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.
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Another edition of the Safari Classic Rally is currently in progress and, as always, I’m running the Tuthill Porsche media feeds. With ten cars under its wing, the team is enjoying a decent event. Yesterday was rally day seven and three Tuthill-built 911s finished the day in the top three positions: a fortunate position after thousands of kilometres of competitive rallying on this famously brutal contest.
The entry list for 2019 was smaller than previous editions; fewer than thirty cars entered and only twenty-two cars started the rally. The lower entry numbers can be ascribed to a number of factors, including cost, perceived risk and alternatives. There were also some issues in management and communications during and after the 2017 edition, following the death of one of the managing partners in a mid-event car crash. The fallout cast a traumatic shadow over what had otherwise been another tough but exciting Safari.
Putting things right took a lot of hard work. After 2017, the organisers put considerable effort into modernising its processes, with a major personnel shakeup and big changes in transparency and stewarding. As was promised in discussions and competitor workshops through 2018, the changes delivered a much-improved structure for 2019 and the organisers – headed by a new Clerk of Course – have done a magnificent job this year.
The Safari Classic entry list is restricted to cars from the glory days of Safari: 2wd non-turbo cars pre-1986 that conform to FIA historic regulations. Many cars have won the event, with Mk1 and Mk2 Escorts, 240Zs and 911s all down as previous winners.
The rally takes place over vast swathes of East Africa. While the event is run entirely on open public roads, the logistics including car shipping, accommodation, route mapping, marshalling, medical helicopters etc are huge and it is not cheap to compete. Entry fees for international drivers including car shipping and three twin hotel rooms for the rally duration are set at $34,000, with local entries costing $12,500. Add the cost of car prep before and re-prep after, the cost of hiring support and bringing in parts and the cost of putting up team and supporters and the costs soon soar. This is not a poor man’s sport.
Kenya has a highly active national championship and locals stage another Safari-style rally earlier in the year. Subsidised by wealthy competitors, the earlier rally has lower entry fees and no participant support, so drivers sort out their own shipping, accommodation and so on. If one only wants to rally against local friends and rivals, the smaller event might fit the bill. As most club rally folk do not have the resources to refurbish a rally car twice in six months, this leads to inevitable consequences for the big Safari’s entry list.
Safari Classic entries may have been down this year but the calibre of entrant remained pretty strong. Six-time Kenyan champion, Ian Duncan, was entered in a new Rover SD1 build. Three Kabras Sugar 911 entries included the triple Safari Rally winner, Baldev Chager.
Three Team Tidö Race4Health 911s included the former world rally champion and 2015 Safari Classic winner, Stig Blomqvist. Former Austrian national rally champion and three-time national historic champion, Kris Rosenberger (below), was also entered in a Tuthill 911 that had competed in several earlier events with its previous owner. He would be co-driven by partner, Nicola (Niki) Bleicher, on her first rally in Africa.
The weather through Kenya and Tanzania in the weeks before Safari was wet on an epic scale. Heavy rains in the mountains washed away many roads and bridges and some cancelled stages would be inevitable. Nevertheless, the rally began in Mombasa on November 27th and the competitors completed day one with the first three stages of the 2019 event.
The end of the day saw Kabras Porsches first and second, Blomqvist third and Rosenberger fourth. Three seconds separated first and second, then it was seven minutes back to Blomqvist and Rosenberger: the Austrian less than a minute off Stig. The front two were setting a super hot pace, but Safari is all about surviving the long haul.
Day two brought the first big change at the front. Chager ran well in the first two stages but failed to start the third of the day. This cost more than two hours in penalties and moved him out of the top ten. As team mate Onkar Rai took the lead, Rosenberger outpaced Stig: Nicola was learning to manage the notes and the pair closed the gap to the lead to under three minutes.
