In their attempt to win Le Mans at the end of the 1960’s Porsche created the iconic 917. Sixty 917’s were built over 1969-73. For Le Mans and sportscar racing 44 cars were built, 36 short tails, 5 long tails, 2 spiders and 1 experimental chassis, 917/20. There were also 16 turbos built, 13 917/10’s and 3 917/30’s. The 917 came about from Porsche’s desire to take overall honours at Le Mans. It had class wins in the 2 litre categories, but like Ferrari and Ford, it wanted the big one. What it lacked was an engine to tackle the big boys. What it came up with has passed into history as one of the great racing engines. It built an air-cooled, 4.5 litre 12 cylinder engine. The air cooling, unheard for a car engine this size, allowed Porsche to save substantial weight versus a water-cooled engine. The 917 would go on to dominate sport cars racing in the early 70’s in Europe and then in Can-Am in the US when the engine was turbo charged. The 917 competed at Le Mans for 3 years, 1969 – 71, winning in ’70 and ’71 before being banned. That was not the end of the car, as Porsche switched focus to the US and the Can-Am series. The turbocharging of the engine took horsepower to over a 1000bhp. It dominated the 1972 and ’73 seasons, with 917/10 and 917/30, before being banned from that series as well. However what Porsche learned from turbo-charging the 917 allowed it to develop the endless stream of sport cars that dominated Le Mans for many years to come.
Back in 1969 Porsche had initially struggled with the aerodynamics of the 917 and as a result had asked different groups to develop solutions to balance both drag and downforce. In early 1971, Chassis 917/20, was given to a French aero specialist, SERA, who took on the task of creating a new body shape. They had previously worked on the 917 langchek (long tail) versions for the 1970 race. The result was the “pig”. The pink came later.
The French designed car was generally agreed to be an ugly racing car. The car had an unusually wide body with lateral overhangs to lessen airflow over the wheel arches. There has already been plenty of tension between the Porsche engineers, who were unhappy with French involvement, and Choulet, the French designer. Anatole Lapine, the head of engineering back in Germany and working on their own aero revisions for the 1971 race, said it looked like a pig in a barn. The short, stubby car was revealed in April, for the Martini International racing team. Count Rossi was not impressed and refused to let the car run in the famous Martini colour scheme. So, in a rare moment of humour, Lapine, who had entered the psychedelic 917 longtail in 1970, decided to paint it pink and mark out the bodywork in cuts of meat as a butcher might have done with a real pig. It became known to us the Pink Pig, but also Cochon Rose and Big Bertha
Despite its looks, the aerodynamics worked and the Pink Pig was dominant in testing and performed well in the race and was running in third place by the 12 hr mark at the 1971 24hrs Le Mans when it crashed due to brake failure. It was never raced again and now resides in the Porsche museum in Stuttgart.
(Porsche Museum, Stuttgart, Germany - Photographer - Morio)
The kit is by Model Factory Hiro. They have produced a number of 917 kits in 1/12 scale so you can build about 12 different versions. This kit, K673, was released in 2018.
MFH’s kit comes in a hefty box, not surprising given the mix of materials of resin, rubber, aluminium and white metal. The box is coloured with a nod to pink, though looks more orange. Inside it is tightly packed with the shell of 917/20 plus all the various parts.
The body shell is white resin, split into various sections of top front and back, floor pan and structural sills.
The doors and “bonnet” are made of aluminium.
There no sprues to speak of, with most parts in their component bags. Kit parts in general are not numbered and care will need to be taken to use the correct parts during assembly.
The overall parts list is very long due to the nature of construction which has a lot of pieces screwed and riveted into place.
There are three sheets of decals. Two are for the race car scheme of the Pink Pig and one for the Firestone decals.There two small sheets of photo etch. The clear parts are vacu-formed, clear with no distortion and very thin but need to be cut out from the plastic. Five unmarked rubber tyres are provided. Le Mans cars at the time were required to carry a spare.
This will be my build for the Strip, Track and Trail Campaign. Helping me along is an old Motorsport magazine I have from when I used to be a subscriber
and a fantastic book on the history of the 917.
Should be a fun build.
cheers
Michael
