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| April
Kraftwerkz - Makers of the LMK 917 |
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Perhaps the greatest ever racing car in the history of motorsport the Porsche 917 was the dream of a young man named Ferdinand Piech, who challenged the Porsche racing department back in 1963 to win the famous - and for Porsche the most elusive - race in the world, the Le Mans 24 Hours. The 917 soon became the one of the most successful race cars to date and dominated international motorsport from 1969 to 1973.  Ask any Porsche or motorsport
fan and they will distinctly know of the 917's domination of the worlds
race tracks and race series and most of you probably have a array of
books to prove it. But this months feature is not about the history of
the 917 - lets face it you probably know it all anyway - no this months
feature is about another mans dream, not only to own one of his
childhood dream race cars but to build one.The beginning of a dream The Porsche 917 had long been Andrew Keiller's favorite sports car, and dreamed that one day he would have one of this very own. The Porsche 917 was not your average car you could go out and buy - unless you owned a oil field or robed banks for a living, so after many years collecting countless information and studying every inch of the 917 Andrew felt that he could take on the huge task to build a replica of the 917 for himself. The process of building a Porsche 917 from scratch took much longer than anticipated, taking eight years long years to achieve a perfect like for like prototype of the car. Andrews dedication to quality and detail paid off and the first 917 replica Porsche rolled out of Andrew garage in 1999. The car was named the LMK 917 and after receiving a good reaction on the first car built, Andrew decided to open his own workshop just outside of Melbourne Australia and soon started building customer cars. Building the dream Birth of the first LMK 917 and Kraftwerkz To build the first LMK 917 Andrew first had to do full size drawings of all the components including the entire body and cross-section patterns. Andrew produced all of the drawings and made all the patterns and tooling to produce the suspension uprights, wheels, seats, head lamp covers, door glass, windscreen tooling and pedals. These were transferred to wood epoxy-foam & plaster to produce the full size mock-up. The mock-up was then used to produce prototype moulds to make the first body. 
Before production could be started on the
LMK 917, Andrew also had to construct all the jigs and fixtures for the
suspension components, the 917 is made up of 28 separate body units in
total resulting in Andrew having to produce a separate pattern and
mould
for each unit. The
main problem with trying to replicate the 917 is that there is almost
no access to a real car other than for exterior photos. Most of the
surviving 917s are either in museums or owned by serious collectors who
would definitely not allow access. However, using the thousands of
drawings & photos available & photographic interpolations I
feel my resulting shape has captured the spirit of the original car.
Andrew
and and his business partner Anthony along some sub-contractors have
come along way since 1999 and are currently building LMK 917 number 23
due to be delivered to a lucky customer in Germany mid April. it take
on average around four to five months to build a LMk 917 from start to
finish. You cant exactly put a figure on how much it costs to purchase
a LMK 917, it depends on the engine that you decide to drop into the
car but one think is for sure that it's a very good investment.
LMK
917 number 010 (above), which was sold to a customer in
Germany back in April 2005, has just sold on German ebay for a
staggering 550,000 Euros. This represents more than a 600% increase in
value in less than 18 months. Surely a record for any car, let
alone a reproduction one. This
ebay result far exceeds the US$178,600 paid for LMK 917-003 at the
Barrett Jackson auction early 2006. What next for Kraftwerkz The USA package includes body molds, chassis jig, patterns, tooling, CAD drawings, exclusive rights to USA region, plus two LMK orders. Both of these businesses will very soon be auctioned through Ebay. For full details of the complete business
packages please contact Andrew or Pauline at Kraftwerkz.
Not just 917's Kraftwerks are currently building the Can-Am Porsche Spyder  Work in progress on the Can-Am 917-10 Spyder. This has a complete chrome-moly frame & light weight body. The engine is a 3.8 RSR mated to a Turbo 4 speed gearbox. Don't worry if your purse strings don't stretch to the budget of a LMK917 we still have plenty of Paul Holroyds "Threes Company" limited signed and numbered prints left on our merchandise page for you to buy. 
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porschesport.com Home News Porsche Art Links Contact us Forum Merchandise Monthly Feature Race Cars For Sale  The drawings that started he production of the 917.  Above some of the moulds that make up the many needed to produce the LMK 917.  Above are the moulds that produce the LMK 917 suspension components.  Above the the new LMK917 twin fin design, in work. Each car takes on average around four to five months to complete.  Above chassis number 018 gets a recent track workout in California. Photos used on behalf of H. Wysard.  The 917 was that successful that Steve McQueen made a films titled "Le Mans" featuring the Porsche 917 and still to this day the film remains a cult film. Kraftwerkz have been asked to supply 4 LMK917s for use in the production of the new upcoming Steve McQueen biopic film, due out in 2008.  LMK917-005, delivered in 2003 was sold at the Barrett Jackson auction in Arizona recently. It earned US$178,600 (with premium). Almost tripling its purchase price in 3 years. Surely a record for a replica sports car.   Above engine installation in LMK917-012 in South Africa. Engine is a Porsche 962 with two turbos and two intercoolers. Has over 650 HP. OFFICIAL LMK917 DVD NOW AVAILABLE. FEATURES INCLUDE: ON TRACK & FACTORY FOOTAGE, PLUS PHOTO GALLERY. AUD $25.00 INCLUDING FIRST CLASS AIRMAIL TO ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD. SEND CHEQUE, MONEY ORDER OR WESTERN UN ION TRANSFER ETC. YOU CAN ORDER BY VISTING KRAFTWERKZ WEBSITE BELOW Kraftwerkz website Porschesport would like to thank kraftwekz for the use of their images and may you continue to produce such historic master peaces in the LMK 917's |
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After the first
body was produced the shape was carefully refined to produce production
moulds resulting in the prototype.