Huge rains in the mountains around Arusha in Tanzania lead to the cancellation of all stages on day three, but the cars got racing again the day after. Blomqvist came out with guns blazing, setting the fastest time on stage one. Onkar Rai responded, going quickest on two, but the day’s third stage again hurt the Kabras team and Rai suffered damage. He moved down to fifth overall and Rosenberger took over the lead with Blomqvist some thirty seconds behind. Kabras driver, Tejveer Rai, was now in third.
Day five is the mid-point of the rally and what’s known as ‘rest day’. Drivers get a chance to catch up on sleep, relax or go sightseeing while the crews prepare the cars for four more days of torture. In an extended six-hour service, every Tuthill car is stripped, checked and rebuilt ready for rally part two. This is made possible by a huge team effort, including a mobile parts base shipped from the UK and a devoted tyre station with two tyre guys managing the thirty-six tyres allotted to each car for the nine-day event.
The scale of Tuthill’s presence in Africa is akin to manufacturers on world championship events and many of the mechanics looking after these 911s in Kenya are ex-WRC, so operate efficiently under extreme pressure. The team has run as many as seventeen cars on previous editions and, given the sums clients are paying to complete the event successfully, there is a pressing commercial case for the highest possible level of technical support.
Compared to how solo competitors with simpler aspirations go rallying in Africa, the Wardington army may seem like overkill, but if you want to start ten cars, rally them flat out for nine days and thousands of kilometres in an environment as harsh as this and get them all across the finish line nine days later, it is difficult to overcook the support. The detailed campaign is a giant leap forward on how privateers used to go rallying back in the day, but what clients expect nowadays on tortuous, far-flung events.
Today was the penultimate day of the 2019 East African Safari Classic Rally and it was a typical day of Safari highs and lows, as seen in Richard’s latest video diary (below – see the full set on the Tuthill Porsche YouTube channel). From securing loose goats to losing a podium place within sight of the finish with an unfortunate landing, the rally is all about highs and lows, but that is why devotees love it so much.
As we wait for the final stages of day nine to begin, 6.8 seconds separate Blomqvist and Rosenberger at the front of the field. That exciting story is about to conclude, but this rally is packed with stories equally as thrilling right through the order. From those drivers who save for a lifetime to experience this event, to the people who help run and operate it, to the spectators who take so much energy from brief glimpses of rally cars once every two years, Safari Classic is an incredible spectacle.
Whatever happens tomorrow, I hope the organisers can continue to build upon the overhaul of their internal structures and entice more cars back to Kenya in 2021. This event and the spirit and heritage it honours merits huge respect and success: it is one of a kind and unique in the world.
Sitting on the sofa after the Sunday night dog walk, flicking through the TV channels to pass a few minutes before some antiques programme got started (saddos r us), I chanced across the highlights from the Formula E racing at Riyadh in Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia has put an estimated $260 million into a ten-year deal to host the Formula E season opener: part of developing an improved cultural infrastructure and staking out a green future as it diversifies from oil. Watching the event, I can’t say that I was struck by the wedge. A quick search revealed that, despite investments of almost $150 million last year, the series reported a $29 million loss for its fourth season, bringing Formula E’s total losses up to circa $160 million. Wow.
Andre Lotterer on the podium for Porsche
Two races were held in Riyadh at the weekend. Porsche driver, Andre Lotterer, came second in the first race, but was penalised in the second race for overtaking a damaged car just as the race went to safety car. He was classified fourteenth overall in race two, with team mate, Neel Jani, finishing just in front of him.
Royadh (or Diriyah) circuit was a bit better than some of the Formula E tracks I’ve seen. The surface was dusty and the layout was tight in places, but that made for some interesting moves. I’ve not found Formula E particularly entertaining to watch in the past but, as I’m keen to see how Porsche measures up, I’ll follow the series for a few races more and see how my views develop.
Watching any sort of racing always gets the blood up a bit and Formula E is a roll call of star drivers, but the more obvious names don’t always finish up front. Watching drivers that I’ve never seen before taking on names I know well from other series is interesting, even if the combination of unfamiliar liveries and squirty tracks with choppy TV edits makes some of the action a bit tricky to follow. That should get easier.
