The rise of the Porsche 911 Carrera RSR Turbo

1974 Porsche 911 Carrera RSR Turbo 2.1 (chassis #911 460 9101) photographed at the Porsche Museum, Stuttgart, Germany, May 2019

The year 1974 will be remembered for many different reasons, depending on where you were living in the world at the time and what caught your eye. For instance, Richard Nixon became the first US president forced to resign, following the Watergate Scandal in August that year. George Foreman and Muhammad Ali faced each other for the highly anticipated ‘rumble in the jungle.’ Eric Clapton hit the charts with his I Shot The Sheriff, while Paul McCartney and Wings recorded Band On the Run. It was also the year that pocket calculators started to appear in the shops, so if you can recall where you were when some of these events above occurred, then our feature will have a ring of familiarity to it.

1974 Porsche 911 Carrera RSR Turbo 2.1 (chassis #911 460 9101) photographed at the Porsche Museum, Stuttgart, Germany, May 2019

The background to Porsche’s turbo power

As it happened, in ‘73 a select group of engineers were also working hard, deep within the workshops of Porsche Motorsport in Weissach on a new secret weapon, to be introduced to the world in 1974.
The turbocharged Porsche 917/30 had totally dominated the Can-Am series by winning six of the eight rounds (the other two rounds being won by the turbocharged Porsche 917/10s) in 1973. That same year, the Porsche 917/10 had also won the European Interserie. With such a vast amount of turbocharging experience in motorsport across the world, Porsche logically sought to apply this knowledge to the 911.