Larrousse ST evocation
Tim Abbot longed to create a tribute to Gérard Larrousse’s Tour de France Automobile ST. Total 911 reveals how his dream became a reality
The story of one man’s quest to emulate the striking 911 ST championed by driving great Gérard Larrousse
On 7 November 1970 at the tender age of ten, Tim Abbot is swept up in the aura of the Porsche 917, splattered in luminous yellow and red, doing battle over nine hours at Kyalami in South Africa. He is completely mesmerised, and the moment leaves an indelible mark on him. The duo of Jo Siffert and Kurt Ahrens piloting the 917 could only achieve 2nd on that memorable day, but Abbot would be inexplicably linked to the ‘hippie’ Porsche from that moment onwards. He would go on to work with his father John Abbot at the family business, Abbot Cars, which has become one of the foremost independent classic Porsche specialists in South Africa, with Tim at the helm today.
The other great influence in Abbot’s life as a young lad, was his mother; according to Tim, she embraced the hippie culture of the ‘60s and ‘70s and was quite involved in the hippie movement of the time. He and his siblings were dressed in hippie garb and Abbot found himself drawn to painting in bright primal colours. Fast forward to 2018 where Abbot lay eyes on the restored 1970 Tour de France Automobile 911 ST, of Gérard Larrousse, at the Goodwood Festival of Speed and knew immediately that he had to have one. But before we get into how Abbot turned his dream into reality, it is worth delving into how the ‘hippie’ Porsches came about – focusing largely on the 917, chassis 021 which Abbot saw at Kyalami and in particular when it was raced by Gérard Larrousse in 1970. We’ll also delve into the 911 ST that was campaigned by Larrousse at the 1970 Tour de France.
Gérard Larrousse found himself at the forefront of the Porsche ‘hippie’ era, which started at the
1970 Le Mans race all thanks to the extravagant and provocative livery applied to the 917 (chassis 043) by Porsche’s chief designer, Anatole Lapine. This was achieved by first applying purple and then an overlay of matt fluorescent green in true psychedelic fashion. Larrousse and Willi Kauhsen piloted the psychedelic 917 to 2nd place overall, beaten only by another 917 (chassis 023).
That same year, Larrousse teamed up with Gijs van Lennep to compete in another psychedelic mauve and green 917 (chassis 021) at the Watkins Glen 6-Hour and in the Can-am event the following day, finishing 9th and 6th. This was the 917 which had been campaigned by the AAW team at Le Mans months prior, where it had suffered damage and did not finish. It was sent back to the Porsche factory for repair, where it received a new body (chassis
012). It was reincarnated into a ‘Hippie’, sporting the purple and green colours, much to the delight of the Watkins Glen 6-Hour organisers, who insisted on their very own ‘Hippie’ 917.
This ‘Hippie’ then underwent another metamorphosis and appeared in the yellow and red psychedelic livery carrying the colours of the main sponsor, Shell. Larrousse would once again team up with van Lennep to challenge in the Paris 1,000km, but it was not to be as they had to retire due to blown valves. Chassis 021 was last raced in the yellow and red psychedelic hue on 7 November 1970 at the Kyalami 9-Hour in South Africa. Martini went for broke, fitting a five-litre engine which propelled Jo Siffert and Kurt Ahrens to 2nd place. This is the very same ‘Hippie’ Porsche that Abbot encountered as a young boy. The car would change hands several times over the next three and a half decades, at some point even being used as a road car.
Then in 2007 it was acquired by Belgian classic racing car enthusiast and driver Vincent Gaye, who proceeded to have it fully restored over the next four years (there is an interesting book written by Jacques Breuer and Raymond Collignon: Porsche 917-021
The Fabulous Story), returning it to the psychedelic mauve and green Martini livery. Gaye raced it at
“The sight of that car brought back such fond memories of my childhood and the psychedelic Porsche era, it was a seminal moment”
Le Mans Classic in 2012 where Abbot witnessed the same 917 from all those years ago once again attacking the track in anger. This time round it was in the purple and green psychedelic livery, which remains synonymous to this day with the 2nd-placed 917 at Le Mans in 1970, driven by Larrousse.