Former McLaren F1 driver, Stoffel Vandoorne, had a good weekend in Saudi, finishing on the podium for Mercedes in both races after taking a surprise lead. “This is the most competitive series I have ever raced in,” Stoffel said. “One can enjoy pure racing here, as opposed to Grand Prix racing, which is a bit of a fake world in which everyone gets along well but above all has their own interests to defend.”
I hear what Stoffel is saying but Formula E looks plenty fake to me in places: fountains of money tend to have that effect. A friend has just moved from endurance racing into Formula E and she is not enjoying the culture that much. “I work between two silent accountants and a group of engineers, all of whom spend their time creating ways to spend truckloads of money. It’s bollocks.”
Sebastian Vettel has also spoken about being nonplussed by the series and claims many Formula E drivers are just in it for the money. “To me, this is not the future,” the four-time F1 world champion told a Swiss newspaper, as reported by WTF1.
“E-mobility is currently very popular in the world, but anyone who is honest and identifies with motor racing does not think much of Formula E. The cars are not very fast and many drivers who drive there tell me that the driving is not very exciting.”
I thought the racing in Riyadh was a bit more exciting than previously, but maybe I was talking myself into that because Porsche had entered a team. My mind is not made up as yet; I need to watch more of it.
I will either get over the soundtrack or it will put me off forever. Whirring motors and cars ramping over temporary kerbs sounds like an indoor electric kart track, but without the funs of watching karts in full drift around every corner. If the racing is actually good, then I guess it works out, but I’m still not sure it’s my cup of tea. That does not surprise me too much, as the series is still pretty new and everyone knows about new things for fifty year-olds. You probably know Douglas Adams’ rules on our reactions to technologies:
Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.
Formula E winds me up a bit on many levels: the money that manufacturers are throwing at the series instead of designing better road cars (Jaguar has thrown something like $40 million at it to date), the short races, the lack of outright speed and the small city tracks and convoluted add-ons. Extrapolating that bandwagon to the industry as a whole, the marketing surrounding electric mobility seems to vastly outweigh the amount of affordable technology: where are the electric superminis that do a week on a charge and cost £10k to buy? I’m ready to buy one of those right now – I’m sure most of us are.
As for the racing: well, my kind of racing pits head-to-head speed and reliability over races taking anything from two hundred miles to twenty-four hours and I don’t know that Formula E will ever match either of those things.
Maybe that is good for the planet, and I am all for that, but we are allowed to lament the slide that manufacturer defection will inevitably weigh on what older generations will come to call “proper” motorsport. People say that shorter races make the racing harder, so maybe I just need a shorter attention span. Maybe if this is all there will eventually be, we should either get used to it, stop watching racing or get into some kind of ball game.
I am fully aware that this may come across as some some old bloke moaning, but I did enjoy some of it: it’s just nothing like as good as what I usually watch! We will see how the season pans out.
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There are some big family birthdays this month. My eldest sister turns fifty tomorrow and youngest daughter is fifteen in a fortnight. Between the two is a big birthday for Norbert Singer, the most celebrated race engineer in Porsche history.
It’s no coincidence that Singer is a name now known for a certain type of 911s. Singer founder, Rob Dickinson, is one of the many Norbert Singer superfans. Recordings of my first interview with Rob where he talks about the genesis of his company feature a geekish delight in the fact that Rob was both a successful singer and a disciple of Singer the designer.
Big ideas in Bohemia
On November 16, 1939, Norbert Singer was born in Eger in the Sudetenland, one year after Hitler had reclaimed the disputed region split from Germany as part of the creation of Czechoslovakia in the Treaty of Versailles.
Having annexed neighbouring Austria in March 1938, Hitler called for a plebiscite across the Sudeten Mountains of northern Czechoslovakia, to allow the millions of German-speaking Sudeten Germans who had been “trapped” by the creation of Czechoslovakia to decide their own fate, threatening invasion if the request was ignored and building a force of some 750,000 soldiers along the Czech border.
