PORSCHE 911 RS vs BMW 3.0 CSL
It is almost 50 years since BMW and Porsche were at each other’s throats on track with the lightweight 3.0 CSL ‘Batmobile’ and 911 2.7 RS. How do these legendary homologation specials compare on the road?
Nearly 50 years since they battled on track, how do these legendary homologation specials compare on the road?
Stark contrast. The 911 2.7 RS talks to you with an intense voice, holding you in a tight embrace, bedazzling you with its on-track talents. It invites you to explore your limits soonest. The BMW is more mysterious. Here you sense hidden depths, waiting to be unlocked. That it will take patience and time for the relationship to develop, to become transparent. The onenight stand versus the lasting relationship?
If only things were that simple. This is the story of two 1970s icons, each built to be the best possible race car according to its manufacturer’s aims and abilities. And in the event, both became automotive legends in their own right.
Travel back in time to early 1972; location, the Hockenheim pitlane. Porsche’s freshly appointed chairman Ernst Fuhrmann is less than amused, seeing the 911 humiliated by Fords and BMWs. Even though the cars run in different classes, the image of the 911 being beaten by such lesser gods is too much for him to take. Fuhrmann demands an explanation. ‘How come these BMWs and Fords are much faster than our cars?’
The answer to that question brings us to a former Porsche factory driver: Jochen Neerpasch. It was Neerpasch who, in his next job as Ford’s competition boss, initiated the first ‘homologation special’ Capris that would steamroller the opposition – BMW in particular. BMW ’s answer, upgrading its CS coupé with a six-cylinder engine, fell short. It was content to leave racing to privateer teams such as Alpina and Schnitzer, with varying degrees of factory support.
W hile Ford and BMW were continually putting out faster versions of their cars, the Porsche 911 became a victim of this power struggle. Especially once it became clear to BMW that a more focused effort was required if the Munich manufacturer were to wrestle the laurels away from the Cologne Capris. BMW concocted a plan to create a substantially lighter and more powerful CS: the CSL, ‘L’ for leicht, or ‘lightweight’. And another plan to lure away Jochen Neerpasch from Ford.
At the 1971 Geneva motor show, BMW showed the 3.0 CSL for the first time, based on the E9-series 3200 CS. The first production car was ready in September 1972. BMW had introduced the Karmann-built CS in 1965 with a modest 100bhp 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine; the 3.0 CSL moved the goalposts with its straight-six stretched to 3.2 litres and fitted with fuel injection, for power of 206bhp.
More importantly, the CSL shed 130kg compared with the 3.0 CS, weighing 1165kg. Aluminium panels replaced steel for the doors, the hood and the boot. The front bumper was left off, the rear bumper changed to a polyester shell. Seats and trim were lighter, Duro-Glas was employed for the fixed side-glazing. And the CSL paved the way for an even lighter race version, which at just over 1000kg was much closer to the Capri’s weight in Group 2 specification. Result: in 1973, the first year BMW was allowed to run the CSL, the European title went back to Munich.
Meanwhile, at Zuffenhausen, Porsche was facing new realities. When Fuhrmann vented his anger over the defeat of the 911 at Hockenheim, more was playing on his mind than his comments might lead you to conclude. As the father of the quad-cam, vertical-shaft Carrera engine in the 356, he had a cast-iron engineering pedigree – and had just taken over the reins of the company from Ferry Porsche.
By 1971, Ferry Porsche had had enough of the family feuds that were dividing the sports car company his father had founded in 1947. The integration of the Porsche and Piëch children into the family-owned company proved troublesome, so Ferry Porsche withdrew the family members and himself from daily management positions. His nephew Ferdinand Piëch, the brains behind the 917, would leave the company altogether that year. By early 1972, Fuhrmann was running the entire concern. With the days of the closed prototype numbered, the 917 was under threat and Fuhrmann wanted Porsche’s racing department to stick closer to its road-car offering for the future.
So ground was broken for the creation of the RS. Piëch himself had laid foundations for a lightweight 911 with the 911 R in 1967, only to be rebuked by the sales department and, more importantly, by his uncle: Ferry Porsche. When
‘THE ONE-NIGHT STAND VERSUS THE LASTING RELATIONSHIP? IF ONLY THINGS WERE THAT SIMPLE’
Fuhrmann asked engineers Norbert Singer and Wolfgang Berger in Hockenheim what needed to be done to improve the performance of the 911, their answer was in line with what Piëch had suggested: make a lighter, better-handling 911. A special road car series that Porsche could homologate for racing in the Group 4 GT category. Again, sales and marketing were sputtering that such a specialised car would be impossible to sell. But this time the boss just said ‘Do it.’
It is testimony to Porsche’s ability to move more quickly than its competitors in such a field that, only a couple of months later, at the Paris motor show in October 1972, Porsche presented the 911 RS to the world. It came hot on the heels of BMW’s lightweight CSL, and was just a bit more expensive. The BMW cost close to 32,000 marks when it came out, the 2.7 RS 33,000 – that would be around £50,000 in today’s money. Bargain!
By employing Nikasil-lined cylinders, Porsche was able to enlarge its 2.4-litre flat-six to 2.7 litres, for a power output of 210bhp at 6300rpm (about 20bhp up on the 2.4S). In road-friendly ‘Touring’ trim, the 2.7 RS weighed the same as the 911 S (1075kg), but for the 200 lightweight versions an additional 100kg was shaved off by sacrificing the rear seats, sound-deadening material, even the on-board clock, and replacing the interior doorhandles with a simple strap. Stiffer Bilstein struts, aluminium suspension components and reinforced rear suspension improved cornering capabilities. At the rear, a polyester engine lid with integrated ducktail spoiler added downforce; at the front a chin-spoiler did the same. The famous Carrera lettering was added to increase sales potential – Porsche’s marketing types were still worried that nobody would buy it.
‘THE INITIAL HOMOLOGATION PRODUCTION RUN OF 500 CARS SOLD OUT IN WEEKS’