Old time 911 - Porsche made a huge effort to make it more controllable!

[GoingTooFast]

That's how difficult a rwd rear engined car can be to drive hard... an old time 911 in its pure form. The genuine concept, aka 'The Hammer'.

What good is it if you aren't a pro driver?! Oh, I know... Porsche has sorted it all out for you over the time with sophisticated 'gadgetary', but still...

The following vid shows you how good the concept is for driving fast... and how much better the driver must be :

"Daddy, why does the driver steers left to turn right ?"... I just love this sentence. I couldn't define the 911 concept better myself.

Long live the urban myth!

[JoosyJoos]

That guy seems to have had a bit of practice...

Pretty crazy lol

[GoingTooFast]

You can see the same red 911 sideways from the outside going into the Eau Rouge corner at the Spa Francorchamps circuit:

The driver is Pascal Pandelaar.

Advevo,

Do you know the guy? He is your countryman... I think these dutches are mad!

[Robin_NL]

Originally Posted by GoingTooFast

You can see the same red 911 sideways from the outside going into the Eau Rouge corner at the Spa Francorchamps circuit:

The driver is Pascal Pandelaar.

Advevo,

Do you know the guy? He is your countryman... I think these dutches are mad!

I don't know him, just his name. Advevo is a friend of mine for over 30 years know. We're living in the same town....I was the one shouting when he went sideways up that ramp in traffic in the M3 including that roundabout some seven years ago My M3 was the cameracar.

Nice find , a tad sideways through Eau Rouge. Great.

[Robin_NL]

This is Advevo/Andre in the E92 M3 Track Edition a few days ago:

And some new Mustang:

[GoingTooFast]

Thank you for sharing Advevo's vids! But those are definitely more friendly cars... being front engined rwd cars!

Originally Posted by Robin Hood

Nice find , a tad sideways through Eau Rouge. Great.

That's how difficult it is to drive an old 911 fast!

What about this one... Stefan Röser, RUF's test driver back in the 80/90's:

[GoingTooFast]

Porsche came a long way to make 'the hammer' more drivable. Here you can see Stefan Röser again but this time with a 996 Turbo. Still challenging but see how much more controlable the car is:

[Robin_NL]

Some years ago(more than 5 as I recall) I talked to the RUF mechanic at the Parkplatz @ Nordschleife. Stefan was driving his boss' (Alois Ruf) car, the babyblue RT12, Kennzeichen: MN-20A ....

@2:22 you see the mechanik with whom I had a nice talk, he explained the car: lightweigh/special brakes/650BHP:

[KingOfJericho]

Wow, what a handful!

[GoingTooFast]

Nowadays, you can see how much the 911 handling has evolved. You can clearly see how much more gentle and slower the action on the steering wheel can be in a 997.2 GT3 Clubsport by the hands of Andre de Vries (aka Advevo), who I think everybody knows here . Take note, however, that the track is wet, therefore the speeds are necessarily lower... still challenging though:

[GTHAUS]

Those first two videos are great.

[GoingTooFast]

Originally Posted by GTHAUS

Those first two videos are great.

Don't you like the E92 M3 Track Edition?!

We are starting to see why the 911 turned out to be an 'urban myth'...

Because only the best drivers were able to master it... don't we all wish to be the best driver?!

You see, from an engineering point of view the car itself doesn't make any sense...

[thetedderbear]

Go in sideways. Go out sideways. Left is right and right is left. The steering wheel will never be pointed straight and will rarely be still. These are the commandments of the old 911

[GoingTooFast]

Originally Posted by thetedderbear

Go in sideways. Go out sideways. Left is right and right is left. The steering wheel will never be pointed straight and will rarely be still. These are the commandments of the old 911

Yes! The only thing you can rely on with a 911 is traction... if you ease-off the throttle mid-corner the weight will transfer to the front and unload the rear wheels and since the weight distribution is biased toward the rear due to the engine placement (think about an 'hammer' upside down) you will snap oversteer VERY easily, provided you carry enough speed.

[GoingTooFast]

So, how come the 911 which doesn't make any sense from an engineering point of view become such a successful car on the race track? That is certainly not an 'urban myth'.

