Porsche Parade

AUTO RACING

Oldtime fans still talk with awe about the thundering Auto Unions that dominated the Grand Prix circuit in the late 1930s, and the howling "Silver Arrows" of Mercedes-Benz that Juan Manuel Fangio drove to victory after victory in the mid-1950s. But for a nation that once ruled the road, Germany has taken few top honors recently. Its last triumph in the 24 Hours of Le Mans came way back in 1952, and no German car has won a Grand Prix race for half a dozen years. But in Florida last week a trio of long-tailed Porsche 907 prototypes put on a performance that suggested this year may be Deutschland ueber Alles once again. They finished one-two-three in the 24 Hours of Daytona, the longest sports-car endurance race in the U.S. and a major tune-up for Le Mans.

With its little 2.2-liter engine, the Porsche 907 is a 270-h.p. midget compared with the seven-liter, 500-h.p. Ford Mark IV prototype that averaged a record 135.4 m.p.h. at Le Mans last year. But it is a muscular midget--durable, exceptionally nimble in the turns, capable of straightaway speeds up to 175 m.p.h. And this year, with prototypes restricted to engines under three liters in displacement, it does not have to try to keep pace with far bigger Fords and Ferraris.

No factory Fords or Ferraris were entered at Daytona, but there were several privately owned Ferraris and two Ford GT40 "sports cars"--production copies of the old 4.2-liter prototype that ran at Le Mans in 1964. Although they were not technically in competition for prototype-class honors, the Fords were still the cars to beat.

Porsche's strategy for the race was to run at the heels of the faster GT40s, hoping that the strain of the 24-hour grind would take its toll. "The important thing," said Baron Huschke von Hanstein, Porsche's team manager, "was to stay with the Fords, not losing contact, and wear them out." The plan worked perfectly. One after another, the little white Porsches took turns dicing with the Fords for the lead; after only four hours, one of the GT40s pulled into the pits with transmission troubles, the other retired eleven hours later with a damaged fuel system. From that point on, it was a Porsche parade. Averaging 106.7 m.p.h., Britain's Vic Elford in No. 54 took the checkered flag as the winner, in the company of two other Porsches that escorted him across the line.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.