body. The fiberglass itself was laid up by hand, producing consistent results, instead of the uneven spraying technique used on the 904.

The result was a car that weighed 580 kg (1,300 lb), approximately 250 lb (113 kg) lighter than the 904/6 (the 6-cylinder 904). The engine regularly fitted was the 901/20 6-cylinder lightweight racing engine with 220 hp and carburetors, although some examples that were raced by the factory team received fuel injected or 8-cylinder engines, especially in hillclimbing events where Porsche competed with Ferrari Dinos for the European championship.



Unlike previous racing Porsches, the 906's body was tested in a wind tunnel, resulting in a top speed of 280 km/h (170 mph) at Le Mans, quite fast for a 2-liter engine car. It shows already a close resemblance to future Porsche racing cars. As in the Mercedes-Benz 300SL, Gull-wing doors were fitted, and the engine at the rear was covered with a large plexiglas cover.t

It first ran that August after a three-week start-to-finish gestation period. The Ollon-Villars 906 car so called named for it's Ollon-Villars tube frame was important because it is generally considered to be the progenitor for the first of a new generation Porsche prototypes, the 906.

The 906 made its debut in the 1966 Daytona 24-Hour race. Even though the car had to run as a prototype, it brought Porsche right from the start, winning the small-displacement prototype divison in the hands of Hans Hermann and Herbert Linge.

Porsche began expermenting with longer-tailed cars at Le Mans in 1966, using a pair of 906s as rolling test beds. Equipped with fuel injection, these proved quite potent, winning thier division. Future developments of the long-tail concept would result in a number of other successful models, including the 917, the 936 and the 956-962s.

The 1000 km at Spa were disappointing, as were the 1000 km Nürburgring where the Dinos were only beaten by the Chevrolet-V8-powered Chaparral. A privately entered 906 secured an overall victory at the 1966 Targa Florio when the factory cars failed.

The 906 scored the last major victory for Porsche as factory entry at Le Mans in 1967. the driver Vic Elford was an accomplished individual capable of winning in everything from rallying to Formula One.

Succeeding the 906 was the 910, a vertually identical car bust using 13- instead of 15-inch-diameter rims, this allowed a reduction in height of the fender lines, plus a single central nut instead of the 5 nuts as in a road car. This made the car not suitable for street use, but it saved time in pitstops. Overall, the 910 was lighter and shorter than the 906. The Porsche 910 or Carrera 10 was a race car from Porsche, based upon the Porsche 906. 15 were produced and entered in 1966 and 1967.

The Porsche 910 was entered in mid 1966, starting with the hillclimb from Sierre to Crans-Montana in Switzerland. As engines, either the reliable 2000 cc 6-cylinder with 200 hp (150 kW) or the 2200 cc 8-cylinder with up to 270 hp (201 kW) were used.

The 910 was only raced for about one year by the factory, and quite successful during that time. The main class rivals Ferrari Dino 206P were mostly beaten now, but overall victories on fast tracks against the more powerful Ford GT40 and Ferrari Prototypes were still not hope for - yet. On twistier ones like the Targa Florio, another victory was expected though, and the 910s dutifully delivered a 1-2-3 win in 1967.

At the 1000km Nürburgring in 1967, as fleet of 6 factory cars were entered in an attempt to score the first overall win in Porsche's home event. Two of the three 8-cyl broke, and the remaining one finished 4th. The three 6-cyl won 1-2-3, though, giving Porsche its first outright win in a third major event of the World Sportscar Championship for Porsche, after the 1956 Targa Florio and the 12 Hours of Sebring in 1960.

In Le Mans, the new Porsche 907 "long tails" were already entered, finishing 5th in front of a 910 and two 906.

In hillclimbing, the career of the short and light open-top 910 "Bergspyder" version with its 8-cylinder continued, winning the 1967 and 1968 European championships. At the hillclimb of Ollon-Villars, which counted towards the World Sportscar Championship in 1967, the 910 even scored a 1-2, with Gerhard Mitter and Rolf Stommelen beating Herbert Müller and his big V12-Ferrari P.

The 910 soon made way for the new Porsche 907, the 907 was introduced at the 1967 24 Hours of Le Mans. As suggested by Ferdinand Piëch, the position of the driver was moved from the traditional left (as in German road cars) to the right as this gives advantages on the predominant clockwise race tracks.

With a new longtail body, the 907s reached 302 km/h (190 mph) on the straight even though they used the reliable 220 hp Porsche 910 2000cc 6-cyl rather than the more powerful 8-cyl. Also, vented brake disks were used as standard from now. The best Porsche 907 finished 5th, beaten only by Ford and Ferrari with their much bigger engines.

As the record-breaking performances of the 7.0L V8-powered Ford had triggered rumors about a future rule change, Porsche started to prepare themselves in summer of 1967. The 907 was equipped with the 270 hp 2200cc 8-cyl which was then modified for the rules of the new 3 litre prototype category that was announced in late 1967 to come in effect already in 1968. An engine with the full 3000cc would have to be developed first, though, to be introduced in the future Porsche 908.

< style="font-family: arial;">The Porsche 908 replaced the 907 when the FIA had announced in 1967 to change of the rules for the World Championship for Marques by limiting the displacement of prototypes to 3000 cc as in Formula One, the new 908 was the first Porsche sports car that had an engine with the maximum size allowed, as the Porsche 907 only had 2200 cc engines. The new 3 litre Flat-8 engine produced initially 257 kW (350 hp) at 8400 rpm, as well as some teething problems. Also, being traditionally air-cooled and with only 2 valves per cylinder, it was still down on power compared to more modern F1 designs which delivered over 400 hp (300 kW), but were not suited to last in endurance races.

