My new project.........

[Mike]

Vic Elford would be my vote.

Great idea Philip, I'd even consider letting him drive for nothing!

Just to finish off on this theme, I've been thinking along these lines for some time now, in fact I was only chatting with a DDK'er from north of the
border just the other night when I admitted for the first time that the greatest pleasure for me would be to watch someone else drive the car.

To my way of thinking to stand on a pit wall and watch it go by at full chat would just be sensational, but the real dream scenario would be to sit
at a pavement cafe in Cerda or Campofelice di Roccella, sipping a Lemoncello and listening to it as it screams by with the noise from the open
megaphones reverberating around the Sicilian countryside..........driving it I'd miss all that atmosphere!

[squirdan]

personally I'd quietly and without fuss take it somewhere with massive run off like bedford autodrome or an airfield with a very good surface and do some laps and some top gear style sideways in safety for half a day...just so you can say youve driven it and pushed the envelope

then its transporter to Sicily and the pro driver

havent you pitched this yet to a TV company? its basically like a car version of Grand Designs. Remember the Mille Miglia programme with that annoying chef

high quality footage of some Targa Florio route driving would only add to the specialness of the car

one of your American friends might even pay for a helicopter film crew?? Imagine the car sat in a white garage with the footage projected onto a wall....

[haasad]

Mike , your car and its evolution has been ( and continues to be) a truly incredible work to watch evolve. I too totally understand your position regardings its near completion in my small way. I have a friend who owns some amazing water borne toys but who derives the most pleasure from seeing others drive and race them.

Do what you feel is right, its yours. But the Targa ......what an amazing idea

andy

[Mike]

One of the most difficult things to research has been about the application of the black paint to key areas. Normally of course
the shell of a 72 911 is all body colour, it was only the earlier cars that were black on the underside, in the underhood area
and engine bay.

I'd had it in my mind from the beginning of the project though that the 'werks' cars and the Martini team cars in particular were
predominately black on the undersides and insides with the team colour on top, but I had nothing to hand to show it. Even Neil
Bainbridge and Bruce at Sportwagen urged me to at least do the front slam panel body colour like the earlier cars but I was in
two minds.

Then came a breakthrough from a fellow RSR aficionado in the US who kindly sent me some pictures of one of the sister Martini
cars to the one I'm trying to recreate, and sure enough it showed an all black shell including the slam panel with the vin plate
on that black panel that shows this one to be 0020, the 73 Targa Florio team car that came 3rd.





Just as an aside, a couple of interesting things about that first picture are the brake cooling ducts and then the massive fuel
pumps either side of the tank on this particular car, thankfully not like the one I'm doing. Also look at the where the screen
washer bottle has gone in, as the underside of the shell has the modification behind the oil cooler, there's no room for the
bottle to sit straight, so what did they do, just bend up the slam panel and wedge the bottle in!

[Mike]

But the door shuts, inner sills and backs of the doors were still a mystery though, I didn't know what to do there and obviously
it's a very noticeable area. Then a picture turned up I definitely hadn't seen before, it's the open off-side door of 0020 again,
and this confirms black paint to the door shuts and even the strikers plates!

Now 0020 is a very interesting car as not only did it come 3rd as a 'werks' car in the 73 Targa Florio it was also know as R2 in
the factory as it was another RSR prototype, but more recently you may have seen it if you visited the Porsche Museum as it has
been on display for many years not as one of the prototype's or the 3rd place Targa car, but it's been stickered up as the famous
1973 Targa Florio race winner no 8, which was always strange as the 'real' thing has been in private hands for many years......

The museum were always a little careful not to let people get to close and especially not to open that off-side door, and for
good reason as this picture shows it to be a 72 shell as you can quite plainly see from the hole for the oil filler flap release
mechanism in the B post, the winning car of course being a 73 model.



