Page 21 - Against All The Others

024 David Bull
©2024 David Bull Publishing ©2024 David Bull Publishing ©2024 David Bull Publishing
CHAPTER 5
1968 Racing Season, Part ii
The stage was dressed. The cast of players set, costumes fitted, backdrops and scenery painted and propped. Actors had rehearsed dialogue and directors had choreographed all the moves. But then, days before the curtain rose for the first time on the theater production that was the 1968 World Sports Car Championship, the producers had changed the script. And that led one of the players to improvise.
“In ‘outlawing’ the 7.0-liter Fords and Chaparrals, the CSI decreed in late 1967 that ‘from 1968 onwards the World Sports Car Championship would be contested by 3-liter cars with a minimum weight of 650 kilogrammes, and homologated 5-liter cars with a minimum weight limit of 800 kilogrammes and of which at least 25 had been constructed,’ ” Richard von Frankenberg explained in his book, Porsche—Double World Champions—1900–1977. “There was no thought that a racing car manufacturer such as Ferrari or Porsche would make 25 racing cars of 5-liter capacity.”
Perhaps the CSI members could not see beyond such cars as the Ford GT40 and the Lola T70, which used production stock-block, pushrod V8 engines from Ford and Chevrolet, producing around 420 to 450hp. Or, believing they had solved the “speed” problem, they chose not to look.
“This whole scene was destined to change, though, when in the summer of 1968 Dr. Porsche gave his experimental department the go-ahead to develop and build in quantity a pure 5-liter racing car, which would produce a minimum of 500hp from the beginning. At the time it seemed to be a curious decision for Porsche to make, for at all times in the past the factory had concentrated on high
OPPOSITE: Vic Elford in 908 #2 leads teammates and fellow 908 privateers along the long runway straights on the Zeltweg airport circuit. Elford finished seventh. [PHOTO: MCKLEIN]
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1968 Racing SeaSon, PaRt ii
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