White Porsche leading the race
Is that a 917? It has a rear wing while the Gulf 917 do not.
shareThe white Porsche #25 is a 917. It is a 917LH, LH standing for "Langheck", or "long tail".
The Gulf Porsches are 917K models. The K short for "Kurz"; short-tail.
The white car not only had better aerodynamics because of the long-tail, but it also had a larger engine (a 4.9-liter, I believe) than the short-tailed 917's (which carried a 4.5-liter flat-12).
shareI believe that in Ian Bamsey's book "Porsche 917: The Ultimate Weapon" he states that ALL 917s entered in the 1970 Le Mans 24 hour race were powered by 4.5 liter 12s.
"Sometimes the design IS the statement"
-Ridley Scott
Not quite, the winning car driven by Richard Attwood and Hans Hermann had the older 4.5 litre engine, but many of the other 917s in the race had the newest 4.9 litre version of the flat 12. Attwood initially thought he had made a big mistake choosing the older engine for the 1970 race as it was quite a bit slower than the 4.9s, but as is often the case at Le Mans it isn't always the fastest car that wins and the slower 4.5 litre car outlasted the 4.9s to win.
shareI stand corrected, upon further review I now read that even JWA had 2 of it's 3 Gulf entries fitted with 4.9s.
Thank You
"Sometimes the design IS the statement"
-Ridley Scott
Mr. Elford was the first person to complete a lap at the circuit averaging over 150mph. There is more on his site: http://www.vicelford.com/bio.html
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