Hailed by many as the greatest racing car of all time, the 917’s story is packed with superlatives. It began with an incredible display of 25 complete cars to achieve homologation in 1969. The following year, the 917 gave Porsche its first-ever win at Le Mans and repeated the result in 1971. Meanwhile, the factory-backed JW Automotive 917s captured the World Championship of Makes for Porsche in both years. Gordon Wingrove worked for JW Automotive during the 917 years and saw first hand what made these cars so special. In a book that sparkles with personal experience, he combines substantial contributions by the Porsche engineers who created the car with his own incisive understanding, to produce a remarkable technical appraisal. Every aspect of the design and development of the 917 is considered, from its innovation and ruthless pursuit of performance, to the teamwork and inspirational leadership that produced such startling results. Endurance racing was never the same again after the 917 – this book demonstrates why!
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Book Description
Hailed by many as the greatest racing car of all time, the 917’s story is packed with superlatives. It began with an incredible display of 25 complete cars to achieve homologation in 1969. The following year, the 917 gave Porsche its first-ever win at Le Mans and repeated the result in 1971. Meanwhile, the factory-backed JW Automotive 917s captured the World Championship of Makes for Porsche in both years. Gordon Wingrove worked for JW Automotive during the 917 years and saw first hand what made these cars so special. In a book that sparkles with personal experience, he combines substantial contributions by the Porsche engineers who created the car with his own incisive understanding, to produce a remarkable technical appraisal. Every aspect of the design and development of the 917 is considered, from its innovation and ruthless pursuit of performance, to the teamwork and inspirational leadership that produced such startling results. Endurance racing was never the same again after the 917 – this book demonstrates why!
About the Author
Gordon Wingrove was a race mechanic for JW Automotive in the early 1970s. During that time, he worked with all the Porsche 917 endurance racing cars and acquired a thorough understanding of why these landmark racing cars achieved so much. He has been a fan of the Stuttgart marque ever since and has owned or raced 924s, 944s, 911s. Today, he owns a near-concours 911 Carrera 3.2 Club Sport. He became a contributor to Porsche Post in the 1980s and has been Technical Editor for 911 & Porsche World magazine. Today he writes technical features on many motoring subjects.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
speedReaders.info Review,
By Speed Readers (USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Porsche 917: The undercover story (Hardcover)
There is no shortage of interesting books about this car. What makes this one stand out is that it is written by a former race mechanic who knows every nut and bolt on the car. Wingrove worked as a race engineer for Porsche's de facto works team and official development partner, John Wyer's JWA Gulf Team and his hands-on experience and technical background give unique depth to this book. He covers the whole design and development process, dialing the clock back to 1963 to put the genesis of the 917 into proper context. Considering how much has already been published about the 917 it is remarkable that this book, thanks to support by the Porsche Historical Archive, contains quite a few never before seen engineering documents and photos. The Porsche Museum even made its 917L available for in-depth study. The book reproduces a number of memos and letters, several translated in full, and also many quotes and anecdotes that could only have been gathered by someone who was in the trenches. It does not include the Can-Am cars, i.e. the 1972/73 seasons.
In terms of the 917's inner workings the book tells a fully comprehensive story, leaving no loose ends and adding layers of important detail. The many photos are augmented by specially drawn technical illustrations. On some topics the author goes into quite a bit of technical minutia. A prior understanding of racecar dynamics will make a reader fully recognize Porsche's accomplishments with the 917. Racers and engineers will appreciate the insights given into things such as the routing of oilways, metallurgical considerations, wind tunnel work, or spoiler settings. There are only three topics where actual math is involved: drag coefficients, gear ratios, and kinetic energy in the context of braking. The general-interest reader may roll his eyes at these things but the narrative remains fluid throughout and for those who must it's easy enough to skip ahead a few sentences every now and then. The person who has never sat in a racecar will get a kick out of the "Cockpit" chapter. It details the location of every switch and gauge, how to get in and out of the car, how the seat and trim would feel to the driver, how he would thread his feet into the bulkhead to reach the pedals, what the angles of view are, etc.--if this book had "scratch and sniff" tabs it'd be like being there! A final chapter, "917 in Competition," explains how data acquisition was done and how race set-ups were arrived at. Appended are the 1969-71 ICM results and very detailed specs for the 1969 and the 1970/71 cars. The index is sufficient but riddled with typos and typesetting glitches. Full review at <speedreaders.info>. Copyright 2010, Sabu Advani.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great book to have if you're a fan of the awesome 917!,
By
This review is from: Porsche 917: The undercover story (Hardcover)
This is a great book about the history of the Porsche 917 race car and it's mechanicals; ( a great companion book to have alongside Peter Morgan's awesome 917 book and Peter Hinsdale's older 917 softbound book ). I liked this book because Mr. Wingrove was actually behind the scenes, in the pits etc working on these cars; so he has an understanding that others may not have while writing a book on these fabulous cars and the engineering side of things. This book takes you through the history of the 917 from the early beginnings of testing on up to 1972; so it covers the early testing in the wind tunnel; different body work; mandated changes from Porsche; memos sent out to car owners about these changes etc. The 917/30 is not in this book if that's what you're looking for. The photos and old porsche archived material are awesome and great resource for reference for a model builder such as myself. You will not be disappointed- trust me!! I got this book for my birthday and love it!!
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Everything you ever wanted to know about the 917.,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Porsche 917: The undercover story (Hardcover)
The Porsche 917 is arguably the archetypical racing car. It is a lavish engineering extraveganza designed for just one purpose: to win endurance road races, most particularly LeMans.
This is an excellent book about the details and history of the Porsche 917 up to but not including the CanAm cars. There are excellent photos and a very thorough text detailing the construction, design, and evolution of this most remarkable automobile. The photos are extraordinarily complete, showing details of the cars chassis and running gear design and construction. The evolution of the body design is most complete and informative. Those interested in just a cursory examination of this car will find much of the inforamtion to be overload; however I was fascinated from beginning to end. I have a number of excellent books on the 917 and even so found many new and interesting details. I would recommend this book to those who are interested in the engineering behind the car and especially for those whose hobby is building model cars. The latter will find everything they need or want to replicate this car in scale. Bob
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