East African Safari Rally 911 STR - Coolest 911 Ever

[jtdoyleiv]

On the field at this year's Amelia Island Concours was one of the coolest 911s ever, an authentic factory Porsche 911 STR prepared for the 1971 East African Safari Rally.

There are too many trick details to mention - mud flaps, gazillion lights, whitewall tires...awesome.

Here is a profile and photo gallery:

http://www.sportscardigest.com/archives/4220

And the same article also features a sweet Datsun 240Z that ran in the Baja 500.

[kach22i]

Another interesting feature were the handles on the rear shoulders of the Porsche. These were installed to assist spectators in pushing or rocking the 911 when it became stuck in one of the sticky situations common to rallies.

Where can I get those.

[URY914]

The white striped tires are nice.

[legion]

I can't believe they didn't run 4WD or AWD back then. It seems strange that is such a recent addition to rallying.

[tchanson]

A few of my photos of the Safari Wagen from RRIII:

























Tim

[jtdoyleiv]

Originally Posted by URY914

The white striped tires are nice.

Indeed...the whitewalls are Michelin, which is strange considering one of the main sponsors is Sears Radial Tires...my guess is that Sears Radials are impossible to find, so they went with Buick whitewalls. Ha!

[FastCarFan]

Here are some more that I took at RRIII. A very interesting car indeed. Lots of cool mods/details. Notice the skid-plate under the front end...the mini-padlock on the fuel fill door...the spare tire in the back seat...the rather substantial bumpers front & rear....it looks like there is tape around the headlight surrounds....

[FastCarFan]

Originally Posted by legion

I can't believe they didn't run 4WD or AWD back then. It seems strange that is such a recent addition to rallying.

Aren't many of the Baja race trucks 2WD? I think most rally cars were 2WD back then. Were the Audi Quattros among the 1st successful AWD rally cars? They were many years after this 911.

[chapo]

4wd among the trophy trucks has been tried and to a point successful, but the balls to the wall guys are two wheel drive. Watched robby Gordon at Glamis Sand Dunes a few years ago in his 2x Ford and it was incredible. Wheelies up and down some of the biggest dunes there.

[bxd]

I was fortunate enough to get a private showing of this car last week in Berkeley. Great to be with a car of such historical significance without minders telling you to keep your distance.

One thing you never see in photos of this car are the huge 1/4" aluminum plates that cover the entire bottom of the chassis. And the cool brass tubing that goes across the interior of the front truck to connect the right and left fender oil coolers. I wasn't able to get good photos of these on my silly iphone camera.

Here are the photos I was able to grab:

[bxd]

and a few more...

[Racerbvd]

[bxd]

more pics, thank you so much! such a great car.

I sat in the front seat, put my right hand on the shift knob, toes on the pedals, left thumb wrapped around the upper-left steering wheel knotch. For a second, Waldegaard and me, same seat, hauling-ass through the tall grass and red dirt, windscreen filled with bugs, passing elephant, racing cheetah. Awesome.

[Heel n Toe]

Originally Posted by Racerbvd

Does anybody know the function of those strange lights that are just inboard of the main headlamps?

My guess would be that the concave "lens" is a "sandblasted" translucent glass or plastic whose purpose is to spray out a wide pattern of diffused light.

In this shot, they don't even look translucent. Is the small "lens" at the top made for blasting out some some sort of pinpoint beam?

[Cornpanzer]

those are lcovers for the lamp. The small lense acts as a reminder in case you forgot to turn the lamp off with the cover on

[tcar]

Originally Posted by jtdoyleiv

Indeed...the whitewalls are Michelin, which is strange considering one of the main sponsors is Sears Radial Tires...my guess is that Sears Radials are impossible to find, so they went with Buick whitewalls. Ha!

Sears Radial Tires at that time (late 60's-early 70's) WERE Michelin Tires.

Sears had a deal w/ Mich to sell Mich Radials in Sears stores at the time. The Sears tires were slightly less expensive than the Mich tires.

All the Sears tires were White stripes.

Some of the tires were labeled 'Allstate' (Sears brand) tires. Many had a Michelin label as time went on.

This was early in the Radial tire 'fad'. Virtually all tires were bias ply at the time. The 'fad' was not a fad. Bias ply tires went away fairly quickly.

So the tires could be absolutely correct.