BEAST OF BARCELONA
A Spanish RSR replica built to protect the original from damage
So this isn’t a ‘real’ RSR, it's a replica, one built for a very good reason – but that doesn’t detract from what a sensational car it is. Robb Prichard was recently in Spain to check out this beast of a machine for himself…and from the best angle, too: behind the wheel
Owner Carlos Beltran of Nouonze in Barcelona is a consummate 911 lover and has an incredible thirty Porsches in his collection so, far from just making a nice looking car on the cheap, this is a special build. The Martini design is not just for show, either; this car has won races at the Nürburgring, which, as an accolade for a track car, is about as serious as it gets.
For the 1972 season the Sportscar Championship’s governing body changed the rules to end the reign of the mighty all-conquering 917s, and while Porsche switched its attention to – and ultimately dominated – the American Canam series (and in so doing create the world’s most powerful ever race car, the 917/30), in Europe attention was focused on creating a GT class contender tailored for serious privateer drivers: the RSR.
Being a factory effort designed to the limits of the regulations with a full company R&D budget behind it, and with only 54 examples made, it was always one of the most desirable 911s ever. The prices they command these days means that many people won’t risk taking original RSRS to the racetrack, and so making replicas that both look and perform like the original, yet are worth a mere fraction, has become increasingly popular.
However, Carlos didn’t build his replica to save money: he owned an original RSR which is the one Derek Bell nerfed into a tree on the Tour Auto. About a decade before it became all the rage, Carlos decided to make a replica so he could do things with it that he wouldn’t feel comfortable doing in the near priceless original. ‘If you have a big accident in an RSR two things happen,’ Carlos explains. ‘First, of course, you very suddenly lose a lot of money, but if you hit the body hard enough to deform the chassis you will never get it to handle right again. I wanted to race in a car that was a little more – how shall we say? – disposable.’ So his ‘budget’ idea was to find an inexpensive body in good condition that was for sale and then build it up with RSR parts.
Without needing to try too hard, he found a ’67 911 with a broken engine that had been parked in a barn for many years. It was a simple task to strip it down to the ’shell. Back in the year 2000, though, the internet wasn’t a hub full of readily shared information, so he wasn’t 100 per cent sure where the twelve body reinforcing plates needed to go, or even what form they took. It wasn't a problem that stumped him for too long, though, as he convinced a friend to climb under his original RSR with a pencil and a few sheets of paper on which he then traced out the exact dimensions before posting them to Carlos.
The main idea was to make the car as light as possible and so the bonnet, engine cover and bumpers are all glassfibre while every non-structural part on the original shell that could safely be acid-treated and ground down was worked on, reducing them to the thickness of a piece of paper. For example, the wings are all steel, because that’s
the rule for FIA classic racing regulations, but are 0.8mm thick instead of the normal 1.0mm.
If you are ever lucky enough to get a peek into one of Carlos’s lock-ups dotted around Barcelona, you will see for yourself what an avid collector of Porsche paraphernalia and memorabilia he is. For most of his adult life whenever he came across a useful Porsche part he would buy it, so he already had the twin-plug ignition system, aluminium oil tank and many other parts he’d found here and there, but the list of things he needed was still long. Engine mounts, injector pump, valves, cylinders and the brake system were all procured from various sources around the world, but it was well over a year before he could even begin the real work. The rear suspension arms proved the hardest parts of all to source.
Ninety per cent of the parts in the car are original RSR and most of those are new-old stock. Among the few parts that are not original are the ignition boxes as their massive cost coupled with how prone they are to go ‘pop’ makes their use unviable. The wheels are copies for exactly the same reason. ‘The replicas are €800 a wheel, and even that is not cheap as they are always the first things you damage if you hit a curb,’ says Carlos. ‘But originals are close to €10,000 – each!’
Carlos has two engines for the car, both modified later 3.0-litre units out of SCS which, although losing points on authenticity, does save about €900,000 per unit and doesn’t cost anything in terms of power loss. The single-ignition 240bhp unit mated to a short-ratio gearbox is used for rallying and the other, with a bigger pump and a dual-spark ignition, is used for circuit races, putting out a lively 310bhp. One concession to modernity Carlos has made is incorporating modern connectors into the wiring loom so that the engines can be changed by unplugging them all in one piece rather than having to separate each connection individually. That saves hours of work each time.
The car was finished back in 2003 but classic circuit racing wasn’t that popular in Spain so, along with his friend Christian Coll, he entered the ADAC Oldtimer Championship in Germany. And it was Chris who chose the livery. ‘He is mad about Martini colours,’ Carlos smiles. ‘He’s got the jacket, the bag, watches – even his racing suit and helmet are the same colours – so there was only one scheme he wanted. But it’s a famous colour scheme that fits the car perfectly, so I didn’t argue too much.’
In the 1973 Le Mans the Martini team ran different bumper colours to be able to tell the cars apart easily, red for the #46 Herbert Müller and Gijs van Lennep car and yellow for the sister #47 car of Reinhold Joest and Claude Haldi. As the colour scheme was only a tribute not a strict replica, Carlos went with green bumpers at first just to be different, but they got destroyed in a little off-road indiscretion in the
“NINETY PER CENT OF THE PARTS ARE GENUINE RSR…”
Mallorca rally, so then he tried the yellow ones – until something similar happened to them. Now they are bright red…
Of course there is no better place for an iconic car than at an iconic circuit, and the Oldtimer series featured four races a year at the Nürburgring, so for convenience they found somewhere to keep it while not racing. Not in one of the workshops that are dotted around the track…just in the garden shed of an old lady’s B&B!
It saved a lot of time driving back and forth to Spain and it was easier and cheaper to fly a mechanic out to Germany than it was to drive the car back to Barcelona every time. Carlos has been competing in multiple motorsport disciplines for years, knowing each of the cars in his amazing collection inside out, so it’s no surprise that he won several races at the world famous Nordschleife.
They weren’t just idle trundles around the track, either, but full-on 500km races against a field of other Porsches, De Tomaso Panteras, Chevrolet Camaros and Corvettes, and Ford Capris and Escorts – and in the famously inclement weather, too. ‘It was such a big pleasure to race with a car built from zero by myself and my team. We fitted every nut and bolt on the car, so competing at European level against such good competition, and in the rain – and winning – was very good fun!’
If anyone is generous, or crazy, enough to offer me a test drive of a Porsche naturally I can’t say no, especially if it is a thoroughbred racer with a Martini livery! Tyre walls, red and white curbing, Armco barriers and tyre stained Tarmac – the karting track next to the Circuit to Catalunya had all the elements of being a perfect place to drive for the photo shoot – apart from one small thing: everything was too small! About one quarter size to be exact. Oh well, feature writers cannot always be choosers...
The car is as loud as you would imagine it to be but the metallic clunking from behind as I selected first gear and let out the clutch sounded a little disconcerting. Carlos gave the thumbs up and waved for me to go… Cold, straight out of the transporter, I knew enough not to put my foot to the floor but still managed to get briefly up to third before the hairpin…and with a wall of tyres looming up I had a quick moment to remind myself that there is no braking assistance – and a second later, no PAS either.
A 50m-long straight is no place to appreciate the full glory of a race-bred Porsche under heavy acceleration but, using engine braking to drift into the corner and with only a thin sheet of metal separating the sound of the engine from my ear drums, the overrun sounded absolutely glorious. A few short laps was all we had time for but even in such a confined space it was clearly amazing to drive.
Remember, the only real difference between this and one of the 54 original RSRS is the chassis number. A collector would scoff at it for this, but any true Porsche lover (or racing driver) will understand what a glorious little beast it is.