‘Chronicling the saga that twists and turns through multiple models, classes and teams must have been a gargantuan task’
THE SUCCESS STORY OF PORSCHE AT LE MANS
Arriving full of enterprise, hope and some degree of competitive daring, it was a small Porsche team that brought its ‘little aluminium can’ to Le Mans in 1951 and would, after years of development and perseverance, ultimately become the most prominent marque of all at the Circuit de la Sarthe.
Chronicling the epic saga that twists and turns through multiple models, classes and teams from 1951 to the present must have been a gargantuan task, but is one that experienced motorsport author Wilfried Müller has surmounted with impressive clarity and pace. After a foreword from Ferdinand Porsche, a set of full-page images makes a perfect appetiser for the rest of the book, which enjoys rare archive access from Stuttgart, the source of many on-track and behind-the-scenes photos not previously published, as well as team documents, posters and detailed results tables.
The bulk of the book is devoted to a year-by-year narrative, comprehensively illustrated and neatly punctuated with decade summaries. Increasingly famous names grace the text, while the machinery becomes ever more sophisticated. A jump from the 1100cc to 1500cc class in 1953 and the arrival of the Type 547 motor – which we see on a bench with creator Ernst Fuhrmann and tuner Bruno Trostmann, in Porsche’s home-from-home Teloché workshop near Le Mans – in the 550 Spyder was a glimpse of even greater things.
Third overall for the 718 RSK in 1958 was one of them, and Wilfried’s narrative accelerates into the ’60s, when shifting rules, new cars and stories of a team that pulls together with raw spirit culminate in a razor-thin near-win in ’69. After the new 917s dropped out, a faulty brake-lining warning light in Hans Herrmann’s long-tail, flat-eight 908 spelled the end for his lead ahead of Jacky Ickx’s GT40. A year later, though, Herrmann and Richard Atwood achieved victory for Porsche with a 917.
The blur of 1970s and ’80s success is captured perfectly, with the four-wheel-drive 961 and the ground-effect 956 as soberly documented as star cars such as the 1971 ‘Pink Pig’ 917/20 and 1978 ‘Moby Dick’ 935. There are fascinating insights, such as how the retired 936 was reinvigorated with an IndyCar project engine and Can-Am ’box to win in 1981, and the works team’s 1996 return and subsequent win in ’98 with its 911 GT1. Or the story of the Joest equipe clinching third in 1989 thanks to washing an oil-covered clutch with cola.
Cri
