The beautiful Porsche collection of Steven Harris is about to go on show at the Saratoga Automobile Museum in Saratoga Springs, New York. Running through to autumn 2021, the exhibition includes many significant models in original factory condition, but also some cars that were modified to match the owner’s intentions. The list of air-cooled Porsches on show includes:
1956 356A Carrera Coupe
1957 356A Carrera Speedster
1958 356A Carrera GT Coupe
1959 Carrera GS Cabriolet
1960 356B T5 Roadster
1963 Carrera 2 GS Cabriolet
1964 356C Couple – Peking to Paris Rally car
1973 911T “SHTang”/RGruppe
1973 911 Carrera RS
1974 911 Carrera RS 3.0
1984 911 SCRS
1992 964 911 Carrera RS Lightweight
1992 964 911 RS N-GT “Macau”
1994 964 911 RS 3.8
1995 993 911 Carrera RS
1995 993 911 GT2
As part of the exhibition’s preparations, my long-time friend and creative partner, James Lipman, flew to NY and shot the collection in studio, for an accompanying book that will document the collection at this moment in time. The photos seen here are by James.
Steven was responsible for introducing James to the profound effects of immersion in the social scene that surrounds air-cooled Porsche life across North America, particularly in California, where the light hits just right. James’ enthusiasm for a trip to the Baja California taken with Steven sometime in early 2009, and the wonderful images that came out of that trip, led to his selling me on the idea of doing some work out there in May of that year. This was our first R Gruppe Treffen, where we shot the two SWB 911s of Bob Tilton and Chris Nielsen that inspired a raft of work over the next two years and forged lifelong friendships.
Steven’s formative influence does not end there. An esteemed career in architecture has included professorships at Harvard, Yale and Princeton and the work of Steven Harris Architects LLP may be seen all over the world. It is my privilege to have stayed in Steven’s own house in upstate NY and to have briefly experienced what it is to exist inside the vision of a professional whose work I greatly admire.
Combining an achitectural vision with a deep understanding of air-cooled Porsche culture and history (not to mention a keen awareness of market activity) has created to the collection that is partly shown at Saratoga, including several Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance winners. I urge anyone local to the museum to visit and experience Steven’s cognitive precision as expressed through his collection, and to enjoy what blending true passion for these cars and a genetic understanding of what great design looks like can accomplish over time.
About the Saratoga Automobile Museum
The Saratoga Automobile Museum is located within the 2,500-acre Saratoga Spa State Park, in the heart of historic Saratoga Springs, New York. Famous for its legendary one-mile thoroughbred track, the Museum’s facility is the fully restored and renovated New York State Bottling Plant, a beautiful neoclassical structure completed in 1935.
The Saratoga Automobile Museum was chartered in 1999 and officially opened to the public in June 2002, with a mission to preserve, interpret and exhibit automobiles and automotive artifacts. The museum celebrates the automobile and educates the general public, students and enthusiasts to the role of the automobile in New York State and the wider world. In addition to technical and design aspects, the educational focus is on past, present and future social and economic impacts of the automobile.
The online classic car auction scene has taken off since the first lockdown and I’ve been kept busy inspecting auction cars for sale, including all sorts of classic cars offered through On The Market and Collecting Cars. Now there’s a new online auction seller – Manor Park Classics – whose first sale on April 27th includes a pair of longhood Porsche 911 Targas.
I don’t know much about Manor Park Classics, but their web content appears to be the polar opposite of my taste in content, so it’s no surprise that the name is new to me. The debut auction currently stands at 137 lots: five motorcycles, various items of automobilia and number plates and around 92 cars if my maths is correct.
The sale includes several lots from the Vauxhall Heritage Collection, which will be offered at no reserve, including nice examples of basic Vauxhalls such as the Nova and original Viva. The other lots run the gamut, from Bentleys and Rolls-Royce to low mileage Jaguar XJS, several MGs and classic Minis and a handful of other run-of-the-mill bits and pieces that caught my eye, including a low-ish mile E28 520 at a fairly chunky guide price of £8-10k. I had quite a few E28s back in the day and I do love these cars. My mother began her driving career in a 1974 Renault 6 similar to the LHD 1972 example on offer with another perhaps optimistic guide of £5-6k, but we’ll see how that one does.
