CanAm winner coming to Phillip Island
December 24, 2007 by Karl Peskett
The world’s most powerful circuit sports car, the Porsche 917/30 Spyder, is coming to Australia, to take part in the Shannon’s Phillip Island Classic historic race meet, from March 7-9, 2008.
Porsche is specially flying out the classic racer from its museum in Stuttgart. This particular car set a closed-circuit speed record in 1973 when it lapped the Talledega oval in Alabama at a speed of 355.85km/h.
And why wouldn’t it, with reportedly 1178kw in qualifying form, and over 820kw in reliable race trim. What’s even more staggering, is the 5.4-litre turbocharged motor was only air-cooled.
It would sprint from 0-100km/h in just 1.9 seconds, and set the 0-160km/h split in 3.9 seconds. Oh yes, top speed was in excess of 400km/h. No question, this baby was quick. Quicker than a Bugatti Veyron. It was so dominant in CanAm racing, in fact, that at the end of the 1973/4 race season, the rules were changed to exclude the 917/30 from participating.
The Porsche will join nearly 550 other classic race cars including early 1920s sports cars right up until the late 1980s. To find out more, visit the Victorian Historic Racing Register’s website by clicking here.
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Now thats cool….205 bhp / liter and a power to weight of
1.3 bhp / kg,thats impressive!
omg
they could do that in 1973………
astonishing
Rejoice! Your grandpa driving an antique from a museum is faster than you in a Nissan GT-R.
Terrifyingly awesome!
Only for the fearless and supremely skilled in those days.
Looks allright!
WATCH OUT!!! If it’s 1178kw, Toyota Paul will come along and saying it sux bacause a Toytota V6 dragster does better than that!!!
They built 6 but only raced 3…….wonder where the other 3 got to?
Now I wait for Toyota Paul to think Toyota is the best because he knows a servey that says his Toyotas are more reliable and his Toyota does 1342kw and this only does 1178kw.
BM, 2 in Germany, 3 in USA, and 1 in Sweden.
The 2 in USA and 1 in Sweden are privately owned and never raced.
Thanks MOMO……..WONDER WHAT THEIR WORTH??
The number 6 you see in the top picture is worth $2,250,000 back in 1991.
The car was originally white in color and sold to Alan Hamilton in Australia.
He then sold it back to Porsche, they painted it to Sunoco colours and put it in the Museum.
It should worth considerably more now.
Well its a shame we’ll never see anything that powerful racing ever again cos all the categories are slowing them down. But for good reason if they didnt slow them down then there would be a lot more deaths in motorsport.
This thing is going to be awesome. I’ve seen the list of some of the other cars that are going to be there that weekend, and I’m hanging out.
It’s not often that you get to see cars like this in the flesh, actually going for gold on the track.
I’ve heard that of the 500+ entrants, there are 80 odd international drivers coming to Phillip Island for the weekend too. Goes to show what a big event it’s going to be.
that is one nice looking racer , thats what we need to see some really nice cars like this :)
i saw this car on display at the 2008 Australian grand prix. it was on show alongside a veyron, Aston DBS and loads of other great cars. the two turbos are MASSIVE and you can see them poking out from the rear view. Great Car!!