For 1969, the prototype rules were changed, and Porsche lowered the weight of the 908/02 spyder by 100 kg (220 lb), removing the roof and the long tails. Aluminium tube frames were used, with air pressure gauges to check them.

The 1969 24 Hours of Daytona were a disaster for Porsche, as all three 908/02 failed, and two Lola T70 won. At the 12 Hours of Sebring, a Ford GT40 and the new Ferrari 312P Prototype was faster.

Despite the more powerful 917 getting better towards the end of 1969, the career of the 908 would continue. On rather twisty and slow tracks like Nürburgring and Targa Florio, the 917 was not suited well even after being modified to the "917K". So rather than trying to make "one size fit all", Porsche built dedicated cars for each type of racing.

Based upon the lightweight and short Porsche 909 which was used in hillclimbing, the new open cockpit version named 908/3 was an even shorter spyder than the 908/2. In 1970 and 1971, this version was entered successfully in the 1000 km and the Targa, where typical speeds were only about half of the 240 mph (390 km/h) which the 917LH long tails could achieve at Le Mans.

With the combination of the powerful 917 and the lightweight 908, Porsche dominated the championships from 1969 until 1971.

The 908/02 in which Steve McQueen finished second at the 1970 12 Hours of Sebring was also used as a camera car for the Le Mans (film) in the race itself. Steve McQueen was not allowed to drive a Porsche 917, though.

The Porsche 906 or Carrera 6 was the last street-legal racing car from Porsche. 65 were produced in 1966. This allowed the model to be homologated for racing in the FIA's new Group 4 Sports Car category although the type would also compete in modified form in the Group 6 Sports Prototype class.

In order to save money, spare suspensions produced in advance for a possible new series of Porsche 904 had to be used for the 906, along with big 15 inch wheels. Yet, Formula One used lighter 13 inch wheels, and Porsche had already used Team Lotus suspension parts in earlier years. The wheels were bolted on with 5 nuts as in a road car, which cost time in pitstops compared to a single central nut.



While Porsche was busy developing the 910 and the 907 during the 1967 season, it also produced a series of specialized 910 hillclimb spyders. These were powered by the now traditional Type 771 flat eight-cylinder and featured minimal bodies and equipment The hillclimb cars where among the first employ a suspension-acuated rear spoiler.

Porsche 907

From 1968, the big V8 and V12 prototypes of Ford and Ferrari were banned, and Porsche hoped to secure the World Sportscar Championship and maybe an overall win at Le Mans as the competition at Ford, Matra and Alfa Romeo was not prepared with suitable 3000cc prototypes yet, either. Ferrari even sat out the whole of 1968 as a protest against the rule change. Apart from the former 2000cc-class rivals Alfa Romeo T33/2 and Renault-powered Alpine, 5000cc sportscars were also permitted to enter if at least 50 of them had been built. This loophole was intended to fill the grid with cars dating mainly from 1965, like Ford GT40 and Lola T70.

Porsche was serious. Unlike during the rather modest earlier years, four cars were entered in the 1968 24 Hours of Daytona, supported by 20 mechanics and engineers. The pilots were fitted with cooling vests developed by NASA as the oil-cooler and the hot oil pipes caused heat in the closed cockpit.

After the #53 car of Gerhard Mitter had a big crash caused by tyre failure in the banking, his teammate Rolf Stommelen supported the #54 driven by Vic Elford/Jochen Neerpasch. When the #52 car of the longtime leaders Jo Siffert/Hans Herrmann dropped to second due to a technical problem, these two also drove on the #54 car in case theirs broke down. Due to this, five pilots won the race, and two of them scored also second. The #51 Jo Schlesser/Joe Buzzetta completed the 1-2-3 side-by-side parade finish that the Ferrari Prototypes had shown a year earlier at the banked finish line. The three Alfa Romeo T33/2 were even beaten by a Ford Mustang.

The 12 Hours of Sebring saw a 1-2 win of Porsche 907, by Jo Siffert/Hans Herrmann and Vic Elford/Jochen Neerpasch, with Gerhard Mitter/Rolf Stommelen as well as Ludovico Scarfiotti/Joe Buzzetta being victims of engines failure.

Porsche 908

Despite winning the 1000km Nürburgring, the 908 was anything but convincing in 1968. The older and smaller 2200 cc 907 had started the season with dominating wins and later delivered better results than Porsche's first serious attempt in the top prototype category

For 1972, the 5000 cc loop hole rule was discontinued, and the 917 as well as its main rival Ferrari 512 became obsolete. In the 3000cc prototype category, Porsche's main advantage was the low weight, as the engine was underpowered with 370 hp (280 kW). The new rules required a much higher weight (650 kg (1,400 lb)) than Porsche could achieve (well under 600 kg (1,300 lb)), giving the advantage to Ferrari 312PB, Alfa Romeo T33TT and Matra with their more powerful F1-derived engines that had 420 hp (310 kW) or more even in endurance trim.

Porsche decided to discontinue the 20 year old history of factory racing, sold the 908/03 cars to customers and focused on the development of the Porsche 911 and turbochargers, to return in 1976 with the Porsche 936.

Yet, a Porsche 908LH Coupé was entered by Reinhold Joest in the 1972 24 Hours of Le Mans, finishing a strong 3rd with the 3 year old car. Customers continued to race several 908/3. In 1975, some resurfaced, fitted with Turbo-engines, similar to the one used in the Porsche 934 or Porsche 936 of 1976, and later upgraded also with similar bodywork. The Porsche 908/80 Turbo of Joest and Jacky Ickx which finished 2nd in Le Mans 1980 turned out later to be a real Porsche 936, though.