This video is full focused on a beautiful Porsche 917K I recorded racing at various Peter Auto’s events during the last few years, fielded in the Classic Endurance Racing (CER) championship. The car is chassis 917-008 and it’s considered to be the very first 917 with the ‘K’ designation (K stays for Kurzheck, which means “short-tail”). This exact chassis started its life as one of the first 25 completed cars to be homologated in 1969, all featuring a long-tail (Langheck) body, and it was only raced at the 1969 24h of Le Mans, together with other two 917s. Behind the wheel of 917-008 (painted white with a blue nose and featuring number 12) were Vic Elford and Richard Attwood, who managed to led the race for 18 hours but later forced to retire due to a gearbox/clutch failure.
After Le Mans, 917-008 was returned to the factory and subjected to Porsche’s long distance tests that checked the durability of major components. At the beginning of 1970, the first short-tail body’s test was held using chassis 008, which later did an endurance test of the new front axle plus other long-distance tests ahead of the 1970 Le Mans race. During 1970, 917-008 was only raced at the Nürburgring and in 1971 served as a spare chassis for the Gulf Racing team. At the end of the season it was dismantled.
It was later bought and rebuilt by Freisinger. The car than changed hands a few times but it remained static in the various collections until in 2018 its current new owner decided to give it a new racing life, fielding it in various historic weekends by Peter Auto. Watch it in action around Imola, Monza and Circuit Paul Ricard and listen to the iconic flat-12 naturally-aspirated engine!
