Porsche 908

Porsche
Porsche 908/3 Spyder
908
Production period:	1968-1971
Class :	race car
Body versions :	Coupé , Spyder
Engines:	Petrol engines : 2.1–3.0 liters (257–396 kW)
Length:	3540-4839 mm
Width:	1830-1950 mm
Height:	680-938 mm
Wheelbase :	2300 mm
Empty weight :	545-650 kg
Previous model	Porsche 907
successor	Porsche 936

The Porsche 908 was a racing car or sports prototype of Group 6 in accordance with Appendix J of the Motorsport Act, which Porsche designed for the Sports Car World Championship in 1968 . It was used in various versions at the beginning of the 1980s.

development

After the Ford GT40 Mk IV with a seven-liter V8 engine exceeded the old lap record at Le Mans in 1967, it transpired that the FIA rules were to be changed as early as 1968 and the displacement of the prototypes was to be limited to 3000 cc, as in the Formula 1 since 1966. This wasn't officially announced until October, but Porsche had already prepared by then. As a result of the rule change, the successful large-volume prototypes from Ford, Ferrari, Chaparral etc. had become museum-ready within Europe and only the CanAm series remained in North America as a field of activity. The cards for the World Championship and Le Mans were reshuffled, and expectations from and on Porsche were high.

The previous eight-cylinder in the Porsche 907 , which was based on the 1500 cc F1 unit of the Porsche 804 from 1962, could only be increased to 2200 cc, developed 198 kW (270 hp) and was partially unreliable. Although Porsche had not yet had any direct experience with such large engines, the decision was made to design a new eight-cylinder based on six-cylinder parts that fully exploited the three-liter limit. The air-cooled boxer naturally aspirated engine with 8 cylinders developed 257 kW (350 hp) at a speed of 8400 rpm, later up to 271 kW (370 hp).

Plastic was used as the body material over an aluminum tubular space frame, with various designs being developed over time - open Spyder or coupé with short or long tail.

Racing history

1968

The 908 was first used in Monza in April 1968. Although it was fast, it suffered from some “teething problems”, as did the prototypes of the competition, the Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 or the Ford P68 with the F1 Cosworth engine. In 1968 Ferrari completely stopped in protest against the short-term rule change and only occasionally launched the newly developed Ferrari 312P based on the F1 with V12 engine in 1969 .

The proven Porsche 907 were still more successful than the new design. Although Jo Siffert / Vic Elford won the 1000 km race at the Nürburgring in the debut of the 908 (44 laps = 1003.64 km in 6: 34: 06.3 hours), this was the only important victory of the 908 in the year 1968 remained, apart from the best time in training and a double victory in Zeltweg , which raised hopes.

The season highlight at Le Mans, which usually takes place in mid-June, had to be postponed by a quarter of a year in 1968 due to political unrest in France and did not take place until the end of the season at the end of September. However, Porsche was unable to use this additional time successfully. The four 908s were the fastest in Le Mans in training and in the race for the first time, but the cars had problems with the alternator during the race, and the team with the rule interpretation for repairs (impermissible replacement of complete assemblies instead of defective parts). Only a 908 (Neerpasch / Stommelen) came through and came third, behind a 907 long tail (Steinemann / Spoerry). Again a large-volume Ford GT40 Mk.I from the Gulf team won.

At this point in time it was already clear that Porsche wanted to flee forwards and would mess up instead of messing around: in response to the Ford GT40, a 5-liter sports car was to be produced in 25 units, because the minimum number was for 1969 compared to 50 in the previous year been halved. In addition, Ferrari is expected to take such a step in 1969, since the 330P and 412P with large-volume V12s were already in use until 1967 , and the Ferrari Dino 206S had been produced in small series.

1969

Porsche 908 Coupé long tail with moveable rear wing

The 1969 season began for Porsche with a debacle at the Daytona 24-hour race . After the triple victory of the 907 in the previous year, all five 908 L were out of action , a Porsche 911 saved the company's honor with 4th place in front of many sports cars and large-volume US touring cars . Two Lola T70s , for which the five-liter sports car exception rule was actually intended, were able to win.

