by John Glynn | Jul 11, 2016 | Classic Porsche Blog, Race and Rally
The flag has just dropped on the 2016 Le Mans Classic. Figures released by the organisers show that the event was the most successful to date, with more than 120,000 attending the weekend to celebrate the history of the legendary endurance race.
My first Classic Le Mans was in 2006, when little brother and I took my old 911 SC Cabriolet down to Le Mans, in convoy with other 911s including a 3.2 Carrera and 964RS. With no more than 60,000 people attending the 2006 event, it was a really terrific weekend, apart from when we were bumped out of our hotel to a less salubrious location to keep the Aston Martin Owners’ Club happy. After that, I decided to rent a house and share it with friends in future. We did that in 2008 and for my most recent Le Mans Classic in 2010, and it proved to be the perfect solution.
2010 was a boiling hot year on track: the soles of my shoes were melting in the paddock. With 96,000 people and their cars attending that weekend, traffic was a nightmare all around the city. My Orange Carrera 3.0 arrived with no fresh air blower, having burned it out in the Alps a few days earlier, and Jamie’s Renault 8 also suffered from fuel boiling all weekend. It was still great to see so many friends, but a far cry from the relaxed atmosphere of 2016.
When the weather is not too hot, the atmosphere throughout a Le Mans Classic weekend is terrific – especially if you go down with a big group of friends – but the racing can be quite hard to follow, as the long lap spreads the field out and gives little impression of the battles taking place on track. The racing is closer at some of Europe’s many other historic festivals, including the Spa 6 Hours and Zandvoort Historic Grand Prix.
All things considered, I can understand why so many people return to the Le Mans Classic every two years. It is a great start to a touring holiday in France, and family men can just about get away with it if they rent a house nearby with a pool for the wife and kids to hang out in.
For me, three years watching the racing satisfied my desire to experience spectating at Le Mans for the racing eras I am most interested in. There are lots of other historic racing weekends across Europe with plenty of Porsche content and equally open access to the paddocks, where traffic jams and overheating engines are not the order of the day, so I have been to quite a few of those in the years since my last Le Mans Classic.
Did you go to Le Mans for LMC 2016? How was the weekend? Email your thoughts to mail@ferdinandmagazine.com.
by John Glynn | Jul 1, 2016 | Classic Porsche Blog, Modified Porsche Hot Rods
Friend and fellow R Gruppe member, Guenter Kehr, has sent me some pics from the 2016 Bergmeister Tour, just completed by a great group of Porsche friends.
Long-time readers will remember the first Bergmeister Tour in 2010, when we took ten R Gruppe 911s from all over the world across Europe to the Alps, staying in Lake Geneva, Briancon and Monaco, following the old Monte Carlo Rally stages around the principality before coming home via Classic Le Mans.
Painstakingly organised by Leonard Stolk at Twinspark Racing in Amsterdam, every day was a unforgettable experience. Six years later, it is still the best thing I have ever done in my 911, so I was delighted to get Guenter’s pics and a reminder of how special it is to be on tour in a group of air-cooled 911s with like-minded people.
“Bergmeister Tour 2016 is completed,” writes Geunter. “Once again, an epic week of close to 5,000 km of intense driving on some of the most amazing roads across Switzerland, France and Italy. Lots of rain, fog, mud and gravel on the roads made driving even more challenging this year.
“This was certainly an excellent test run for my new Michelin Pilot Exalto 2 NO tyres in sizes 205/55 ZR16 and 225/50 ZR16 mounted on 7 & 8×16 fuchs. The Michelins lived up to expectations: very predictable in the wet and with good braking performance and traction in and out of the uncountable hairpins.
“The tyres and my new brake calipers saved me at least once from being smashed between a white van and a wall going up “La Madelaine”. Climbing up the ultimate Col de L’Iseran to an altitude of 2,770 m we even got freezing rain and snow. No reason to stop but first time ever I had to pull my heater lever on a summer tour. Too bad for the others who had sacrificed their heaters for less weight!”
Congrats Guenter and to his fellow Bergmeister tourers – looks like a blast. Check out the Bergmeister Facebook page for more information and photos.
by John Glynn | Jun 26, 2016 | Classic Porsche Blog, Modified Porsche Hot Rods
Yorkshire’s EB Motorsport has unveiled its latest product: a perfect reproduction of the hard-to-find 5.5 x 15-inch Fuchs alloy wheel, now mandatory on all 2-litre 911s seeking an FIA Historic Technical Passport under Appendix K regulations.
These iPhone photos show the wheels painted to sample for a customer’s 2-litre 1965 911 race car, but they are available from EB Motorsport in a range of finishes. Manufactured to the same high standards as EB’s existing Fuchs reproductions in 9-inch and 11-inch x 15, and the well-known EB Deep 6 and 7R Fuchs rims, the front is CNC machined from billet aluminium, with the barrel laser welded for optimum strength and accuracy.
EB’s Fuchs recreations are never the cheapest but, with SWB Porsche 911 race cars built to FIA Appendix K regulations now changing hands for as much as £200k in some cases, the cost of £900 per wheel for such a high quality product is perhaps not that shocking.
“Our manufacturing process uses the highest quality materials and requires expensive machinery to carry out the machining and laser welding operations,” says EB’s Mark Bates. “The advantage of this investment is a strong wheel that has much a higher reliability than cheap cast wheels, which can fracture and fail. I would much rather have an EB wheel under me when at full throttle down the Kemmel Straight at Spa.”
