rear window. Fuhrmann hoped that using Strähle as the entrant might avert suspicion that the car was a factory prototype. It finished in 10th overall, right behind sports racing prototypes. It signaled to Porsche’s competitors that the 911 no longer was an ill-handling loser.
It was a significant test for Fuhrmann. He had inherited a company that planned to drop the 911. He had neither a replacement nor money to create something new. He had to reinvigorate the existing car and somehow make it exciting to buyers. Production racing could do that—a sales technique that emphasized the character of this new racer as Fuhrmann’s Carrera engines had done for 356 buyers.
Fuhrmann assigned Norbert Singer to manage competition development and racing programs. Wolfgang Berger’s production engineering staff and Tony Lapine’s styling studio collaborated with Singer on the new 911 S 2.7, as it was to be known. The goal was to manufacture a Group 4-legal “production” model, stripped of anything that might jeopardize racing capabilities yet still appealing to 500 paying customers. Fuhrmann considered it an addition to the 911 lineup. It offered better performance than the 2.4-liter 911S already in production.
YEAR
1972-1973
DESIGNATION
911S
SPECIFICATIONS
MODEL AVAILABILITY
Coupe, Targa
WHEELBASE
2271mm/89.4 inches
LENGTH
4147mm/163.3 inches
WIDTH
1610mm/63.4 inches
HEIGHT
1320mm/52.0 inches
WEIGHT
1075kg/2365 pounds
BASE PRICE
$9,655 coupe - $10,313 Targa
TRACK FRONT
1362mm/53.6 inches
TRACK REAR
1343mm/52.9 inches
WHEELS FRONT
6.0Jx15
WHEELS REAR
6.0Jx15
TIRES FRONT
185/70VR15
TIRES REAR
185/70VR15
CONSTRUCTION
Unitized welded steel
SUSPENSION FRONT
Independent, wishbones, MacPherson struts, longitudinal torsion bars, hydraulic double-action shock absorbers
SUSPENSION REAR
Independent, semi-trailing arms, transverse torsion bars, hydraulic double-action shock absorbers
BRAKES
Discs, 2-piston aluminum-front, cast iron-rear fixed calipers
ENGINE TYPE
Horizontally opposed DOHC six-cylinder Typ 911/53
ENGINE DISPLACEMENT
2341cc/142.9CID
BORE AND STROKE
84x70.4mm/3.31x2.77 inches
HORSEPOWER
190@6500rpm
TORQUE
159lb-ft@5200rpm
COMPRESSION
8.5:1
FUEL DELIVERY
Bosch mechanical fuel injection
FINAL DRIVE AXLE RATIO
4.428:1
TOP SPEED
140mph
PRODUCTION
3,160 coupes; 1,894 Targas both years
This was Porsche’s first right-hand-drive specification RS Carrera lightweight delivered to the United Kingdom. The company went on to assemble a total of 69 right hand drove RS Carreras.
1973 CARRERA RS
Those in marketing and sales who had worried the 911R into oblivion saw a repeat performance coming, and they raised obstacles as they ran away. Fuhrmann remained firm: What if Zuffenhausen assembled 500 cars stripped as Singer needed them for homologation? However, buyers could check an option code giving them the luxurious 911S interior with soundproofing and steel bumpers. Marketing objected to the name S 2.7. Yet they had already discussed words that revisited Porsche history for future model designations. They named this new car Carrera and added RS, stretched between the wheels in a color matching the painted five-spoke wheels from Fuchs.
Engineers, designers, and marketing teams devised the second trim and interior option level. Norbert Singer’s homologation version was Porsche’s most Spartan configuration of the car. The company delivered the car, designated the RS H (for “homologation”), with narrow wheels and no anti-sway bars, knowing that racers mounted their own equipment. The next level was the lightweight sports version, option M471, with wider wheels and thick anti-sway bars. For those enamored of the style of the new Carrera RS as a race car but not wanting to sacrifice creature comforts, a third level, option M472, delivered a car with interior appointments similar to 911S production models. The fourth configuration, M491, was available to known racers, providing them a 2.8-liter racing engine, roll bar, 11-inch-wide rear wheels, and flared rear fenders. This was the RSR, or rennsport rennen version, Porsche’s pure competition model.
The first production prototype appeared in April 1972. Wolfgang Berger started from a 1972 E series 911T body that still bore its external oil filler cap on the passenger side. It was complete except for front chin and rear ducktail spoilers and the Carrera graphic. Eight more prototypes rolled out of Weissach
before the production run set at 500 copies commenced in October. On Fuhrmann’s orders, sales and marketing jumped to work. They had a single prototype to show, but they left piles of brochures at interested distributors and dealers. Some previous 911S buyers received personal visits.
Marketing set the Paris Auto Salon as the public debut. By the time doors opened on October 5, 1972, Porsche had 51 orders for the M471 Sport version. The company established a price of DM 33,000 ($11,785 at the time) for this package. An additional DM 2,500 (roughly $893) bought the M472 “touring” package with the 911S interior. Porsche sold the 500 it needed for homologation within a week of the end of the Paris show. Fuhrmann shrewdly let production run until demand ebbed. That happened in July 1973, when number 1,580 drove off the Zuffenhausen assembly line. Porsche increased the price by DM 1,000 (about $330) after the first 500 sold. But no one complained, and orders continued steadily. The additional production reclassified the Carrera as a Group 3 touring car, where it virtually owned the races.
Porsche intended the Carrera RS for FIA racing events contested throughout Europe. To be competitive, engineers needed to run the engine without the emissions controls required in the United States, so Porsche made no effort to “federalize” the RS 2.7-liter engine. They were unobtainable to American buyers for years, until the EPA relaxed standards for older cars, enabling enthusiasts and collectors to import and enjoy them.
The Complete Book of Porsche 911 Page 6
