917PA, 917/10, 917/30, but what's this?

[cegerer]

There is a clue or 2 in the photo of this rare Porsche CanAm car .....

[racemor]

I could be way off, but the 3 showing velocity stacks make it look like a 6 cylinder version of a 917? But I don't think I recognize the car.

[Jim Garfield]

6 cyl. SP20

[cegerer]

That's it. The Porsche SP20. Only CanAm car to run with the 911 motor. Raced once. Riverside 73. Qualified last, finished 9th (last car still running). 8 Laps behind the winning 917/30 - amazing what 6 more cylinders and 2 turbochargers will do for your lap times .....

[Joe Bob]

Originally posted by cegerer
That's it. The Porsche SP20. Only CanAm car to run with the 911 motor. Raced once. Riverside 73. Qualified last, finished 9th (last car still running). 8 Laps behind the winning 917/30 - amazing what 6 more cylinders and 2 turbochargers will do for your lap times .....

"I" wouldn't kick it out of bed for eating crackers.....be fun and cheap to run in Vintage runs.....

[jluetjen]

It looks kind of like a McLaren with the big block removed and a 911 motor put in instead. In this case I guess it wasn't an improvement.

[Jim Garfield]

Curt, I tried to find out more about Hanns Muller-Perschl, but all I could come up with is that he finished 47th out of 73 in the 1964 Alpenbergpreis Rossfeld (?) in a Porsche 356 S90.

Some other drivers in this race were:Edgar Barth (Elva Porsche) who won, Reinhold Joest (356A Carrera) 24th, and Karl Wendlinger sr. who didn't make the grid in his Fiat-Abarth 1000 Berlina.

Getting back to Muller-Perschl.. his Can Am car looks as though he spent a lot of time looking at the McLaren M8D doesn't it?

[cegerer]

It does, although the front end looks like its off of the Lola T-260! Wonder what ever happened to the car. Seems like an awful lot of time and effort for one race!

[jluetjen]

Curt; This thread prompted me to check my copy of "Can Am" by Lyons to get more history on this since I had never noticed it. The car is pretty mysterious. At first I thought that it was related to the Costello SP7 and SP8 line that was designed an built by David Saville-Peck in 1973 and also in 1974 . Apparently he's still around and running a Super-7 business.

Anyhow, doing a quick web search turned up that the Porsche powered SP20 was raced once in '72 by Kurt Hild at the Salburgring in the European Sports Car Championship. Other then that I can't find anything on it.

[MarkP]

Originally posted by Jim Garfield
Some other drivers in this race were:Edgar Barth (Elva Porsche) who won,

I don't know where the SP20 is, but this Elva is for sale and I ....may.... make a move on it

[jluetjen]

Isn't the Elva Porsche in the Porsche Museum? I believe that it was a predecessor chassis-wise to the 910 and even the 908/3. Not a footnote in Porsche history by any means.

[MarkP]

I jumped too quickly - different car. Here is the early bio on the one I'm looking in to:

"One of 19 factory constructed Porsche powered Elvas. Elva Porsche #70P/045 was imported by Carl Haas in 1964. The car was then sold to Charlie Hayes on May 22nd.

Hayes campaigned #70P/045 in the 1964 USRRC, the premier road racing series in the U.S. at the time. He and the Elva-Porsche claimed victories at Augusta Georgia, Laguna Seca, and Watkins Glen. The pair also finished third at Mid-Ohio, and at Elkhart Lake. By the end of the season, Hayes and the Elva-Porsche had claimed third overall in the Championship, missing second in the under 2 litre class by only one point. Jim Hall won the Championship that year behind the wheel of his 5.0 litre Chaparral."

[cegerer]

Wow, cool car Mark. John, I've come up to a dead end on the SP20 as well - quite the mystery car.

BTW: check this thread in off-topic.

Mid-Engine, Rear-Engine ...... Side-Engine!