The Porsche 911 ST itself is somewhat of an enigma: only seven were made in 1970, and a total of 33 when production ended in 1971. There is no specific build sheet for an ST, and no two cars are alike – each car was purpose-built for the formula it would be competing in, and customers could specify exactly how they wanted their ST to be constructed. This is really what made Porsche such an enduring marque in the world of motorsport. They would do almost anything to be competitive and in most cases dominate the various disciplines they were competing in… invariably against faster, more powerful competitors. The 914/6 GT immediately comes to mind, scoring a hat-trick at the Marathon de la Route in 1970. Months earlier at Le Mans it took the GT class, trouncing all the 911s in the field, finishing just five places behind the winning 917.
I digress; back to the ST that was prepared for the 1970 Tour de France. Chassis 1127 made use of a 2.4-litre prototype engine and several parts from the 911R program to keep it as light as possible. These included doors, windows and lights. Further weightsaving measures were undertaken with the use of thinner gauge sheet metal, and by fitting glass-fibre lids to the engine and boot. It didn’t end there! The rustproof undercoating and sound-deadening were omitted, and if that was not enough, a drill was taken to every conceivable surface on the car, except for the bodywork. When Gérard Larrousse checked in on the progress of the ST he was informed that it weighed 810kg. Dissatisfied with the result, he spurred the mechanics on to lose more weight by offering a bottle of champagne for every kilo it weighed below 800kg. It worked: when the ST was weighed again it tipped the scale at 780kg, despite the fact that the tank still held 15 litres of fuel, which the mechanics were oblivious to. To this day it remains the lightest racing 911 ever built by the factory. The ST would also take on the yellow and red psychedelic livery like that of the 917, chassis number 021 in particular. The Porsche works team thought they had it in the bag, and felt confident that the road conditions would rattle their strongest competitor, the Matra Simca prototypes, to pieces. What they did not count on is the French authorities literally paving the way to victory for the Matra Simca, by resurfacing the Tour de France route. Larrousse and Maurice Gélin put up a brave fight, but it was not meant to be. After leading for eight of the nine days, a troublesome clutch would scupper their chances on the final day and they would have to settle for 3rd. Matra Simca drivers Jean-pierre Beltoise and Patrick Depailler would secure the top spot on the podium while Jean-pierre Jabouille and Henri Pescarolo filled the number two spot.
Which brings us to Abbot’s tribute, which you see in front of you, by no means a replica of the 1970 ST TDF, but from the outside even the most ardent Porsche enthusiast could be fooled. We met up with Abbot at his workshop, situated a stone’s throw away from the Kyalami race track, to understand how his ST tribute came about. Abbot explains: “I bought a 1980 911 SC in 2011 from a client, not knowing exactly what I was to do with it. The car was in a rather tatty state – it had been butchered over the years, the original engine was replaced with a 2.7-litre but it did not carry the original mechanical fuel injection. It had stood for ten years gathering dust, it was offered to me at a very reasonable price. You don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, especially when it comes to Porsches,” he declares. So all Abbot had was a beat-up G series and not a clue what to do with it. Abbot retorts: “What I did have was a 2.9-litre engine which I had acquired in the early 2000s, in essence a 2.7-litre that has been stretched to the absolute limit. Clearances are minute and the casing is susceptible to cracks… definitely not the most reliable. And for this reason it had been shuffle pinned. It is very impressive though with substantial power, quite sought-after as it has mechanical fuel injection. I knew that I definitely wanted it in the SC.”
Abbot recalls when he started working on the car: “Like most of my projects the process is slow and dependent on time available and the availability of parts, which primarily come from the cache I’ve built over many years. I also find that I have more time in the winter, as I cycle less and family outings are not as frequent. So when I left for the Goodwood Festival of Speed in 2018 the body had been prepared and was ready for paint. By that time I was already toying around with the idea of lime green… again harking back to my hippie upbringing. That would however all change when I saw the 1970 Tour de France 911 ST of Gérard Larrousse. The sight of that car brought back such fond memories of my childhood and the psychedelic Porsche era, it was a seminal moment. And that’s when I knew I would create a tribute to the Tour de France 911 ST,” he declares. The process then moved rather quickly, as the car was completed in late 2019. He resumes: “From the outset I knew that I would not build an out and out replica, I
wanted something that closely resembled the Tour de France 911 ST from the outside, but that I could also enjoy over weekends and holidays. I did however want to lighten the car and add some sportiness to it. So we approached Exclusive Conversions, to fabricate a long bonnet in glass fibre as well as an engine lid and bumpers.