The first Porsche for sale is a 1973 RHD Porsche 911 E Targa in Gold, retaining its original tan leather trim but with a recent engine and gearbox rebuild costing some £8.5k. This is a decent engine out service on an MFI car atsome specialists so it is worth knowing what this rebuild entails. The 911 2.4E is my favourite longhood variant so that is a positive if the rest is up to scratch. Auction cars rarely are, so inspect things carefully before bidding.
The other 911 for sale at auction is a 1967 LHD Porsche 911 2.0 Soft-Window Targa in Golf Blue with black trim. In the UK since 1999, this car appears to be quite a good example, having come from its original owner with a huge pile of provenance and offered with body restoration bills for over £21k in the last few years. No mention of who this was with or what panels were replaced and that is important to know. Guide on the soft-window Targa is £90-110k. Bear in mind that there is a 15% Buyers Premium payable on all bids.
SHARE • EXPLORE • SUPPORT
Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support the blog or engage with me in other ways, you can:
Porsche is replacing the need for paint shop workers on the Taycan production line to insert up to 100 plugs on every car after paint and sealing wax with a robotic process of sealing all cavities with robot-applied patches.
Porsche’s partner in the new process is Tesa, a leading supplier of office tape and a typo away from those other electric car people – I wonder what Google searches will make of that. The patches are highly durable and protrude only 1mm from the surface, versus 6mm for the plugs that were previously employed.
Porsches says that its workers have previously had to insert up to 3,600 plugs per shift, so at 100 plugs per car that is 36 cars per shift. If each shift is eight hours, that is 108 cars a day. It is slightly mind-blowing to imagine the sight of and logistics behind 100 cars a day rolling off the Taycan production lines and being moved to new owners all over the world. Anything Porsche can do to speed up the build process and reduce stress on its workers will be a welcome addition.
“At Tesa, we incorporated more than 20 years’ experience in the manual adhesion of sealing patches in assembly to the development of the Tesa applicator for automated hole sealing,” explains Dr Ute Ellringmann, Market Segment Manager responsible for hole sealing at Tesa. “We can therefore ensure perfect application of our sealing patches for maximum quality and process efficiency.”
“Innovation has always been the driver of our commercial success,” says Albrecht Reimold, Member of the Executive Board responsible for Production and Logistics at Porsche AG. “New innovations have to be mastered. This requires courage and creative freedom. It is management’s role to ensure that this atmosphere is fostered in the day-to-day operations of the company.”
The all-electric Porsche Taycan is the first car in the world to use this new process. Porsche Innovation Management supervised the adoption of the sealing patches, and by July 2020 more than two thirds of the approximately 150 plugs in the Taycan paint shop had been eliminated. The paint shop at the Leipzig plant will also make the switch by summer 2021.
So much to digest here, including the fact that Porsche has an Innovation Management team. This is something worth learning more about – how does a business that innovates everywhere manage that and harvest innovations in one place to use in another? Rolling innovations that take shape in one part of my tiny business out across the full spread of what I do takes months for me – would love to know how Porsche manages this. I think Stuttgart’s innovation management strategy and processes may be the real story here.
It was good to hear from many R Gruppe friends after my recent post on the late Cris Huergas. One name that popped up in my inbox was Hayden Burvill at WEVO, who is about to put his 1972 Porsche 911 up for sale.
The car in question is Kenny: a 1972 911T built in May of that year and finished in rare Gulf Orange. The ‘oil klapper’ side oil-flap 911 now runs a 2.4S engine, rebuilt by Jerry Woods, but the matching numbers engine comes with the car.
Kenny has been owned by a handful Porsche enthusiasts in San Francisco’s Bay Area since it was new in 1972. It’s the car that inspired the Aussie engineer and product designer to begin modifying 911s – initially for autocross competitions – and develop a range of chassis and drivetrain products to sharpen the air-cooled 911 driving experience.
Products developed on Kenny include the famous WEVO shifters, engine and transmission mounts, anti-roll bars and suspension parts. Kenny is also fitted with several prototype parts that never went into production, such as the WEVO brakes that I vaguely attempted to buy several times but could never convince him to sell.
The WEVO brakes remained in prototype due to projected retail price against the value of air-cooled cars at the time. The numbers would probably make more sense nowadays, but life has moved on and there are other products out there. Hayden instead developed his 5-speed conversion for Porsche 356 models and that has been going well since launch.