To avoid war, England and France acquiesced to the demands as part of the appeasement set out in the Munich Agreement and convinced the Czech government to cede the territory. Hitler sent the Wehrmacht into the Sudetenland the day after the agreement was signed, on October 1st, 1938. Six months later, he invaded the rest of the country.
German expansionism (known as Lebensraum or ‘space to live’) was the climate that welcomed young Singer in November 1939. Eger (now Cheb in the Czech Republic) was again part of Germany and feeling good about life: it was time to think big and plan for the future.
Norbert was all about the future: he grew up fascinated with space travel and dreamed of a career as a rocket engineer. He watched a lot of racing through his university years studying aerospace and automotive engineering in Munich and saw Jim Clark race at the Monaco Grand Prix. A professor convinced him on the idea that “rocket engineering is for Americans: in Germany we are all about cars”.
No letter from Porsche
Singer learned that Porsche was looking for engineers, but his father was not convinced that the small sports car firm would be Norbert’s best option. Other small firms were all going under: what hope could Porsche have of being any different? Singer’s fascination almost came to nothing as, after interviewing with Porsche, he heard no more until a phone call in early March 1970, asking why he hadn’t turned up for his first day at work. Stuttgart had neglected to send the letter confirming his appointment.
He turned up for his second day and was immediately set to work on simplifying the 917’s fuel system, under the leadership of Ferdinand Piëch. After that it was gearbox cooling, then aerodynamics. The 917 won its first Le Mans later that year and Singer began to build a reputation. His work on the 911 RSR took the car to victory, as it did with the RSR Turbo, the 935 and the famous 936. But it was the 956 that really put Norbert on the map.
Following the introduction of the Group C regulations in 1982, Singer proved his tremendous ability as an aerodynamicist, providing Porsche’s new Group C car with exceptional ground effect. The car’s winning sure-footedness came from a special underbody design with air ducts and the legendary “Singer dent”, but Norbert notes that success was not guaranteed.
Norbert Singer: “You can trip up over your own feet”
“I was cautious going into the race,” recalls the chief engineer. “The 956 was a completely new car. You can’t go into every race saying, Hurray, we’re going for the win! You have to see how things go – getting through 24 hours is no easy task. This win was perfect and actually somewhat surprising. We had taken our job very seriously. A few years before that we had made a mistake.
“In 1979, Ernst Fuhrmann was still with Porsche and he said to us engineers, ‘What do you say if we drive Le Mans this year? There’s practically no competition.’ Basically, we just had to show up and walk off with the victory. And what happened? We didn’t reach the finish line with either car – we lost even without competition. You can trip over your own feet as well. Having experienced that, I really enjoyed the win in 1982. The 956 went straight into the museum. It’s the car that hangs from the ceiling.”
The 956 and its successor, the 962C, won five driver titles, three manufacturer titles and two team world championships between 1982 and 1986, also clocking up seven overall victories at Le Mans. From 1970 to 1998, Singer played significant roles in all of Porsche’s race wins at Le Mans with the 917, 935, 936, 965, 962C, WSC Spyder and 911 GT1 98.
Until his retirement in 2004, Norbert Singer was the project manager for most of Porsche’s racing cars. After leaving Porsche, he continued to consult with customer race teams, also serving as an advisor to ACO: the Le Mans race organisers. Singer’s knowledge of Porsche racing history has also proved invaluable to the factory when restoring original race cars, such as 917 chassis number 001 or 965 number 005.
Porsche says that Singer has been lecturing at Esslingen University since 2006 and continues to do so. Whatever he is up to these days, his place at the top table of Porsche history is without question and it is a delight to see him reach the grand age of eighty. Happy birthday Norbert!
“I suppose the German side wants to keep everything in control, and the Irish side wants to wreak havoc,” claims Michael Fassbender. I’m not so sure about that. When I am with Germans, I’m generally the one keeping things under control, while the rest run amok. I guess it depends on the Germans you know.