“Kyalami Auto Body was tasked to paint the car and the livery was done by MS Screen Printing, which includes the red psychedelic pattern. They used my 1:32 scale Fly slot model, which is very detailed, as a reference and also did extensive research on the internet. I also supplied them with detailed photographs I had taken of the actual car at Goodwood in 2018, with numerous close-ups of the various stickers. Rounding off the light, sporty theme are plexi-glass windows at the back, which include the rear quarter windows as well as the front quarter windows,” he remarks.
The result is spot on and I would be hard pressed to tell the original apart from his creation. Abbot comments: “It wasn’t all smooth sailing: the flared rear arches presented quite a challenge, it is a little wider than that of the RS. A solution however presented itself when I found an ST locally, which had been raced in the London-sydney Marathon.
I was able to take measurements and shape the fenders myself. In terms of the suspension, it retains the SC standard with Bilstein dampers. The gearbox again presented itself from my spares stockpile. It is an early iteration of the 915 gearbox, which is full magnesium and significantly lighter than the standard aluminium box,” Abbot points out. The engine being used at the moment though is a 2.7-litre fitted with 40mm Weber carburettors. Abbot laments: “In true fashion the casing of the 2.9-litre engine is cracked and in need of repair. The 2.7-litre with the 40mm Weber carbs is actually truer to the ST. The interior however is far removed from an ST, even sporting Recaro seats which have been recovered from a BMW… it is the type of thing that keeps Porschephiles up at night. The centres do however carry the famous Porsche houndstooth, while the seat bolsters are wrapped in leather. Exclusive Conversions have found moulds of the ST seats and are fabricating a set as we speak. The wooden gear knob is a sporting tribute to the 917.”
Time, then, to get better acquainted with the ‘Abbot ST tribute’. I’m glad to see Abbot has stuck with the FIA regulations allowing for wider wheels at the back, and has defaulted to Minilite wheels in keeping with what was fitted to the original ST TDF, as Fuchs at the time did not make a wide enough wheel. With the roll cage omitted it is much easier getting behind the wheel. The exposed gear gate is a nice touch and in keeping with the sporting yet comfortable feel Abbot is trying to straddle. Added to this is the 380mm steering wheel from an RS, which in my mind is the perfect size – entrance and egress made much easier.
The road leading to the desired B-road on which we want to put the ST through its paces is pockmarked with patchwork, which the ST soaks up surprisingly well, including over several sleeping policemen. Turning onto the B-road which runs behind the Kyalami race track, I’m able to completely leverage the throttle – the surge in velocity pins me back into the Recaro seat, delivering an overwhelming sense of euphoria. The engine is very tractable and easily revs to 8,000rpm, emanating that delightful rapid-fire sound akin to a Singer (sewing machine), no pun intended. But I need my wits about me, as there are no driver aids here. Gear throws are short and precise compared to Porsches of the period, thanks to the short-shift, but it is by no means slick. This gearbox makes use of the standard H-pattern, thankfully, as I am already seated on the wrong side of the car. The steering wheel is nicely weighted and translates what is happening on the road. Brakes on this ST are progressive, making use of the 2.7 Carrera aluminium front calipers with vented discs, with the SC setup at the rear.
This ST strikes the right balance between comfort and performance. There is a real mechanical feel to it, and it offers a level of interaction that allows for a rather involved driving experience, which has become too sanitised in the modern era. I can only imagine what a blast it will be once the 2.9-litre engine is refitted, but no matter: this is a striking tribute to a fascinating 911 in Porsche’s history. Tim Abbot can consider his dream realised.