Perhaps no other race car claims the outright success that is boasted by Porsche’s 917/30, a purpose-built spyder that dominated its only season of competition and went on to set a still respectable closed-course speed record. Rooted in roughly four years of development of similar racing spyders, the 917/30’s beginnings initially arose from two goals.
With a new American retail relationship between Porsche and Audi forming in 1969, VW of America executive Josef Hoppen sought to publicise the development with a racing campaign. This suggestion nicely melded with Porsche’s plans for entry into the Can-Am Challenge Cup, the unlimited regulation Canadian-American series that featured racing’s most powerful cars … More