Weg mit ihren Köpfen
The Irish missionary Kilian went to Germany in 689 AD. It was a big mistake. When Kilian suggested that a local lady was not the most suitable bride for a newly-baptised duke, on the basis that she had once been married to the duke’s now-dead brother, the Germans chopped off Kilian’s head, and those of both his companions.
But times have changed. When Fassbender smashes his GT3 Cup nose-first into the Hockenheim pit wall right in front of the Porsche crew, they run through what went wrong and roll out a spare car. A few weeks later, he has another sizeable accident and another spare car is wheeled out. German-Irish relations have definitely evolved.
Anyway, this story is all about an actor en route to Le Mans. Yes, that old chestnut is back, except this time it is rather more interesting (for us Irish, at least). After a two-year learning curve racing Ferraris, Michael Fassbender is training with Porsche for a shot at the 24-Heures. His teacher, Felipe Fernandez Laser, is a VLN winner with Frikadelli Racing and should be capable of helping a decent amateur find their way up to the level of a quick GTE-AM driver.
So far, Fassbender appears to show decent potential. A ninth place finish in a Porsche Sports Cup race is no mean feat for a rookie and there are flashes of speed all the way through Porsche’s latest Youtube series, following Fassbender’s Road to Le Mans. The biggest test will be whether he can put it all together, but this is man knows what it’s like to do 10,000 hours.
Heidelberg to Aghadoe
Fassbender arrived into the world just 100 kms north of Stuttgart in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemburg on April 2, 1977. His German father, Josef, was a chef and his Irish mother, Adele, raised the kids. The pair had met while working in London but ended up moving to Germany. Adamant that the Republic would be a better environment for their kids to grow up in, Adele convinced Josef to move the family to Ireland. So, when Michael was two, they settled just outside Killarney, in County Kerry.
Killarney was rally central in the 1980s, so young Michael got into Group B. Then followed the age of Michael Schumacher and, as a young German who spoke the mother tongue fluently, Fassy followed Schumi: he’s often now found on F1 grids with Crazy Liam Cunningham and the pair met Schumi at one such weekend.
The youngster struggled to find some direction until he discovered drama in school. He immersed himself in acting and staged Tarantino’s ‘Reservoir Dogs’ over two nights for the craic. He eventually moved to London to study the craft. Things were tough in the smoke and Fassbender was living on a few quid a week, working two minimum wage jobs and battling exhaustion to do as many auditions as possible. It all took its toll and Michael quit drama school to go it alone. It would not be the smoothest path to success.
When he quit his bar job after landing a part in Steven Spielberg’s ‘Band of Brothers’, the boss advised him to keep in touch, as the work might come in handy again. Fassbender laughed it off, feeling he had hit the big time, but, after a spell in LA trying to crack Hollywood, he ended up back in the bar.
Bit parts on British TV followed, leading to more and more screen time and the emergence of a fan base amongst critics. Eventually, things took off: he delivered an exceptional performance as IRA hunger striker, Bobby Sands, in the film Hunger and then Tarantino came back into his life, casting the German speaker as a British spy in Inglourious Basterds.
While the actor-turned-racer premise may initially feel like Fassbender is buying his way into racing and walking in footsteps we’ve all seen before (not that there’s owt wrong with that), there is more to this story than the same old thing and Porsche has scored big with Youtube viewers. Part 1 alone has 700k views and Porsche’s channel has 800k subscribers, so that should tell you all about the reach of this.
I am also a fan of the documentary: the way this is shot is just perfect. Fassbender is given the full expression of his Irish upbringing with no bleeps or edits and we see things exactly as his driver coach sees them. “I’m so bummed about the fuckin’ smash there behind the safety car,” is Fassbender’s first line in part 1. It’s hard to resist parts two and three after that.
Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support the blog or engage with me in other ways, you can:
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