The story of Sir Stirling and Porsche
The late Sir Stirling Moss is regarded as one of the most legendary motorsport drivers of all time, yet few know of his Porsche exploits. Total 911 uncovers his story with Zuffenhausen’s sports cars…
After one of the world’s greatest racing drivers passed away in April, we uncover a link with Porsche that’s often forgotten
The tributes to Stirling Moss, who passed away on Easter Sunday this year, were many and varied, as might have been expected for arguably the world’s most famous racing driver. The outlines of Moss’s phenomenally successful career are certainly familiar to most: Formula One victories for HWM, Mercedes, Maserati, Cooper, Lotus and a skill in sports cars that most observers rated superior even to that of the master, Fangio. Moss’s legendary win in the 1955 Mille Miglia, ten hours covering ordinary Italian roads at an average speed of 100mph without even the slightest lapse in concentration, is just utterly unmatched.
But eclectic though Moss’s career was, and most commentators pointed out that Ferrari was the only marque Moss never raced for in Formula One, they almost all overlooked the fact that he was also a more than handy exponent in Porsches.
The connection between Moss and Porsche became apparent to later generations only in 2010 when Moss purchased an RS61 for a reported $1.7 million. He explained at the time it was with this car’s predecessor that he had come within three minutes of winning the 1961 Targa Florio, where his works RS60 had run away from the Ferrari of Gendebien and von Trips.
Moss had acquired this RS61 with the intention of racing it in historic events, but a crash at Laguna
Seca in 2010 badly damaged the car and the following year he decided to give up competition driving altogether. The episode did though throw light on an almost forgotten part of Moss’s career, admittedly a short chapter in his 15 years of competition, but in 12 races for Zuffenhausen, he won six outright, took a class win and 3rd overall in the Buenos Aires 1,000km, and lost two more potential wins through mechanical mishaps. His success helped to propel Porsche to Formula One. When asked how he came to race Porsches in the first place his reply was typically blunt: “When I was racing, you could always depend on ‘Kraut’ cars. Only Ferrari could compare in terms of reliability. From 1950 I was going on to the Continent with
John Heath to race his HWMS and I became aware of Porsches. It was obvious they were reliable because they always seemed to be chalking up class wins. The only drawback was with 1,500cc they lacked the top speed of the six-cylinder cars. Porsche was a very young company too. It couldn’t pay anything like the money say Mercedes was offering, which amounted I think to something like a thousand pounds for signing at the start of the season and 90 per cent of winnings. I raced Porsches when my contract allowed me to.”
His first outing was in a works 550 in the 1955 Governor’s Cup race at Lisbon, which began with pole position and culminated in fastest lap and 1st place, an auspicious debut. The drive had come about through Porsche’s racing manager and talent
spotter, Huschke von Hanstein, who had done well to sign Moss, already a household name in Britain and first non-american winner at Sebring in the
1954 12 hours. In his next outing for Stuttgart, the nine-hour race at Goodwood in August 1955, Moss again drove a works 550, which this time he shared with von Hanstein. Moss, who was leading his class, slid on oil and crashed out of the race.
“If I didn’t have a commitment to any other manufacturer, I would approach von Hanstein for a drive and he’d say, ‘Let’s give it a go then’ and we’d agree a rate. In those days it was traditional to give 10 per cent of winnings to the mechanics and split the rest 50:50 between the driver and the team manager. With Porsche I might get £200 start money, but I used to give Huschke 40 per cent not half, because I always reckoned he could make up the rest doing deals on the side. If there was any other money going, he’d have it – he was like that!”
At the end of 1957 Maserati scaled down its activity, later withdrawing from competition all together. This freed Moss to tackle events outside Europe and von Hanstein paired him with Jean
Behra to race in the off-season Buenos Aires 1,000km. They won their class and came 3rd overall with the 1,588cc RSK.
Porsche was becoming a significant force, and with 3rd, 4th and 5th at the 1958 Le Mans 24 hours, the company was really beginning to show its mettle – but without Stirling Moss, who was contracted that year to Aston Martin for the French race.
