Hot on the heels of a day spent with suspension experts from KW Suspension, came a chance encounter with the EXE-TC experts at Tuthill Porsche.
Graham Gleeson is the brains behind EXE-TC: the suspension engineering company that has underpinned Sebastien Loeb’s many world rally championships over the last few years.
EXE-TC and Tuthill are closely linked in classic Porsche chassis engineering, and development on these joint projects is always ongoing. The EB Motorsport RSR and the Janssens dog box car are two Tuthill-built competition 911s that have run EXE-TC gear in testing, but road cars are also used to get street-biased products working properly.
The car seen here is an Albert Blue amalgam of classic components, combined by Tuthills to build one man’s perfect Porsche. This is running an EXE-TC development subframe to reduce frame torsion at the front of the car.
Surprisingly, the alignment was set to toe out: I’ve never gone for toe out on an older 911 but the test drivers (two names you would certainly know) both say it works with this set up.
There are still some areas needing work here, so development continues. An interesting encounter with Graham, and nice to put a face to the name.
Day 17 of the WEVO Porsche 356 South America rally and the boys are driving from Cusco to Arequipa: around 600 kilometres.
Thanks to Yellowbrick GPS technology carried on board the cars, you can track their progress on the rally home page under ‘results‘. Here are a few screen shots demonstrating what is possible.
Time now in Cusco is 08:22, and here is their current position. Untick everything except the Class C box to see the cars in their group.
This is a wider view of the route so far plotted by GPS: it likes to use a straight line to minimise data points stored. Bit of a pain when map data is overlaid but not much choice here.
Belgian Historic Rally Champion, Glenn Janssens, thanked his lucky stars last weekend after walking away from a huge 100-mph crash in his amazing Tuthill Porsche 911 rally car.
Rallying the opening event of the season at Haspengouw, Glenn had just shifted into fifth gear around a right-hand bend when a hint of oversteer escalated into something bigger, leading to a series of barrel rolls at very high speed.
The landscape surrounding the crash was ploughed fields in usual Belgian style, but the ground was frozen solid. Imagine crashing on rutted concrete and you get the idea. This video shows the damage suffered, and also shows the guys walking away: the only happy news for Janssens fans from this event.
Tuthills have been building rally cars for over thirty years and crashes are part of the world they live in: I’ve got plenty of crash damage pics from the workshops over the seven years we’ve been working together.
It’s never pleasant to see a car bent and broken, but it’s always very satisfying to see a Tuthill Porsche roll cage work as intended. This won’t be an easy repair but I’ll keep you up to date with the rebuild as it unfolds.
News from the Americas! Hayden and Steven have just enjoyed their second rest day of the event, at Puno in Southern Peru, on the shores of Lake Titicaca. This update was from Tuesday night.
Nice drive this morning, 0500hrs wake up to leave La Paz early enough to avoid road blockages by striking workers. Lovely drive and little barge crossing to Peru border, leaving beautiful but contradictory Bolivia behind.
Great hotel on Lake Titicaca makes rest day tomorrow even more anticipated. Lola still faultless, but the Porsche 356 will get a greasing and general spanner check. That said, Lola needs new plugs again, as poor fuel has been hard on plugs in all the old cars. T is bringing three more sets to Cusco in 2 days.
We have run at over 14,300 feet without re-jetting the carbs, so very happy and proud of our sea level work and the choices Brian and I made in setting these up! Our faith in physics continues.
Yesterday on the way into La Paz, we sat at 120 km/h (72mph) for an hours or so at just over 3,900 metres, or almost 13,00 feet. Where else in the world can you do that? That’s like a highway joining all the high peaks of the Rockies. Amazing!
Today rest day, tomorrow Puno to Cusco, in the foothills south of Machu Picchu. Next day is another rest day to allow some exploring in the legendary Peruvian ruins, followed by a 600-kilometre drive to Arequipa, not Aeroquipa as per the rally notes.
Second biggest city in Peru, the historic centre of Arequipa has been granted UNESCO World Cultural Heritage status. The old town’s beautiful heart is balanced by some of the highest levels of solar radiation in all of South America, thanks to the nearby Atacama Desert and local air pollution. Break out the UV sunblock! More news when we get it.
Here’s an interesting read for you: the first feature Jamie Lipman and I ever did in the USA from 2008. Was a minor disaster getting there and making this happen, but the end justified the means. R Gruppe Porsche 911 SWB Hot Rods shot in California.
Interest in the short wheelbase 911 has surged in recent years. John Glynn drives a pair of American beauties that make a convincing case for less is more.
Ah, California. In stark contrast to preconceptions of a concrete jungle, California is a state with personality. Away from the major population centres, amazing light and fresh Pacific air mingles with the blissful aroma of pine trees and vines to create a technicolour environment. No wonder they built Hollywood here.
I’ve come to the Golden State to attend the R Gruppe Treffen, an annual ensemble of early 911 enthusiasts from across the US and beyond. This year, the meet is centred on Cambria, a pretty little coastal town 100 miles south of Monterey. This is the site of the very first Gruppe get-together, ten years ago.
R Gruppe’s raison d’etre is to honour the intent behind Porsche’s Sports Purpose range: factory parts for adding that extra zing to to the pre-’73 911. This is a club for road trippers, not trailer queens. Some of these guys have travelled almost 3,000 ground miles to be here. (more…)
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