964Patrick

OT: This might be a stupid question, but why did Porsche quit racing in 1998? Was it becoming too costly, or do they think it's just not that important anymore?

Adrian

One reason was that their top of the line racer the 911 GT-1 was damned dangerous and not very successful over the 1996 to 1998 racing seasons. The project was scrapped. Nothing new followed because of the projected cost.
WW (Porsche CEO) felt that Porsche had nothing left to prove. To develop a front line engine for the next generation racer was going to be expensive.
The V10 engine that was developed was done without his permission and he got into a right strop (really pissed off) when he found out about it.
The LM2000 car was destroyed (it was only a full scale clay model anyway) but the engine formed the basis of the CGT engine.
WW can be convinced to do things if;
You can make it sound like his idea and
It is going to make money.
The rule in Porsche now and it includes the Motorsports department, they are not allowed to do any project unless it can make money.
If you do a lot of reading in the motoring press you will see the stalwarts who believed Porsche would come back to racing have even stopped writing about it. It just ain't going to happen and customer motorsports will only continue as long as they make a profit. It costs Porsche 1 million US dollars just to attend the F1 race. Bernie loves Porsche. If the customers dry up and move to other brands then the customer racing program will go.
This is why the new Vette is such a threat because on a real race track in a real race it is far more bang for the buck than the GT-3RSR which costs $US375,000 and is not ready to race. That costs you more and more and more.
Ciao,
Adrian.

Cupcar

Adrian-

I thought I saw a photo in Autoweek of the LM 2000 in black livery taken as it drove around Weissach.

I remember the photo appeared about a month before the announcement that Porsche were pulling the plug on racing, so was suprised when the plug pulled- around November 1999. I was going to the Le Mans 2000 race so was dissappointed Porsche was not going to be there.

Anyway, I did go to the race (with FIA credentials so I could look around the pit) and the Audi effort was enormous. Three cars. Instead of the usual trucks behind the pit garage, they had built an enormous custom tent that enclosed the back of their 3 garages forming a "super garage". They even had custom made bedrooms made from modified shipping containers for the drivers of each car that were stacked 3 high behind the garage. Every thing was painted and marked Audi beautifully. Their was a huge Audi tent located at the back of the track and they had observers around the track. I was told that they had 500 people working and 2/3 of them had a lap top computer with them.

The super garage access was from a door that required a special card to open at the back of the garage. Once open, there were jack booted guards that would not even allow photos of what was inside. Inside there were spares for every thing stacked. I saw several rear body work replacements stacked vertically.

The Audi cars were absolutely dominant, they had the ability to change an entire rear of the car including suspension, gearbox, brakes in less than 10 minutes. It was amazing. Formula 1 type effort finally at Le Mans, nobody came close.

The Audi effort made all the other efforts of other teams look like an SCCA racer versus Mc Laren or Ferrari. The Cadillac effort next door was so simple the comparison was embarrassing.

Audi won the race 1-2-3

Anyway the master of that Audi show was Ferdinand Piech, CEO of Audi, and as you know, grandson of Ferdinand Porsche, one time technical director of Porsche, 10% owner of Porsche and a member of the board of directors of Porsche both at that time and today.

I think what happened is that Piech told Weideking at a board meeting or otherwise, that the Porsche Le Mans effort would be completely drowned by the Audi effort, so why go out and embarrass yourself. Quit while you are ahead, save some money, Weideking took the advice. Weideking knows his way around a dollar or D-Mark.

Just my theory.

Adrian

Dear Indy,
Your statements are now not making any sense. You are creating unrealistic hypothese to try and further your argument. What has the 917 got to with anything. That was 30 years ago. It is 2005 and we live today and for tomorrow not yesterday.
On the 917 speak to those who drove them for real. One dear friend of mine answered my question about racing the 917 with the words "I was young and stupid". The last time he raced a 917 the brake pads fell out at the end of the Mulsanne straight. He was not impressed.
I heard similar comments from another friend who raced the Ford GT-40.
The Porsche design team are very talented people. I know some of them. I also know designers who work for other companies. They are all talented people with different constraints applied to them.
GM race in a wide number of series across Europe from the German DTM to the BTTC.
Porsche have just two race cars. One for their own series and one for a class which was created just for them.
Porsche got BMW banned from their class because they kicked the GT-3s backside. Instead of fighting back on the track they got them kicked off the track. I do not like this.
What else can GM do I do not know but so what?
GM want to win the big races not come first in the lowest class.
I am a car enthusiast and I respect the efforts of companies like GM and others who do actually do something for their brand on the race track. I am looking forward to Aston Martin and Maserati making their comebacks this year.
Ciao,
Adrian.

snakepliskin

Adrian said...

...I saw the GT1 get airborne at Road Atlanta...Did a flip in mid-air right in front of me on the main straight. Scary stuff!

-Mike

chame01

I guess if $$ wasn't an issue I would pick the Porsche CGT anytime...

however, GM's proposition of a sports car in the Z06 can't be ignored...

snakepliskin

Yeah, Indy,

The only thing crazier than that Benz flipping 20 min into the race, is finding out that one of its sister cars flipped in practice the day before... I have an mpeg of that Lemans flip at home, its always a good one to watch for a reality check.

-Mike

Adrian

Dear Indy,
In my line of the family every Streather male dies aged 69. I am sorry but I will not be around to see this race your project
You will have to send me a postcard with the results special delivery.