Driving largely for Cooper and Aston Martin again in 1959, Moss did no competitions in Porsches, but an important development occurred that year which would bring him and Zuffenhausen together again the following season. The organisers of the F1 world championship announced that with effect from 1961 F1 would move from 2.5 to 1.5 litres. Characteristically, von Hanstein had already seen the possibility of another outlet for Porsche’s racing aspirations when the 1,500cc F2 category was introduced in 1957. He had a couple of 550 RSS and 718s rebuilt to central seat configuration while retaining their enclosed sports car bodywork. Wins in the F2 section of the German GP and the F2 support race at the 1958 French GP were enough to persuade Ferry Porsche to give the green light for low-key development of an F2 single seater for 1959 with a view to entering F1 in 1961 when it too changed to 1,500cc. Rising German star Wolfgang von Trips crashed the new car in the scramble at the start of the Monaco grand prix, but scored a
4th a few weeks later at Brands Hatch. At Porsche’s request Moss drove the F2 Porsche at Goodwood and lapped faster than his best time there with his Cooper that season.
After the withdrawal of Vanwall following the 1958 season, Moss had abandoned factory teams and driven Coopers for his friend Rob Walker. As usually happens with private teams, Walker and Moss had to make do with the previous season’s technology. When von Hanstein offered the Britons a works supported F2 Porsche for the 1960 season, they jumped at the chance. “There was no interference: Porsche provided the car and the mechanics and left us to get on with it,” recalled Moss.
1960 was the transitional year from the 2.5 to the 1.5 formula and teams took every opportunity to try out their new 1,500cc cars. Moss would not let Stuttgart down: in nine F2 outings in the
Rob Walker team Porsche, Moss won five races, retired while leading and setting the fastest lap at Syracuse, scored a 2nd place at Goodwood, and in his two minor placings, 4th and 11th, he was slowed by mechanical maladies. It was little short of sensational. At the new Osterreichring at Zeltweg for example, the works Porsches finished one, two and three, Moss sportingly limiting his easy lead over Hans Herrmann in the second Zuffenhausen entry to more than a couple of seconds; Edgar Barth’s Porsche brought up the rear some distance behind. The Austrian crowd burst on to the track in the last couple of laps, such was its excitement at this first demonstration of a total Porsche domination which was to become the norm ten years later. There was no doubt having the world’s leading driver had spurred Porsche to put more into their F2 effort than they otherwise might have.
But Moss, ever the patriot, returned to a British mount for 1961, this time a Lotus, still under Rob Walker’s colours. His one Porsche excursion that year was the Mille Miglia in a works RS60. “The Porsche (by then 1,966cc) was an unusual car for me to be driving in a sports car event, because you always had this problem of low top speed, otherwise it was brilliant – brakes, handling and like all German cars, properly put together,” Moss said.
He and Graham Hill all but pulled off another Porsche giant killing act: in his typically thorough way, Moss had spent time in a road car beforehand lapping the twisting 73km Sicilian circuit until he really felt that he knew every bend. In an eventful race, the duo had the lead, then lost it during Hill’s stint. Moss, driving the final stretch, had built up a commanding advantage over four-time Le Mans winner Olivier Gendebien’s Ferrari, several minutes behind him in 2nd place. Then the final drive yielded, the axle bolts stretched by the unrelenting cornering forces, causing the oil to fall out. The Porsche ground to a halt five miles from the finish line.
It was to be the Briton’s last appearance in a Porsche and his last full motor racing season: his crash at Goodwood in April 1962 put an end to his top-flight racing career. Meanwhile Gurney and Bonnier would fly the flag for Porsche that season, their combined efforts not enough though, Ferry Porsche decided, for his company to stay in Formula One. It leaves the unanswered question of whether Moss’s continued presence in the Zuffenhausen team might have led to a different outcome.
“In 12 races for Zuffenhausen, Moss won six outright, took a class win and 3rd overall in the Buenos Aires 1,000km”