Goodwood Festival of Speed
Porsche steals the anniversary showcases at the 2019 Goodwood Festival of Speed
Landmark Porsches steal the show in West Sussex, plus Robin Herd remembered with historic Marches.
Amassive spread of anniversary celebrations, plus delves into oftenoverlooked forms of motor sport, resulted in a colourful selection of classics at Goodwood’s hill climb course. More collectors than ever bringing cars from Australia and New Zealand enhanced this sense of the unusual. But the 50th anniversary of Porsche’s first World Sports Car Championship victory saw it gather sporting landmark cars from perhaps the most fertile period of its racing history.
911 Carrera 2.7RS Safari
It’s the first time this ex-works rally 911, part of a display of Björn Waldegård’s cars honouring 40 years since the late rally ace’s World Championship win, has been seen in public since the Seventies, and its first time in the UK. Said owner Uwe Kurtzenberger, ‘It finished in second place on the 1974 Safari Rally – Porsche’s best-ever finish in Africa. And with Waldegård driving it led for the vast majority of it, only to suffer suspension failure within sight of the finish line.
‘It was only Porsche’s second attempt at the Safari Rally. It had been ill-prepared in 1973, so it returned in 1974 with a pair of Kuhne & Nagel-sponsored 911s for Waldegård and Edgar Hermann. Hermann’s car bogged down in Kenya, the air intakes sucking mud into the engine, wrecking it. Hermann retired from the rally and his car was abandoned on the stage. But it was through that car that I found this one.
‘I found Hermann’s car in Nairobi in 2002, where Kenyan rally driver Surinder Thatthi had restored what was left as a road car. I bought it from him, then searched for the genuine ex-works rally parts to return it to original specification. There are 300 points of difference between a Safari and a standard 2.7 Carrera RS, although ironically the engine isn’t one of them – in fact it’s detuned to 210bhp to cope with the poor standard of petrol available in some remote regions.
‘Word spread around, and I heard about a stash of parts in a domestic garage the middle of Frankfurt. It belonged to an old rally driver who had bought Porsche’s Safari Rally parts in 1974, rallied Waldegård’s car until 1979, then just left it all in there. It was in barn-find condition and had Rsr-replica wheelarches and a 3.0-litre engine, but it was surrounded by parts including things like air horns and spotlights, and five engines including the original, which helpfully still had its Safari Rally scrutineering tag on it. I’ve left that in place.
‘I enquired about it, and the owner said it was for sale, but I had to buy “everything or nothing” – in cash! I came back with two trucks and trailers, called my bank, and had to explain why I suddenly needed a big bag full of notes – they must have thought I was a criminal!’
Porsche 909 Bergspyder
‘This is only the fourth time this car has ever been used,’ said Porsche’ UK’S Nick Perry of the ex-rolf Stommelen Porsche 909. ‘It was built for the European Bergmeisterschaft (hill climb championship), but only did two hillclimbs in period with Stommelen, one of which was at Guisberg in Austria. After restoration it was tested at Guisberg again, this time with Rudi Linz – who drove another 909 in period but not this one – and now it’s here today, its first time in the UK.
‘Its competition history is so short because it came right at the end of Porsche’s participation in professional hill climbing. Porsche cancelled the programme in order to concentrate on endurance racing with the 917. It’s very much an end-of-an-era car – its spaceframe chassis is very representative of the 908-based era of racers.
‘At 384kg, it’s the lightest car Porsche has ever built. Its pressurised fuel tank has just enough capacity for one run up a hill, and looks like a football. It even has special lightweight electrics. Its main rival was the Dino 206SP, and both cars come from a golden era of multi-disciplinary professional racing drivers, and hill climbing as a shop window for customer race cars.’
Lancia Delta Integrale 16v
It’s the first time this ex-didier Auriol Lancia Delta Integrale has been seen in public since its crushing victory on the 1992 Tour de Corse. ‘It only did that one event,’ said Marcus Willis, co-founder of Girardo & Co. ‘Auriol won 18 stages and the rally overall, and immediately after the rally it was bought by an Italian collector who put it into storage and never drove it.
‘Max Girardo bought it from him 18 months ago, although this event is the first time it’s left Italy. It only needed light restoration – replacing dampers, overhauling the engine and so on – but it’s been kept in suspended animation. The seats look unused but you’ve got to remember they were only sat in for three days. It’s so original, it still has a set of spare fuses gaffer-taped to the roof above the navigator’s head.’
Holden Commodore SS
It was the first time outside Australia for this Holden. ‘It’s the last car Peter Brock won the Bathurst 1000 in,’ said race-preparer Paul Williams.
‘In 1987 – the year of the first World Touring Car Championship – Brock built an all-new, highly sophisticated new car based on the Ford Falcon, but it broke down in practice for the Bathurst 1000, so he approached the team running his successful Commodore from the 1985/6 seasons – this car – replaced driver Jon Cooke, and raced with Peter Mcleod and David Parsons.
‘They finished third on the road, but the Eggenberger Ford Sierra RS500S of Steve Soper/ Pierre Dieudonné and Klaus Ludwig/klaus Niedzwiedz, finishing first and second, were disqualified several months later following several appeals. The one that eventually stuck was their illegal wheelarch positioning, which allowed them to run with lowered front suspension geometry.
‘Tom Walkinshaw was in Australia at the time, and did a Twr-tuned version of the Commodore in the late Eighties, inspired by Brock’s modifications on this car.
‘It’s not actually been restored – all it needed was a new seat and a fire extinguisher – although it isn’t running its original engine. It was fitted with a later VN engine when we found it, so it’s now running a correct 410bhp Roush VL V8, but it’s not the one Brock used in the race – no-one knows where that is.’
BMW M1
Another long-term private-collection-dweller, this spectacular BMW M1 Group B rally car was making its first public foray since 1984. Said Kari Mäkelin, who looks after the car for its owner, ‘It only participated in tarmac rallies, including the 1983 Tour de Corse. Its power-to-weight ratio is actually better than the Lancia 037’s – 1100kg and 470bhp.
‘It was originally built as a 1979 M1 Procar – number 54 – but it was never raced in the Formula One support-series. It was bought unused from the factory by BMW Réseau France, which appointed Oreca – best known for its Le Mans prototypes – to convert it for Group B rallying.
‘It has different, softer suspension, rally wheels, and much shorter gear ratios, so its top speed is 137mph, down from 186. It was driven mainly by Bernard Béguin, although Bernard Darniche drove it once. Its best results were ärst on the 1984 La Baule Hutchinson and de Lorraine rallies in the French Tarmac Championship.’