1972 Motor Trend 911R article ...

[Early_S_Man]

Since there has been a 'bit' of interest lately ... what with the Ti hinges and all ...

I dug out this 'joke' of MT 'journalism' ... booby prize goes to whomever identifies the most errors/lies in the article from the then owner of the car ... 12mm spark plugs, give me a break! 280 hp on Webers ... well, you get the idea ...

[Raymond]

it says it weighs 1/2 ton less than a stock T/S/E...??? you're tellin me that car weighs 1200lbs?

[cegerer]

All fiberglass body? Hmmmm ..... OK, on to the next paragraph .....

[andrew15]

heheh.... wheelies!

[silverc4s]

46mm webers on a 2.0L? He damn well better keep those revs up!
I also loved the fiberglass body, all except for the body....

[BURN-BROS]

Warren you have a p.m.

[Jack Olsen]

It's a very funny article. Mannix is the 'typical' Porsche owner that a BBS like this is helping to eliminate -- he's got no clue about what he owns, but loves to brag about it, knowing that no one will likely correct him.

And he's also selling the car, which gets mentioned right there in the article. You'd think the MT editors would feel a little more obligation to fact check, since the guy's essentially using them to run a free ad.

And twin plugs for 'twice the reliability.' I love it!

[speeder]

Originally posted by Raymond
it says it weighs 1/2 ton less than a stock T/S/E...??? you're tellin me that car weighs 1200lbs?

Well, 2200 lbs. for a stock '72 911 would be w/o most of the engine. The guy is claiming 1500 lbs. for his "R", and a stock '72 was ~2500 lbs. I think that the "light early cars" BS has a life of its own on this board, just like the clueless 911R owner. Stock 911s were considered lard-assed luxury cars in the sports car world in those days. They are only light in comparison to modern cars. An Alfa or TR-6 was under 2000 lbs.

What did a 911R really weigh? 2000 lbs.? And what were the main body panels made of, aluminum? At any rate, the 46mm Webers part is correct for an "R", I would consider that guy about average in Porsche owner/enthusiast knowledge from my experience, and at least he owned the coolest street-legal Porsche ever made at a time when it was decades away from cult status and the attendant "better not drive it" mentality.

[dd74]

How accurate were dynometers in '72? I've heard 911Rs made 250 hp. 280 hp is about right for a 2.8 or 2.9, right?

911R's weight: 1,900 pounds.

The owner: looks a little like Dirk Diggler from "Boogie Nights."

[bob tilton]

that is a great article...sort of. i actually have that article and thought the time warp perspective was interesting. i have another older article from excellence that features a porsche dealership salesperson. never thought to read it for the longest time but then discovered that it mentioned mcqueen test driving an R back in the day.
depending on the event, the R is about 1810#.

[BURN-BROS]

1700 lbs is what is in the history books or at least I have read from a few sources. The one that gets me is 280 h.p. out of a 906 spec 2.0. That could happen......with a 2.5 rsr. Maybe he was in sales and would like to show us the special titanium muffler bearings too.

[jluetjen]

I'll give them credit on the "FG" body. If you figure that at the time of the article it had a FG hood, front fenders, doors and engine cover. Walking around the outside the only metal that you'll find will be the roof and the rear quarter panels.

All in all, I'd say that for a magazine that didn't know a whole lot about Porsches (at least at that time), they did a pretty fair job while keeping up a high "Gee Wiz" attitude. Yes, the 280 HP sounds way to optimistic, even if you are quoting gross rather then DIN HP. As far as the front end, let's be honest, with an empty fuel tank up front it may not be too difficult to lift at least one front wheel under hard acceleration.

[Grady Clay]

C’mon on guys, look at the date, 1972.

I agree; the author didn’t bother to research his article. A major faux pas in writing any article like this, not to mention for a national audience.

So, the owner exhibited a little hyperbole after a run up the hill. He has just made a speed run in a really cool 911 and is then interviewed. If the facts are as reported, then the owner didn’t know the true facts, compounding the errors.

