1970 Porsche 917

This was one of the cars displayed by the Porsche Club GB at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 2000.

It's one of the Porsche 917 cars with Gulf livery that was campaigned by the John Wyer Automotive team in the World Sportscar Championship races of 1970 and 1971. The Porsche 917 was originally built with a 4.5 litre air-cooled flat-12 Porsche 912 engine which was progressively increased to 4.9 litres then 5 litres from 1969 to 1971. John Wyer's cars were particularly successful in 1970 and1971, winning 7 out of the 10 races in the World Sportscar Championship in 1970 (and 2 of the other races were won by the Porsche Salzburg team - including the Le Mans 24 Hour race), and 5 out of 11 races in the 1971 season (and 3 of the other races were won by Martini Racing's Porsche 917s - again including the Le Mans 24 Hour race). The John Wyer Automotive team didn't do too well in the Le Mans 24 Hour race in those 2 years, all three cars retiring in 1970 and two in 1971, although Richard Attwood and Herbert Müller did finish in second place in the third car.