Kenny has been part of my world since 2008, when I took my first trip out to San Carlos to meet Hayden and Tracey at WEVO. They could not have been more welcoming and our friendship continued when Twinspark Racing became WEVO’s official European distributors. I was a partner in Twinspark at the time, along with my friends Leonard Stolk and Lex Proper, so we did a fair amount of business together.
Hayden’s exploits in historic rallying on events like the Peking to Paris alongside Steven Harris and more recent rallies with Alastair Caldwell have kept us in touch. Our last time together in person was when Ciara and I joined H and the EB Motorsport guys for dinner on the beach at Zandvoort after the Masters Historic Grand Prix in 2018. Great times.
The world has turned on its head in two years and the pandemic has shifted life goals for both of us. Hayden’s responding by selling some cars and doubling down on a sustainable lifestyle. His 993 daily driver has already departed and Kenny is next on the block. The cool blue 912 is also likely to go.
Long-time followers will remember our feature on Kenny, which ran in one of the Porsche magazines back in the day. Jamie and I took the car to Pacific Grove near Monterey before sunrise and shot it on the coast as the sun came up. It was an unforgettable experience.
I’ve driven a lot of miles in this car, incuding down through the redwoods from San Francisco to Laguna Seca (above), where the car has seen many great days on track. As Hayden was an early R Gruppe member, Kenny was one of the earliest R Gruppe cars, attending all sorts of group events over the years. There is an air of authenticity about this one that later R Gruppe creations can’t hope to match. The aim is to place it with someone who will appreciate the history and keep piling the miles on, enjoying the car while we are still allowed to drive them.
Hayden wrote up a great spec on the 911 and you can download a pdf of that here. I’ll put the main points below. This is a special 911 with room for cosmetic detailing if you want to go that way. I would probably just run it as-is (with one of Jonny’s electric air conditioning kits, of course).
1972 Porsche 911 for sale – Specification
Engine
That original engine was replaced by the current engine, a 2.4-litre MFI engine from a 911S that was dressed using the original yellow “T” fan shroud and a combination of 2.4S intake system, recalibrated MFI pump and the highly regarded Elgin “Mod-S” camshaft grind. The engine made ~195hp at 6750rpm on the Jerry woods dyno with airbox, filter and Abarth muffler installed.
The engine was detailed when it was installed in 2004 and the installation is otherwise stock. There is no external oil cooler, it has the stock MFI fuel pump mounted in stock location, stock fuel filter and fuel cut-off valve all mounted and functioning.
WEVO SS engine mounts are fitted. The current exhaust is stock MFI heat exchangers (cabin heat connected) and a stock MFI muffler with the period correct ribbed outlet. The accessory package that comes with this car includes a rare Abarth 4-outlet muffler, an equally rare and unique 6-outlet muffler (for when 4 is not enough!) and a rare, unused 2 x 2 muffler with a pair of chrome outlets exiting wide; one on each corner of the rear bumper.
The engine has a WEVO 915 Streetlite Clutch kit using a spring-centre friction disc. The low inertia and added performance of this clutch kit is especially noticeable at full throttle in second and third gears.
Transmission
As one would expect given WEVO’s unique expertise, the transmission has been through a variety of revisions, at times running a WEVO super lightweight spool instead of an open differential. It currently has a Porsche factory ZF limited slip differential. It has a very deliberate build suited for easy street driving, or aggressive track driving. 80% build configuration giving the maximum friction surfaces, then carefully shimmed to have a very light pre-load of only 10 ft/lbs.
This configuration gives a high locking action during aggressive driving and easy rolling and steering at low speeds. The transmission has a suite of WEVO products, including XT 100 Side Cover, WEVO 915 GateShift kit and XT 032 bearing retainer plate. The gearbox is in great operating condition and needs no repairs.
