1968 Porsche 909 “Bergspyder” Pilot: Gerhard Mitter Team: Porsche KG Race: DNR (“Two-seaters” class) at the Gaisberg Hill Climb in 1968 Norev (Provence Moulage) - PM0068 (resin)
Review HERE
REVIEW – 1968 Porsche 909 “Bergspyder” #95
Category: Racing
Meet Juliet, the Herbie 911
On Friday Petrolicious aired a fantastic story about a 911 GT3 sporting a Herbie, The Love Bug livery. And even cooler, not just the paint scheme, but with various bodywork details to make a 911 look similar to a vintage VW bug. And as the cherry on top of the cake, the car actually raced at Spa!
I’m REALLY wanting to see this in 1:43… 😍
Mercedes-Benz Classic workshop
Mercedes has a HUGE (and fantastic!) museum at Stuttgart. The museum counts with around 1100 cars, and for a gearhead it’s basically paradise. And to maintain all those cars, they have a team of highly specialized technicians and mechanics exclusively dedicated to the museum’s cars. Last Tuesday Petrolicious aired a very nice article about the museum’s workshop.
Interestingly though, the director of Mercedes-Benz Classic recounted the story about why the paint was scraped off the W25 to get the car at the maximum 750 kg limit. However, that’s a confirmed fairy tale made up by Alfred Neubauer in his autobiography. Nothing against a little embellishing of an historical event, but I would expect that the head of such an endeavor as the Mercedes-Benz Classic department would be more factual.
Fairy tales aside, Petrolicious’ article (full of photos!!) is a treat.
Is Porsche thinking on getting back to prototype racing? At Le Mans?
According to Motorsport.com, that might be a possibility. If so, Porsche is considering the new LMDh class, that supposedly should start in 2021. Nobody knows much about this new class, but basically it will allow the same car to compete both in WEC and IMSA races. Everything is on hold right now because of the pandemic, but if Porsche is actually thinking about it, maybe there’s hope for the future of endurance racing.
Le Mans 2020 postponed
What can I say? This was a given 😷. According to WEC’s website the race will occur on September 19th and 20th. I think it’s pretty logical to assume that by June the COVID-19 epidemic will be dying down, but it will take longer for the world to get back to normal again. So September is probably a safe bet.
Group B pushed it too far
All motorsports enthusiasts (like yours truly) moan that regulatory bodies are always castrating the sport. And if it wasn’t for racing bodies, motorsports would be more fun 🙄. Well, once (just once) FIA said what the hey and essentially pulled all the stops. That’s basically how Group B came to be, and tragically, it was too much.
The video above succinctly explains what happened.
1965 FIA World Manufacturers’ GT Championship
An interesting look on how the Daytona Coupe, in the hands of Bob Bondurant, won the World Manufacturers’ GT Championship in 1965. Until seeing this I wasn’t aware of the all the team drama that happened that year.
Hypercar class in jeopardy
Earlier this week we heard that Aston Martin is pulling out of the new Hypercar class, and therefore the Valkyrie project was put on hold (canceled?). So far only Toyota has what looks to be a “working project”, but nothing yet from McLaren, Peugeot or Glickenhause. Well, the later, on Tweeter, said they do have something in the oven. We’re almost in March now, and Le Mans is in June, so with all that (lack of) news I’m worried.
Jalopnik has a much better story on this. And unfortunately, it’s a troublesome read.
Pikes Peak: the last of the totally bonkers races?
Honestly, I’m amazed it still hasn’t been banned yet. No guardrails, no braking markers, not many turn indicators, nothing. And of course, to the side of the road there’s a precipice. If that isn’t enough, take into consideration that cars manage all that at around 220 km/h. Oh, and close to the top, the air becomes a LOT thinner, so in theory you should take an oxygen bottle.
Bonkers, to say the least 😲.
Books – Enzo Ferrari
I’m half way through this book, and I can’t recommend it more. Very nicely written, with tons of info specially about the back-stages of what happened in Maranello. I always knew Enzo Ferrari was kind of an a-hole, but in reality, the man was a grade A+ summa com laude a-hole. Still, the best thing about the book in my opinion is to see how absolutely brutal GP and F1 racing was back then.
Even if you are not a ferrarista, this is a very interesting read for the gearhead and race fan in general.