As much as we give credit and praise to the muscle cars, drag racing machines, and stock cars of the late 1960s, we often forget the sheer badassery of the road racing iron that was competing back then as well. Take for example the Porsche 908. While not as brutal as its more powerful brethren the 917 and the almighty 962, this was an 1,100b car with a 350hp flat eight that was driven by guys like Steve McQueen and notched impressive wins are placed like the Targa Florio and Nurburgring. A bit of a forgotten sister in the Porsche road racing family, this video of a 908/3 is pretty awesome because we get a great tour of the car, we get to hear it snarling and warming up in the pits, and finally we get to hear that engine running in anger on a road course both up and downshifting.
Isn’t it crazy how much an engine’s layout changes its sound? Granted this is a pretty small displacement eight cylinder mill but if it was in a V-layout it would have a completely different auditory program than it does right now with the flat layout that Porsche was and still is famous for.
The first version of the 908 was an enclosed cockpit car with a long tail. Porsche wanted to get the aerodynamic advantage of the closed roof for tracks with higher speeds and longer straights. They actually posed a serious threat to the Ford GT40s in 1968 but were a disappointment on race day. After qualifying faster than the Fords, reliability became a major issue and the GT40s won again. The second version of the car had the open cockpit design that could carry on and what’s shown in this video is version three. The differences in the aero between the two versions are subtle and mechanically they are also very close. Like all things the more the engineers work the better the cars got and they were solid competitors through the 1970s and into the 1980s in the hands of privateers who updated suspensions and powertrains to keep with the advancing technology.
This one looks about as pure to the early 1970s as it could possibly get and we think it is awesome!