Have I seen a vintage car race?
Want some pictures?

If you have never raced a car from the 60 through to the 80s you really do not know what it was like.
We did not have the gear and the safety stuff they have now but we went just as fast. I raced the Zakspeed Escort. Space frame, 3 litre F1 engine, a fibreglass body and disc brakes from the Ford Capri.
A friend of mine purchased a 911 in 1968. His wife convinced him to sell it because she felt he would kill himself on the road. For a living he drove F2, F5000 and a GT-40 in endurance racing. He drives an Audi A4 nowadays.
Ciao,
Adrian.

Bill Gregory

The GT1 flipping at Road Atlanta was pretty sobering too....

Eli K

Indycam,

With all due respect how can you compare the two??? One is a mass produced vehicle while the other is an exotic afforded by few...
For the sake of comparison, can we limit our range closer to the pricepoint of the similar cars...

snakepliskin

Hi,

Not to be off topic but, here are some links vids of to the Porsche and Benz flips.

I forgot just how bad the Porsche flip really was...After he lands, its straight into the wall.

GT1 Porsche Road Atlanta


Benz at Lemans


-Mike

Cupcar

Way off topic as well.

Peter Brock wrote an article on the Benz flip.

The genesis of the problem was trying to save front brake wear. To allow more rear brake bias, and shift brake wear to the rear of the car, the aero was set with more rear downforce.

This was supposed to save a pit stop or two during the race. The upshot was the lift at the front developed with more rear downforce flipped the car.

I also heard the car came down on a tree stump that came through the cockpit at the passenger seat- ouch.

Dunasso

I like them all.

Fast is good, Faster is better, Fastest is bestest.

All cars have their strong and weak points. It's how you utilize those aspects and use them to you advantage that counts. Right?

Duncan

Cupcar

Porsche makes a higher profit per vehicle than any other manufacturer, ranging from around 23% on a Boxster to 45% on a Turbo, probably over 100% on a GT2. My figures are from Forbes Magazine, the GT2 is my projection based on the Turbo profit and the reduced content of the GT2 which probably makes it cheaper than a Turbo to produce.

There is a tension between the image of a "sports car" that is in the customers head and the ultimate price one will pay for the product and what the product costs to produce. Porsche wants there to be a wide gap they can turn to profit.

As you point out the quality of the product is in the eye of the beholder. Some would not pay a nickle for an Ed Ruscha or Sol Lewitt, some a lot of money. It depends on what knowledge you bring to the table and your personal taste.

For my taste, I would like to see in the normal production cars a little more design content that reached into racing car technique (as in the CGT) at the price and profit levels Porsche is at. Especially since Porsche has a history of doing this in the past.

I don't think you can compare the CGT without any racing tires to a C6R Corvette racing car. The 917 and C6R would be more fair, race car to race car. Too bad the kinks are added to the Mulsanne at Le Mans or we could go back and look up lap times. I think a normally aspirated 917 and C6R would come out C6R on top, Turbo 917 the 917 wins.

The 917 story as I know it;

The 917 was an absolute pig when it came out. Ask Brian Redman or Vic Elford. To listen to them talk about driving it, they practically needed a toilet seat installed in the car. It wasn't until the 917 racing program (except Porsche Salzburg) was turned over the John Wyer racing in England who redeveloped the aerodynamic package and chassis to make the car a winner. This was ex-factory engineering.

Read the chapters in Unfair Advantage about how Mark Donohue showed Helmut Flegl how to develop the 917 and Carrera. An example is the engine of the 917 Turbo. It was undrivable except at full throttle. Donohue was exasperated, the Porsche engineers said: "vot iz zee problem, vee have hi horzpower". Donohue showed them he had to drive the car sometimes at less than full throttle, how to develop this on the dynomometer and how to configure the fuel injection profile to achieve drivability. His lap times plummeted at Weissach and the engineers called the fuel injection pump he created the "happy pump". Donohue was completely respected by them for his insights. Many other changes were made like this. The point is Penske and Donohue developed the car and made the Turbo 917 what it was: ex-factory engineering again.

Americans and British are not paralysed by the "not invented here syndrome" Germans sometimes are. They just want to win the race, who cares where the idea came from.

The essense of Porsche engineering has always been that of the Hot Rodder. Many times a solution is created by just taking something off the shelf that was used on another car rather than re-designing anything. Constant evolution through tweaking the old stuff, notthrough complete re-design. It thrills me that the GT3 still shares it's crankcase with the first 911 and is really a water-cooled version of the air-cooled engine. Some would say this is old time thinking.

Unfortunately many of the engineers who once made up the factory racing department have left I am told. Norbert Singer just retired. I met Norbert at the Rennsport Team dinner and as I shook his hand I said: "I hope there are more race engineers like you at Weissach in the future". He focused somewhere off in the distance and didn't say anything....

pcar964

Adrian, thanks for keeping this thread worth reading. Your insights are very interesting - you're also perhaps more respectful of Porsche AG in your criticisms than I sometimes am (I get a little frustrated). But I still detect your dissappointment, you are not alone.

I too would love to see Porsche back in racing, but don't think it will happen - since they have left racing, their sales have skyrocketed. WW is so focused on profits that he is blind to the long-term damage he's doing to the brand. I truly believe that in 10 years, the name "Porsche" will have no more mystique than honda... "Porsche - isn't that the company that used to race back in the old days?"