At Sebring , the 908 was relegated to third place by a Ford GT40 and the new Ferrari 312P prototype. But at that time the big brother was already being introduced: The Porsche 917 shocked the competition at the exhibition stand in Geneva by its very existence. The company, which had only built “harmless” small sports cars with a maximum of 2000 cm³ for two decades, rushed to the top with the new development of an initially 4.5 liter V12.

Meanwhile, the three-liter 908 dominated the racetracks, winning at Brands Hatch , Monza , the Targa Florio , Spa-Francorchamps and the 1000 km race at the Nürburgring , the latter even with a five-fold victory. The Ford GT 40s were almost out of date for normal racetracks, the three-liter V8 Cosworth, which had been tried and tested in F1, for example in the Ford P68, were unreliable on long journeys due to vibrations, and the fast, but predominantly individual Ferrari 312P was mostly subject to the many Porsche 908s.

The 1969 sports car world championship was won early, against Ferrari and Ford. The title had been wrested from Ferrari, the former subscription winner, in 1964, but under different conditions.

What was still missing was victory in the most important of all endurance races , the Le Mans 24-hour race . That was supposed to be secured by the more powerful Porsche 917 , which, however, had disappointing appearances in Spa and two weeks earlier on the Nordschleife of the Nürburgring. The new car turned out to be almost impossible to drive, the factory drivers refused to drive the twelve-cylinder and preferred the 908, with success. At Le Mans, the 917 were the fastest ahead of the 908, but after 20 hours in the lead no one was in the front. Only Hans Herrmann's Porsche 908 , which had already undergone a lengthy repair, was still promising in the race, against two of the old Ford GT40s and two Matra MS650s . In an extremely exciting final, Jacky Ickx prevailed with only 120 m ahead of the German, who was hampered by brake wear.

A subsequent triple victory of the 908 in Watkins Glen and the long-awaited debut victory of the 917 in Zeltweg were little consolation.

1970/71

For slower routes such as the Targa Florio and Nürburgring , where the 917 (and its competitor Ferrari 512 S ) was less suitable, the compact and agile Spy version 908/3 was developed in 1970 and 1971 to supplement or replace the 917 and was largely victorious used. The Porsche 909 Bergspyder served as the basis .

In a Porsche 908/02 was the actor Steve McQueen in the 12-hour race at Sebring in 1970 with Pete Revson second behind the Ferrari 512 of Mario Andretti / Ignazio Giunti / Nino Vaccarella . The same Spyder was used in Le Mans as the camera vehicle for his Le Mans film during the race , although McQueen was not allowed to drive himself (and also not as planned on his 917 together with Jackie Stewart ) because his insurance found the risk too high. The car even crossed the finish line, but was slowed down by the weight of the cameras and slowed down too much by changing films to cover the minimum distance required for an evaluation. Rudi Lins / Helmut Marko's Porsche 908 came third in the 1970 24 Hours behind Herrmann / Attwood and Larrousse / Kauhsen (both Porsche 917).

1972 to 1982

After 1971, only three-liter prototypes were allowed; the special rule for five-liter sports cars was no longer applicable. Ferrari had already concentrated in 1971 on the development of the Ferrari 312PB based on the F1 with a flat V12 "boxer" engine. Also Alfa Romeo and Matra had powerful three-liter engines and Porsche with the air-cooled two-valve. The previous advantage of Porsche, the lower weight, on the other hand, was eliminated by the FIA regulations , which stipulated a minimum of 650 kg. That was 100 kg more than possible with the Porsche 908/03. As a result, from 1972 onwards, Porsche refrained from further works outings in the sports car world championship in favor of other activities; the 908 still in existence and only used in 4 races were sold.