Interior
Hayden’s interior spec goes into quite a lot of detail but, in short:
Fitted factory sports seats
Abarth 360mm sports steering wheel
WEVO 915 shifter with +40mm lever (my 911 also has this: perfect mod)
WEVO PSJ shift coupler and XT 147 clamp
Accessories package includes bespoke carbon fibre seats with custom rear cage
Bodywork
Again H has added a lot of detail to the bodywork section. In summary:
Sunroof 911 finished in original Gulf Orange
Rust-free car that has lived in California for almost fifty years
Distinctive WEVO-logo graphics
Presented as RS with SC/Carrera rear arches
Fibreglass bumpers and ducktail
Bespoke front brake cooling ducts
H1 headlights with Euro rear lenses
Accessories package includes original steel rear bumper and deck lid, and an early S steel front bumper
Suspension
See the full pdf for details of this. One could hardly ask for a better suspension setup on a sports-purpose early car:
21/26 torsion bars
RSR raised-spindle front struts with Bilstein inserts
WEVO Camberking top mounts with Teflon monoballs and carbon fibre cross tube/strut brace
Weltmeister 19mm front ARB
WEVO Spring Plate system rear end (now unobtanium)
’76 trailing arms with SRP monoballs and WEVO E-Z pins
Designed to fit inside 6×15 wheels with a nod to 930 brake performance
315 x 28mm front brake disc
standard 930 rear disc with handbrake bell
930 pads for ease of replacement
Accessory package includes set of new discs and all brake servicing literature
Wheels and Tyres
Kenny runs on nicely restored 7 & 8×15″ Fuchs, with Avon CR6ZZ Classic 185/70 front and 215/60 rear tyres. The spare is a 6 x 15″ Fuchs with a 185/70 tyre.
Enquiries and Price
It can be difficult to price cars like this and would be all too easy to get that wrong. Setting the mods aside, we have a low-owner ’72 oil flap 911T with sunroof in a relatively rare colour with a matching numbers engine and the original panels ready to be refitted. The only major change is the SC arches.
Adding in the mods we have a Jerry Woods 2.4S MFI engine making circa 200 horsepower, custom WEVO transmission with pretty much everything you could pick from the catalogue, custom suspension, custom brakes, simple but desirable period trim that one could improve and so on. It also comes with a ton of additional parts, including the original engine.
The key to this car for me is that it is not fake. It is not a poser. It was forged at the centre of air-cooled 911 culture and has been driven and developed over twenty years of ownership. What was created specifically for this car may now be found on thousands of 911s all over the world. But there is only one original. Does that story add any value? Well, the buyers will decide. What price romance nowadays?!
So to the price. Hayden is open to offers circa $150,000, which is £114,000 or €126,000. To find a similar rust-free 1972 911 and fit it with an S engine with the WEVO bits one can still buy would easily exceed this. And that car would not be built by WEVO. Add in the unobtanium, the spares bits and who knows what else the boss will include and you have a unique piece of air-cooled history.
The car is located in San Francisco, but can of course be shipped anywhere in the world. I am helping out with this one should it make its way across the pond to the UK or Europe, so you can contact Hayden via WEVO.com or drop me a line – john@johndglynn.com – or give me a call on +44 7565 348453.
The cool thing would perhaps be to quote Groucho Marx (“I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member”) but, when the late Cris Huergas sent me an email in 2007 to ask if I wanted to join the R Gruppe, it caught my attention.
Founding R Gruppe member, Gib Bosworth, owned several air-cooled 911s including a very original Carrera 3.0 (super rare in America as never sold new there) and found my 1976 Carrera 3.0 through impactbumpers.com. He liked the community spirit I was building on the impact bumpers forum, with a focus on driving the cars, learning more about them and doing one’s own maintenance.
Gib’s view of what worked carried weight, and impactbumpers presented by Gib resonated with Cris. The fact that I was writing for pretty much all of the British Porsche magazines at the time didn’t hurt my case either, as Cris was into his car magazines. He overlooked the minor technicality that, although I did own a ’71 project bought from the Gruppe’s ‘Dutch chapter’, my ’76 was not a longhood – a membership must at the time. In any case, I got the email, paid my dues and was member number 466.
I remained with the Gruppe for more than ten years and spent lots of time with Cris on our California visits. He was a working guy who’d been through a few ups and downs, so 911 ownership was behind him by the time we hooked up but, as the Gruppemeister he always had shotgun, and many friends would happily lend him cars on events.
Cris Huergas (right) by Frank Kayser
He also loved to come out on shoots: the energy around these things was ridiculously infectious and Cris loved being in the thick of it. He usually knew much of the story behind the cars we were shooting, so period voice recordings invariably feature a high-pitched Huergas prompting the owner on something they forgot.
Our first meeting was at the Fogcatcher Inn on the Pacific Coast Highway in Cambria, California in 2008. Jamie (James Lipman) and I made our first trip from the UK to CA to see what went on at an R Gruppe Treffen and I decided we should shoot Bob Tilton and Chris Nielsen’s SWB 911s.
