Porsche's racing future (or lack of).. interesting article
 

speedvision editorialTake a look at this editorial on speedvision. Looks like the best days of Porsche racing are in the history books :(
Greg

Wow, Greg. That's a good--but sad--article. It's sad that Porsche's current leadership cared so little for it's racing history to put them in such a position.

Well, at least I own a version based on Porsche's last great race car.

:cool:

I had heard through a source at Champion Motors some info on the V-10. Apparently they stopped the developement on the engine halfway through the project and the engineers finished it on their own time.
Champion wanted the V-10 engine for their Lola, but Porsche refused and offered the GT-1 engine, which didn't work well with that chassis even after millions in development and very disappointing season. Porsche wanted Champion to campaign a GT3R, but Champion wants to be in the prototype class and wants overall wins, and they apparently have the money to field a top team.
So Champion went to Audi and were welcomed with open arms. Even if Porsche doesn't race as a factory they should at least support a privateer who wants to and has the ability to be at the top. Too bad the bean counters won't let it happen.

I too am glad to have the last of the aircooled cars, especially for their racing heritage.

Interesting artical, but it's way off base. The guy sounds like a BMW lover. Porsche has the NEW Carrera GT, the V10 prototype engine is in that car.

Configuration V10 induction engine with 68° cylinder angle
Displacement 5.5 liters
Horsepower 410 kW (558 hp)
Max. rpm 8200
Max. torque 600 Nm

The new GT is going to be the next generation Porsche race car.

Fletch

From what I understand though, the new GT is a production-based car, and it really hasn't been determined whether or not they're actually going to build it. Even if they do build it, there will be a need for testing the racing version.

What it all boils down to is that Porsche needs to get off its ass and start devoting some time to racing development.

Jeez, maybe they should've built that minivan afterall. :confused:


-Matt

I agree Matt, Porsche need racing to sell cars (in the future). As for the GT, I do not have anything other than rumors that I hear at the track, but one Porsche team in particular hinted to me that they were not running this year because they are waiting for the GT. The V10 proto is not going to be in the street version thats for sure, but a street trim version will be available and in that car.

I just took issue with the artical for it's lack on mention that the Carrera and V10 were in fact still on the table.

I can't help but think that Porsche has backed off of the GT1/Prototype Class because of Ferdy Piech and VW/Audi. Don't forget that these folks have more than a casual interest/ownership in Porsche.

I can just hear the conversation from VW to the Porsche folks after they came back from the brink of economic disaster with the 993.. "OK, Porsche.. go use your newly found cash reserves to build some much-needed new product (Boxster, 996, 996TT, GT2, GT), and, look here, we're going to do the Prototype thing for a while, so it's no use in both of us beating our heads together."

John Kryzmuski (fellow Rennlister and Metro NY PCA member - hi John!) sent me a great set of articles from the July 2000 issue of EuroBusiness regarding the Porsche Pirelli Supercup series and Porsche's racing activities in general...excellent stuff. I have the articles in .pdf (they total 4MB), so please email me if you're interested and I would be happy to forward them along....

- Nick
ncamos@bellatlantic.net

My 993TT for sale (webpage)
https://members.rennlist.com/993twinturbo/dfa.jpg

[ 12-06-2001: Message edited by: Nick Amos ]

Nick, I too saw those articles from a friend, but he never sent me the color version he promised. I wanted to scan them into pdf and post them on my site. Any chance you could send them to me? If you had it in word format or something similar first I would also like that.

Thanx