EB Motorsport 5.5 x 15-inch Fuchs
Unlike the original Fuchs wheels, the EB Motorsport 5.5-inch Fuchs are ready to accept modern tyres and valves, with machined tyre beads and properly machined holes for modern valves. They are also a perfect fit for the collapsible spare tyres on air-cooled Porsche 911s: I have a 5.5 x 15″ Fuchs wheel on the spare tyre for my 1976 Carrera 3.0. and it fits perfectly under the bonnet.
“Before we recreated these rare 5.5 x 15-inch Fuchs wheels, we were running inner tubes on fifty year-old wheels with who-knows-what history,” says Bates. “From a driver’s point of view, the stress factor is much reduced in using these wheels versus the originals.”
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by John Glynn | Jun 26, 2016 | Market & Prices, Classic Porsche Blog
Britain has voted to leave the EU and the pound has taken the first of what is likely to be a series of nosedives, as the implications of the vote and the political fallout play through the stock markets.
Economic uncertainty is now a major talking point and consumer confidence has been hit, with a couple of Porsche dealers I spoke to on Friday reporting cancelled deals in the Brexit vote aftermath. Buying a £70k Porsche for weekends seems superfluous for some given the unknown future that British workers are facing, not to mention the enhanced investment oportunities that became available on the FTSE 100 after the vote, where shares in banks, airlines and UK housebuilders fell by up to 40%.
The strongest enquiries on Friday came from buyers with Euros to spend. Some dealers had stockpiled LHD Porsches ready to list, which may have been a canny play, most effective on rarer Porsche models with a high ticket price: GT3 RS 4.0s, Carrera GTs and the like. But cheaper classic Porsches also look slighty better value, with a £50k Porsche costing $68,520 or €61,919 on June 26 compared to $73,463 or €65,110 on June 22nd, the day before the UK referendum*.
(Update July 1: £50k has now slipped to $67,162/€60,496)
Porsche prices down 7% (for US buyers)
Falls of 7% in the dollar price or 5% in euros over four days may be just the start. At the time of the referendum, many dealers had still not corrected asking prices for softening classic car sentiment seen since the start of 2016, so that has yet to be implemented. Dealers now also face falling domestic demand from uncertain consumers, who will likely avoid big-ticket purchases until they know what the future of UK plc holds for them.
What could happen next? One scenario (and one that played out in the 2008 crash) is that, as the consequences of the referendum vote and EU exit begin to take hold and luxury car sales tail off, there will be casualties. Traders holding stock by means of a bank stocking loan or private investment will come under pressure should they be unable to make their repayment schedules. Repossessed stock would likely end up at auction, selling for knock-down prices, which will further undermine public confidence. This is not going to happen immediately, but the likelihood of recession grows with every day there is instability at the top of UK governance.
Second Referendum
Alternative scenarios currently doing the rounds include the possibility of a second referendum to head off the disintegration of the United Kingdom, as Scotland voted to stay in the EU and the winning margin for Leave was less than 2% on a turnout of less than 75%. A second referendum seems unlikely at the minute, but as the original referendum was not legally binding and an online petition called for a second vote captured 3 million signatures in less than three days, who knows what might happen next.
Another possibility is that it will all be fine, with the UK economy entering a period of prolonged expansion, jobs for all and revitalised public services. However likely one feels this may be, it’s not going to happen next week, so the short term outlook is less positive. Prices will feel some effect.
*source: fxtop.com
by John Glynn | May 9, 2016 | Classic Porsche Blog, Race and Rally
The latest Tuthill Porsche 1965 911 2-litre racer had a successful debut at the recent Donington Historic Festival, coming home second in class in the GT & Sports Car Cup race.
Classic Porsche reliability was a factor in the race result. Unable to match the ultimate pace of lighter class competitor machinery including more powerful TVR Granturas weighing 720 kilos versus the 1000-kilo 911s, drivers Ross McEwen and Colin Paton clocked up consistently quick lap times and stayed the course, while their more fragile rivals fell out of contention.
“We were clocking up 1.31s while the TVR that won our class was doing 1:25s – not even Lewis Hamilton could bridge that gap,” said Colin, who also races in the GT Cup season, sharing an ex-Dino Zamparelli 991 GT3 Cup car with McEwen. This is Paton’s second full season of racing: his rookie year in a 997 GT3 Cup resulted in a fourth place in the GTB Championship. Donington was a good finish for Paton’s first race in a classic 911.
“Pitting these pretty early 911s against powerful fibreglass-bodied cars – which are permitted to run a lower minimum weight – is always going to be a challenge,” said Richard Tuthill. “Racing to the classic Porsche strengths of speed, traction and reliability offers good drivers a fighting chance. Well done to Ross and Colin for seizing the opportunity and making the most of it.”
Tuthill-built 911s have raced and won on track for decades, in events including Tour Auto, Tour Britannia, FIA Masters Historic and Silverstone Classic. Silverstone is the next outing for the Tuthill 911s, with another new 2-litre joining the team at the International Trophy weekend on May 21-22 and more 2-litre builds on the way.
“We’re not just rally boys and this is not overnight success,” says Richard Tuthill of the 2-litre trend. Richard recently updated his ARDS en route to an FIA International Race Licence and is threatening a track assault later this year. “We’ve been building winning Porsche race cars for years and our team personnel includes touring car mechanics and GT engineers. Development of so many very quick 911s, including fast road, tarmac and marathon rally cars, has led to substantial expertise in quick air-cooled 911s. If your ambitions involve a 911 going quickly, we can contribute.”
My Tuthill Safari book, created as a memento of the team’s 2015 Safari Rally win for team members and clients has just gone to press. It came out very well – I wonder if we’ll ever do a 2-litre version. Also been talking to Francis about writing a book together: he’s a man with many stories to tell.