It is difficult to explain to recent arrivals to air-cooled Porsches just how unloved short-wheelbase cars were at the time. Super cheap and often scrapped, here were two guys who had invested heavily in two SWB 911s, spending well over market value to realise their individual visions in very different, but equally convincing ways.
Tilton and Nielsen were more than just 911 guys; they were tastemakers. Tilt was fastidious about every tiny detail and Nielsen matched his microscopic focus to the miligram. What I found within each of them was that they looked back for inspiration, but were not driven to mimic. They interpreted their influences rather than imitating them. This is what made their cars special and the two we had to shoot on that first trip to America.
In the years that followed, 911 prices took off into the stratosphere and R Gruppe became quite the sensation. Cris loved grass roots enthusiasts and would make an effort to talk to new faces. Someone with a cool 911 who came to a few meets and showed they were not a complete pain in the arse was generally given a number, but Cris would also occasionally slip numbers to people who maybe didn’t have the grass roots background, but turned up in a serious car. Maybe they didn’t build it, but they had a vision of quality that worked for him, and they had a clue about cars. Cris also brought in the occasional trophy member – which was not a bad thing.
Huergas was a serious petrolhead and, while he liked old 911s with patchwork-quilt provenance, he also knew a proper car. He and his brothers were all into cars, and the crew around Cris was similarly knowledgeable. It’s no accident that Cris started R Gruppe (so called in a play on words around “Our Group” and the underdog history of the 911R) with Freeman Thomas, one of the most respected car designers of the 20th century. Cris could hold his own in that sort of company and his inner circle were serious geeks when it came to details on more than just Porsches.
Still, it was always the garagistes that did it for me: home builders who had a vision and didn’t really care whether it fitted what has since become a fairly prescriptive early 911 recipe book. My favourite Cris quote is “everything you do is right” – meaning that, if you liked it, then who cared what anyone else thought?
Whether it was Bob Aines’ orange E that was driven from Texas to California every Treffen, Rolly Resos’ famous red and white car, Harvey Weidman’s Martini 911 or Gib’s beautiful Tour de France recreation, the early R Gruppe cars were incredibly elegant. The cars were my air-cooled royalty and their drivers were true elder statesmen, in every sense of the word. We never wrote features on any of the cars I mention above and I do not regret that: a magazine splash would have spoiled their allure. Better to shun such vulgarity.
That’s not to say that the Gruppe 911s we did shoot were anything less than superb. With so many great cars to choose from, and only four weeks a year to gather the material, we shot what we could get to and saved a few others for later. Not all of our cars came through the R Gruppe, but it was the main portal for some wonderful times and I remember them fondly. In the centre was Cris: always on the hunt for 911 fans to add to the cocktail shaker he called R Gruppe membership.
In the same way that Tilton and Nielsen expressed their 911 visions as a unified blend of countless influences, Huergas delivered his vision of the car park dinner party everyone wanted to be at in the shape of the R Gruppe. Now that Cris has left us, things are likely to change.
It is fortunate, therefore, that German photographer, Frank Kayser, captured the last months of R Gruppe under Huergas for The R Book. A look through some of Frank’s photos shows many familiar faces, all of whom were devoted to Cris for bringing them into the fold.
“I had complete creative freedom for this book,” says Frank, “so I got to document the things that inspire me: beautiful landscapes, cool dudes and loads of awesome cars. The old air-cooled Porsche is the connecting link of it all. The book is not just another coffee table book about cars, but my statement for analogue values such as freedom, friendship and the fun of experiencing the real world together.”
The R Book website describes this as a “10 x 13” coffee-table book of 580 pages that’s filled with 840 brilliant images of awesome cars, candid visits of member’s private garages, and beautiful Californian landscapes. Well written essays about the history and the attitude towards life of America‘s cult Porsche car club”, but to those who experienced the Gruppe under Cris, it will be more than that.
One of my favourite books bought this year is “The World’s Fastest Place”, by another German photographer, Alexandra Lier. Alexandra’s work (above) is exceptional, but I can only imagine how much more meaningful the book must be if you are part of the Bonneville Speed Week community, around whom this book is based.