What all this convoluted chat about numbers and 72/73 year models means is that 0020 is more than just a sister car to the lost
prototype I'm recreating, it is the closest reference point to anything I'm ever likely to find, especially as a 72 shell and with the
well documented photographs of it's interior and so on that I've faithfully tried to emulate.

The car was also on display at Essen this year, albeit without the number 8 stickers on this time, so my first chance to see it close
up and the girls on the stand were very kind to let me open it up and look inside when it was quiet and they were closing up one
night, again confirming that black paint but funnily enough that off-side door was still locked for some reason....

[210bhp]

Mike

I think I remember telling you that I stuck my hand up the inside of the rear wing when I was at the museum. I could clearly feel the very rough(!) edges to the oil door which had been welded up.


Regards
Mike

[KS]

Mike, I don't know much about the minutiae of this (these) car(s) but it does seem very strange to me that the B-pillar is flat black, including the striker plate. I just can't imagine the whole lock assembly simply being painted over in its original form. Knowing the somewhat cavalier attitude the factory has had in the past to its exhibits, and looking at the quality of the masking, is there not the possibility that the black has been applied later as a quick 'rattle can' solution to the problem of overspray creeping into door shuts following a less than professional blow-over for display purposes?

Or are there photos showing other contemporary cars (not necessarily RSRs) that have had a similar 'quicky' finish?

Just playing devil's advocate, and all that!

[Mike]

Good point Keith but when I talk to the 'older' guys about the car's in period they all say how appalling their finish was, it was
the speed they wanted not points for presentation. Such was the nature of racing and the constant changing, updating and
repairs to damage going on, it meant that they were just cobbled together overnight then thrashed for all they were worth.

I remember vividly going to Formula 1 at Brands Hatch in the early 80's and walking in the pits being amazing how the car's
looked like they were held together with masking tape and filler, how it's changed so much over the last couple of decades.

The current historic cars are of course pampered toys with shed loads of money being thrown at them as they are so valuable,
so we're getting used to car's with the most fantastic finishes and paint jobs on them that would have never been seen in the
paddock's in years gone by.

Here's another picture showing the blacked up door shuts, it does seem in keeping with the rest of the car so that's the way
I've gone.



But this was the clincher, now where are my gucci loafers...........

[Mike]

so here's the last aspect of the paint finished, really happy with the way it's turned out. The car's geared for nearly 180mph,
it looks like it's doing that in the spraybooth! So a slightly dusty all black shell and front panel, shuts and B post and finally
the doors ready for hanging.







Now just the assembly at Sportwagen to how it came into them, then back to Neil's for the final assembly and engine fitting.
It's beginning to look like light at the end of the tunnel, but then I have said that before.......

[Highfield]

Mike - engaging and informative as ever, but my daft question is that 0020 appears to have no oil filler flap, whereas you do....so how do we know it is supposed to be black under there as well

[Lightweight_911]

when I talk to the 'older' guys about the cars in period they all say how appalling their finish was...

- you could have saved yourself a lot of time & money by copying the Factory's approach Mike !

[Mike]

oil filler flap....so how do we know it is supposed to be black under there as well

Hi Ian, that's one of the places I had to make a judgement as the day before the race it had a flap on and you couldn't see inside
and in this picture from race day and it could just be a trick of the light that makes it's look black. I did it black though as if it
was body colour, it just looks like you forgot to put the flap on!

[Mike]

you could have saved yourself a lot of time & money by copying the Factory's approach Mike !

if only I'd thought of that at the beginning of the project

[squirdan]

oil filler flap....so how do we know it is supposed to be black under there as well

Hi Ian, that's one of the places I had to make a judgement as the day before the race it had a flap on and you couldn't see inside
and in this picture from race day and it could just be a trick of the light that makes it's look black. I did it black though as if it
was body colour, it just looks like you forgot to put the flap on!

are you going to pay a team of decorators to artfully "distress" the buildings as well??

[Mike]

Hi Dan, definitely going to be the one picture I recreate, don't know where I'll find a red Chevron though. Know any tangerine 911's that could stand in.....?