A private 1969 Porsche 908 Coupé from the inventory of Jo Siffert was used by Reinhold Joest in 1972 in Le Mans, where the third place was achieved. Customers continued to drive various 908s in endurance races such as the 1000 km race on the Nürburgring .

Jürgen Barth in the 908/3 Turbo 1980 on the Nürburgring

After Porsche had turned the performance disadvantage in the three-liter class into an advantage through the development of modern turbo engines and implemented this successfully in the Porsche 936 from 1976 , 908 owners also replaced the outdated eight-cylinder vacuum cleaners with turbos with 2140 cm³ according to the handicap factor 1.4. This increased the power output from 370 to 450 hp to well over 500 hp. In 1980 Rolf Stommelen / Jürgen Barth won the 1000 km race on the Nürburgring (1004.52 km) in 5: 52: 15.1 hours with a modified 908/3 from Reinhold Joest and Liqui Moly Equipe .

The car, which Joest and Jacky Ickx piloted to second place in Le Mans in 1980, but was called the Porsche 908/80 Turbo , was actually a disguised Porsche 936 built from factory spare parts . From 1982 the new rules of group C came into effect, in which the engines were largely free. In addition, the aerodynamics had made great advances, so that the 908 were now finally considered obsolete, despite respectful successes against the untried new cars.

Today, some 908 are still used in racing series of historic vehicles such as Classic Endurance Racing .

The results from 1968 to 1982

1968

1969

1970

1971

1972

1973

1974

1975

1976

1977

1978

1979

1980

1981

1982

Technical specifications

The Porsche 908 was produced and used by the factory from 1968 to 1971 in the following versions:

Porsche 908/2 Spyder - 1969

Porsche 908/02 Spyder "Flounder" - 1969

Porsche 908/03 Spyder - 1970

Porsche 908/03 Spyder - 1973

Porsche 908:	908 coupe	908/02 Spyder	908/03 Spyder (1970/71)	908/03 Spyder Turbo (1975–1982)
Engine:	8-cylinder boxer engine (four-stroke)			6-cylinder boxer engine with turbocharging
Displacement:	2997 cc			2142 cc
Bore × stroke:	85 × 66 mm			83 × 66 mm
Performance at 1 / min:	257 kW (350 hp) at 8400			up to 396 kW (540 hp) at 8000
Max. Torque at 1 / min:	325 Nm at 6600			460 Nm at 5500
Compression:	10.4: 1			6.5: 1
Valve control:	two overhead camshafts per cylinder bank with chain drive
Cooling:	Air cooling (fan)
Transmission:	5-speed gearbox, limited slip differential
Front suspension:	Wishbones with longitudinal tension struts
Rear suspension:	Wishbones with longitudinal thrust struts
Front suspension:	Progressive acting coil springs, combined with double acting telescopic shock absorbers
Rear suspension:	Progressive acting coil springs, combined with double acting telescopic shock absorbers
Body:	Aluminum space frame with plastic body
Track width front / rear:	1486/1454 mm		1542/1564 mm	1542/1506 mm
Wheelbase :	2300 mm
Tires rim:
Dimensions L × W × H:	4839 × 1830 × 938 mm (long-tail coupé)		3540 × 1950 × 680 mm
Empty weight :	650 kg		545 kg
Top speed:	320 km / h	290 km / h		330 km / h

literature

• Födisch, Jörg-Thomas, Jost Neßhöver, Dieter Roßbach: Porsche 908: serial winner, specialist and endurance runner. Heel Verlag, Königswinter 2007, ISBN 3-89880-837-8 .
• Schneider, Peter: Type compass Porsche: Racing and racing sports cars since 1948. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-613-02300-8 .
• Zwart, Jeffrey R., Tim Meraz: Porsche Rennsport. Heel Verlag, Königswinter 2007, ISBN 3-89880-836-X .

Web links

Commons : Porsche 908  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Porsche 908 Coupé on Porsche.com ( Memento from March 23, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
• Porsche 908.03 Spyder on Porsche.com ( Memento from May 10, 2009 in the Internet Archive )