1967 Porsche 907 LH #41 Pilots: H. Hermann, J. Siffert Team: Porsche System Engineering Race: 5th overall (1st in P 2.0) at Le Mans in 1967 Spark - S3458 (resin)
Published 12/03/21
In the early 1960’s, Porsche cranked out a new racecar almost every odd month. Obviously though, many of these “new” racecars were just evolutions or improvements of a previous project. The 907 was such a car: in essence, a 910 adapted specifically for Le Mans. The brainchild of Ferdinand Piech, the 907 combined the chassis and running gear of the 910 with a long tail body. The new body was purpose-built for endurance events, with the driver sitting on the right. That was the first Porsche with this configuration, to optimize weight distribution on clockwise race circuits. Though Weissach had at hand a more powerful boxer-8 engine, they opted to use a boxer-6. The Typ 901/21 was a boxer-6 with 1991 cm³, with SOHC and 12 valves. Smaller and less powerful than the Typ 771/1 boxer-8, however more reliable. At La Sarthe, reliability is almost as important as speed.
The 907 was ready for shakedown in early 1967. Porsche took it directly to La Sarthe, for the Le Mans test session on April 4. However, the car showed it had some issues, and Porsche had to address them before the race on June 11. At high speeds the body proved to be unstable, so the engineers modified the rear wing. Moreover, the gearbox was overheating, demanding cooling snorkels on the rear deck. Come race day, Porsche fielded two 907, 907 LH #41 (chassis #901-004) and #40 (chassis #901-003). Though car #40 had to abandon the race on lap 103, 907 LH #41 finished in fifth place (first in class). Overall, the 1967 race was quite good for Porsche. Their cars finished in 5-6-7-8, with two class and an Index of Performance victories (907 LH #41).
The 907 did not have a very long racing career, soon replaced by the 908. Chassis #907-004 here, for instance, only raced once at La Sarthe and once at Daytona. Nonetheless, the 907 achieved two class victories at Le Mans and overall victories at Daytona, Sebring and at the Targa Florio. In other words, a brief however overwhelmingly notorious career. I was fortunate to find 907 LH #41 for a great price, and now have both of the Le Mans class winners. In scale it’s just as good as my 907 LH #66, and the basic difference between them are the vertical fins on the 1968 car. Therefore, maybe not enticing to the casual collector to go after more than one. Yet, since they are class winners, they are most certainly interesting to the Le Mans basket case. Like me.