There are four major reasons:

1. From an engineering point of view there's two positive side effects of putting the engine behind the rear axle:

a) The rear wheels traction is readly improved
b) Moving the weight to the rear dramatically improves braking distances

2. For a long time the 911s were normally lighter and more powerful than the competition;

3. The weight advantage can somewhat compensate for the far less than ideal weight distribution because in motor racing there's normally a lower weight limit (to even things up) as per the rules, which means that if your car is lighter to start with you have to add ballast to get the car up to the minimum standards. It's the proper placement of this ballast, biased toward the front, that can compensate for the rear engine placement in order to have a far better weight distribution. The lighter the car, more ballast can be added to balance the weight distrubition;

4. Aerodynamically, the design was a winner from the start... that's the reason why it wasn't fundamentally changed till today.


Of course, for all of that to work one really need a VERY experienced driver with these cars.

[GoingTooFast]

It seems that I've just pointed out the engineering merits of the 911 that do make sense... why do I still say that the 911 doesn't make any sense from an engineering point of view?

Simple: because Porsche can and always could build a car like the Cayman with all the strenghs of the 911, and none of the weaknesses!

All is needed is that they put the 911's engines in a car like the Cayman or a 'bigger' Cayman.

So, why don't they do it?

Because Porsche is still convinced that everybody remembers Steve McQueen's film... So, it's purely a question of marketing!

People still buy 911s because they are not offered an option: an equally expensive, sized and powerful mid-engined Porsche.

Why does it MAKE ALL THE SENSE IN THE WORLD?

Because that kind of car not only would be much faster than a 911 on the track but more importantly, it would be much faster than the competition that has fully recovered its lost ground and has been dominant for the last couple of years in motor racing.

If you win on the track, you will win in sales as well! (Basically, this has been the history of success of the 911... but that's over now!)

I hope Porsche quickly understands that because they are not winning on the track...

[Sniz]

Originally Posted by GoingTooFast

Thank you for sharing Advevo's vids! But those are definitely more friendly cars... being front engined rwd cars!




That's how difficult it is to drive an old 911 fast!

What about this one... Stefan Röser, RUF's test driver back in the 80/90's:

that video is amazing, no safety equipment and driving at 99.9% on most of it. Crazy good skills and huge balls.

I remember watching it years ago in awe, I just did that again too.

[GoingTooFast]

Originally Posted by Sniz

that video is amazing, no safety equipment and driving at 99.9% on most of it. Crazy good skills and huge balls.

Not exactly... the car had an integrated roll cage and a high-speed tire was specifically developed by Dunlop to cope with the performance of the car... how do you think the tires could stand up to the heat involved with a car lapping Nurburgring Nordscheife in around eight minutes, and despite powersliding in almost every corner still not puncture?!

Originally Posted by Sniz

I remember watching it years ago in awe, I just did that again too.

You can do it yet again but now from a different angle :

[TK-421]

This is why my next car (after some driving school) will be a Porsche 930 - pure, raw, uninhibited. I'd love to be able to drive one at the very limit and be able to say I've tamed "The Widowmaker"

[GoingTooFast]

Originally Posted by TK-421

This is why my next car (after some driving school) will be a Porsche 930 - pure, raw, uninhibited. I'd love to be able to drive one at the very limit and be able to say I've tamed "The Widowmaker"

And that's how the 'urban myth' about the 911 has born...

[GoingTooFast]

The star here is obviously the pilot not the car... the car was undrivable fast but by the best of the bests. Let's see some facts:

Twin Turbo Flat-6
3367 cc
469.0 bhp @ 5950 rpm
553.2 Nm @ 5100 rpm
redline 6800 rpm
front tires 215/45ZR-17
rear tires 255/40ZR-17
length 4290 mm / 168.9 in
Rear Engine / RWD
weight 1170 kg


top speed ~334.7 km/h (208.0 mph)
0 - 60 mph ~3.9 seconds
0 - 1/4 mile ~11.9 seconds


You have a car with roughly the length and the weight of a Toyobaru BUT with 553 Nm of torque @ 5100 rpm (think 1M and it's even higher) delivered to the same 17" rim size, rear wheels while retaining the 40/60 front to rear weight distribution... sure this does make for excellent traction and power delivery BUT you've got to be kidding me if you think you can corner fast with this thing!!!

[GoingTooFast]

I forgot to add the key element...

"while retaining the 40/60 front to rear weight distribution" with the engine behind the rear axle.