Beschreibung:

For all enthusiasts the rarity of works team Porsches endows them with a very special extra cachet. We understand that this particular Porsche 910 Coupe began life as a factory team car fitted with the fabulous 2.2-liter 8-cylinder air-cooled engine, before the present 2-liter 6-cylinder unit was installed for customer sale. After its deployment as a flat-8 factory team car in 1967 it was converted into open-cockpit Spyder configuration, in which form it survived in service for many years before being returned to present Coupe form at great expense in the 1980s. Amongst all the works-cum-customer model competition Porsches, the Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen factory's superb Typ 910 of 1967-68 is perhaps the design most fondly remembered by all its past works drivers and private entrants. This splendid example of the type – presented here fitted with the same 1991cc, 220bhp flat-six engine with which it was fitted ex-works in the late 1960s - is in fact a former factory team car campaigned when new by Porsche System Engineering's highly regarded and effective number one driver of the period, Gerhard Mitter. A Porsche company letter dated January 9, 1978, dictated by factory racing specialist Jurgen Barth, is included in the documentation file accompanying this Lot. It states: "...that the 910 026 was driven by Mitter/Bianchi on the 1,000Km-race of Nürburgring, 1967". Gerhard Mitter and Lucien Bianchi drove this Works Porsche 910 to lead until the very last lap of that classic World Championship-qualifying road race on the world's most famous and challenging circuit, the 14.2-mile Nürburgring Nordschleife. But on the last race lap their 2.2-liter flat-8 engined car was sidelined by the battery running flat due to previous alternator failure; this after having led for many miles and looking poised for an historic victory upon Porsche's home ground. As the car faltered, so it was passed by three of its team-mates, the Nürburgring 1,000Km classic running out with four of these works Porsche 910s finishing first, second, third and fourth. The winning 6-cylinder 2-litre car's co-drivers were the giant German Udo Schutz/New Yorker GI Joe Buzzetta, besting the second place pairing of Australian Paul Hawkins/Gerhard Koch, with Jochen Neerpasch/British rally star Vic Elford in third, all competing in similarly-configured 910s. The influential British journal 'Autosport' reported: "Gerhard Mitter seemed to be unassailable in the 8-cylinder car, but on the very last lap the battery failed and the car came to a halt just before the Wippermann (corners), having stopped initially at The Karussel. It would seem likely that this trouble stemmed from the fact that to pass the many slower cars on the circuit the leader needed his headlights on for most of the race. The hardest luck of all fell to Lucien Bianchi. He had left Indianapolis to run in the race, having been assured that his practice lap times for the '500' would qualify him. Jackie Stewart, Graham Hill and Jochen Rindt had then borrowed other faster cars, and Bianchi found himself ousted from the '500' grid by a fraction of a second. Then he lost the 1,000Kms on the last lap...". Nurburgring race winner Joe Buzzetta recalled: "The Porsche 910 was very different from a Carrera 6...a lot lighter and a lot more responsive – much more of a sports-racing type of car than the 906 was". Legendary driver/journalist Paul Frère – an authority upon the racing Porsches and their development – wrote: "The 906 has a pretty high cornering power, but when it goes, it does it very abruptly and is not an easy car to check. I expected the 910 to behave in the same way, if not even more sharply, due to its even wider Dunlop tires, but it was just the opposite. In fact the 910 is a very easy car to drive. It can be driven with real abandon, power sliding what is really a beautifully balanced and neutral steering car and keeping the tail under complete control by means of the precise and high-geared steering...".