Beautifully presented, the R Gruppe book is not cheap at €180, and it’s no substitute for being part of Huergas’ R Gruppe before the world went crazy for air-cooled but, for 911 fans looking for something to evoke memories of good times with friends and old Porsches, it is worth a look.
I leave the last word to my R Gruppe compadre, Guenter Kehr, who I climbed many Alpine passes with on the epic Twinspark Racing 2010 Bergmeister Tour: “More a piece of art than just a book, but great stuff for any Porsche guy and a great memory to the late Cris Huergas.”
SHARE • EXPLORE • SUPPORT
Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support the blog or engage with me in other ways, you can:
Revered Porsche designer, Hans Mezger, has passed away at the age of 90. His career was spent exclusively at Porsche, where he oversaw many iconic developments, including the flat-six engine, the development of turbocharging, the 917’s flat-12 engine and the development of the successful 1.5-litre Formula 1 engine.
Born in 1929 in Ludwigsburg, just outside Stuttgart, Hans Mezger was the youngest of five children. The son of innkeeper parents, young Hans was captivated by aero engineering and motorsport.
His first experience of racing came in 1946, when he photographed Hans Stuck in a race for pre-war cars at Hockenheim. Continued fascination with racing led to studies in mechanical engineering at the Stuttgart Technical Colege (now the University of Stuttgart). Delayed entry to the course by a large influx of de-mobbed soldiers, he took a gap year to apprentice in the various arts of fabrication, exploring casting, machining and model making.
College transport was an NSU Lambretta, which was used right through the early years of his employment with Porsche in 1956, when the NSU was replaced by “an old and quite worn-out 356”.
Mezger said that he had twenty-eight job offers at the end of his college course, but Porsche was not in the pile. Keen to work in racing, he applied to the sports car manufacturer and got an interview. This was successful and he was initially directed towards the diesel engine programme. He made no secret of his desire to go racing and was moved to the engine calculations department.
Porsche looks back at Mezger’s career
The Porsche release on the death of Hans Mezger shares his career history:
Hans Mezger gained his first experience with the four-camshaft engine Type 547, developed a formula for calculating cam profiles and became part of Porsche’s first Formula 1 project in 1960. He was involved in the development of the 1.5-litre eight-cylinder Type 753 as well as the corresponding chassis of the 804.
His career included designing the world-famous “Mezger engine” for the 901 and 911 in the early 1960s. In 1965, Mezger was promoted to head of the department for race car design initiated by Ferdinand Piëch. The department was the key to a new quality and dynamism in motorsport for Porsche. It was an exciting, fascinating time in the mid-1960s. “Sometimes we also worked around the clock,” said Hans, “like in 1965 when we created the Ollon-Villars Bergspyder in just 24 days and shortly thereafter the 910.” With its construction of a tubular frame, fibreglass body and design for new Formula 1 tyre technology, it became the blueprint for all the race cars that were built in the years to follow.
Porsche also relied on this design principle for the development of the 917 in 1968. With the 917, the first overall victory for Porsche at Le Mans was now finally possible, and once again Ferdinand Piëch relied on the skilfulness of Hans Mezger, who was responsible for the overall construction of the vehicle and its 12-cylinder engine. The 917 dominated at Le Mans and in the World Sportscar Championship in 1970 and 1971.
In 1972 and 1973, and right from the start, the 917/10 and 917/30 showed good responsiveness even on the curvy stretches of the CanAm series, thanks to a novel exhaust turbocharging technology developed by Porsche itself. For the first time, turbocharging was successfully given a responsiveness that allowed racing cars and production vehicles to be used on all race tracks and public roads. A technology that makes Porsche a pioneer in this field and Mezger and his team brought to series production in 1974 in the form of the 911 Turbo. Many other victorious developments followed: for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the World Sportscar Championship and the US Indy series.
Perhaps the most outstanding project took off in 1981, when Ron Dennis and his McLaren racing team set out in search of a powerful turbo engine for Formula 1. In the end, Porsche was chosen and the decision was made to design and build a completely new engine, as well as to provide on-site support during the races. Again, Hans Mezger was the creative mastermind behind the 1.5-litre, V6 engine with an 80-degree bank angle, which would later produce more than 1000 PS. In 1984, Niki Lauda became world champion with it, and again in 1985, followed in 1986 by Alain Prost. The TAG Turbo won a total of 25 races, plus the two Constructors’ World Championships in 1984 and 1985. “This was a resounding success and also the most significant development contract for Porsche from an external company.