BA 2nd Ed. p. 7 reports the 911R at 1830#. Ludvigsen 2nd Ed. p. 393 at 1810#. Does anyone have a current actual measured weight of an original car?

Andrew,
Back in the late ‘60s a friend had a ’66 911 an engine with 2.5 11.?:1 Empi P&C in an original dune buggy. Boy could it pull wheelies.

silverc4s,
Yes, those were a challenge to drive on the street but great track cars. The same issues are true today.

Jack,
This may be a Gruppe B wannabe charter member but he just didn’t know what he had. I think I met him several times.

BTW, I think this is the 911R I declined to buy at a POC swap meet a year or two prior for $6200. I had just bought the ex-Don Wester 904 for $6000 and was feeling poor. I suppose if I had whipped out $4K cash, I might have taken it home.

Best,
Grady

[Raymond]

the funny thing to me about the 'half ton less than a stock '72' is that it has a full passenger seat and set of coco mats! wouldn't this super lightweight car have these two items deleted immediately?

[dvkk]

The exhaust "up about 100 decibels over the stocker". Obviously they don't understand that the decibel scale is logarithmic. No way it could be 100 db more than stock.
I like how the author recommends you modify it to look like a regular S. Oh well, that's what makes project cars affordable.

[Early_S_Man]

Well, you sort of had to take it humorously ... that was the only reason I kept that mag over the years, and it was an overcast sky and rather damp & dreary Sunday that wasn't looking like overdue tree trimming would be much fun in 60°F weather! So, I thought it would be interesting to scan & post it so all the good Pelicanheads could poke fun ...

Only one 911-based race car [1970 Tour de France - Larrousse car, at 789 kg] that I am aware of ever broke 1800 lbs, and that was a very expensive factory effort -- both in terms of Titanium parts and cases of champagne!!! So, talking about 1700 - 1800 lbs being routine or easy to do is plainly ridiculous! Hell ... breaking the 2000 lb barrier is hard enough, and expensive, too!

Mannix complaining about short spark plug life was pretty funny, too, so I guess he wasn't aware of CDI ignitions that all of the later 906Es and 911Rs got in '67 - '68 ... and an upgrade with factory parts wouldn't have been very hard or expensive, either, in '72! I guess that meant his 911R was an early example ...

Actually, the '72 Motor Trend road test of the 914 and 911 models was pretty good, even compared to Bedard's ravings about aluminum lug nuts and Ti conrods in Car and Driver!!! But that test wasn't written by Wyss! His specialty was industry gossip and 'rumors' like steel bodies for production Corvettes in '76 ...

[ZAMIRZ]

I thought it was an entertaining read (not least because of the factual errors). If you're looking for a good article on the technical specifications of this car, this isn't it. If you're just looking for a quick chuckle and some cool vintage photos then it's alright.

BTW, I thought the 911Rs hood was reinforced with two bamboo sticks running front to back on the underside of the hood in order to keep it from flexing at speed.

[billwagnon]

what the hey does "Nickey Nouse" mean?

[Randy Webb]

"1700 lbs is what is in the history books or at least I have read from a few sources."

- You are probably think ing of the Larouse "champagne for pounds" car - they are said to have gotten that example down to 1735 lbs. Most R's weighed 1760 according to the books I've seen.

BTW -- if anyone wants a copy of my lightwt. database (.xls) with soem additional things that Jim Calzia did not weigh, or a copy of a comparison table I made up of various light wt. cars, Email me at xdrw using the domain att.net (connect the two witha @ - I'm reducing automated spam). The wts. are all fairly to very accurate or I did not include them. I keep planning to post them to a web site, but I keep planning to put my 250 hp engine in too....

[Jack Olsen]

Originally posted by billwagnon
what the hey does "Nickey Nouse" mean?

Yeah, was that an expression from the era, or were Disney's lawyers then as aggressive as Porsche's lawyers today?