The Competitors That Tried To Outdo the Porsche 917

‘It feels like a bathtub with a bomb stuck to the back of it!’ Those were the words of a shocked F1 driver, Mark Webber, after a turn at the wheel of the Porsche 917 racecar. It’s an extreme description but apt for one of the most fearsome machines ever to grace a race circuit.

Porsche 917 © Motor Authority

The 917 was a beast of a different breed, an automotive monster built with an uncompromising focus on extreme performance, even at the expense of safety features. Its 12-cylinder engine was a sonic boom on wheels, capable of producing upwards of 600 horsepower (in the initial variants), a very healthy high-performance output in the ’60s and ’70s. The car’s slippery aerodynamics enabled it to slice through the air with minimum drag. The Porsche 917 could hit speeds well north of 200 mph, but its handling was unpredictable, particularly at high speeds. It was a machine that demanded respect and often tested the limits of its drivers.