Mezger’s commitment to Porsche made him reject all offers from other manufacturers throughout his career and he still owned his 911 Carrera 3.0 in Grand Prix white – a coveted Porsche classic which has “his” engine. His loyalty and connection to Porsche was unbroken. He was available to journalists, technicians and interested fans as a discussion partner. The Porsche Museum hosted a celebration for his 90th birthday with family, friends and former companions. He accompanied Porsche at events, trade fairs and festivities until the very end.
A low profile in history
Mezger’s career is at the very heart of Porschelore. The engineer had a hand in pretty much everything until his retirement in 1993, but what is unusual is that his name has become widely known. Though Porsche has enjoyed the input of many great creative minds through its history, the company is not known for spotlighting individuals and allowing their names to be known in the way that Mezger’s became.
A look through the indices of serious Porsche literature shows scant mention of Mezger. “Excellence was Expected” mentions his name only twice across 1,500 pages: once in a photo caption and once in relation to cooling on Formula 1 engines. Paul Frère’s “Porsche 911 Story” again mentions Mezger only twice, both times in his capacity as head of engineering teams, rather than as a designer. Note that these books were written with substantial Porsche involvement.
Chris Harvey’s excellent “Porsche 911 in all its forms” has no mention of Mezger, nor does Ferry’s autobiography. So how do we read his importance?
While there is no doubt that Mezger’s enhanced profile is well-deserved, it is relatively recent and perhaps due in some part to the use of the Mezger name as a differentiator on 996 and 997 engines. The more reliable and higher power engines of the GT3 and Turbo models are now esteemed as Mezgers (by this logic, standard 996s and 997s must be non-Mezgers, but we’ll leave that stone unturned for now).
The long-running Porsche-Piëch feud and Stuttgart’s revisionist tendencies towards underplaying the role of Ferdinand Piëch in its history is another little throttle-push in favour of names such as Mezger, but no mention of Mezger in the story of Porsche would be complete without Piëch.
Hans Mezger and Ferdinand Piëch
Frère covers 911 engine development in detail, sharing how the programme started in the late 1950s under then Technical Director, Klaus von Rücker. Following the first unsuccessful engagement with Formula 1, Rücker left Porsche for BMW in 1962 and Hans Tomala was put in charge of everything to do with engineering on the 901 project.
An alumnus of Porsche’s tractor development team, Tomala was also responsible for engineering the 904. Harvey notes that Tomala’s first big decision for the 901/911 programme was to use the eight-cylinder F1 engine architecture as a basis for 901 engine development, rather than basing the six on Fuhrmann’s complex four-cylinder, which was being used in the 904. The second big decision was to use chain-driven cams.
While Harvey and Frère both note that Ferdinand Piëch was the engineer in charge of 911 engine development under Tomala from 1963, Porsche’s press release at the time of Piech’s death described his role as “an employee in the engine department”. Piëch apparently remained in this position until 1966, when Tomala was forced out over the handling of the SWB cars. Rather than introducing bodyshell changes that would allow production line workers to set the front strut angles, Tomala designed 11-kilo lumps of cast iron to be fixed to the 901’s front bumpers. While there is obviously much more to this story, Piëch replaced Tomala as development chief in 1966.
Once Piëch had control, the 911’s golden era – and the golden era of Porsche in racing – could begin. The 911 got a longer wheelbase, bigger engines with magnesium crankcases, lighter bodyshells and more. Simultaneous to 911 deveopment, Piëch developed the 908 and the 917. While there is little mention of Mezger in most of the history books, it should be clear that one man leant on the other and their partnership (along with the rest of their teams), became the stuff of legend.
Give thanks for Hans Mezger
However one views the story of Porsche, the role of Piëch and the countless unnamed engineers who contributed to the success of the sports car from Stuttgart, one cannot understate the importance of Mezger in the history of air-cooled Porsches, and it is right that his name is revered. As we live through the closing stages of the internal combustion era and prepare for a new automotive world, Mezger leaves an exceptional legacy in the story of great engine developments.
Before turning the key, all those who sit with a Mezger engine behind them should offer quiet thanks for what they are about to receive. You own a small part of a special history that will not be forgotten.
All credit to Hans – RIP.
SHARE • EXPLORE • SUPPORT
Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support the blog or engage with me in other ways, you can:
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.AcceptRead More
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
