1962 Porsche 804

I took this photograph at the Donington Park Museum in May 1989.

Porsche had first built a single seat racing car in 1959, the 718, using the 1½ litre flat-four boxer engine from their sports car to create a Formula 2 car. In 1961 the engine capacity for Formula 1 cars was reduced to 1½ litres and the Porsche 718 was able to compete in Formula 1 races that season. The Porsche 804 was built for the following season using a new flat-eight engine of 1,494cc, and with this car Dan Gurney won the French Grand Prix and finished in third place in the German Grand Prix to end the season in fifth place in the World Drivers' Championship. His team mate Jo Bonnier's best finish was fifth place in the Monaco Grand Prix and he finished in fifteenth place in the Championship. Porsche finished in fifth place in the World Constructors' Championship. That first place in the 1962 French Grand Prix is Porsche's only Grand Prix victory. This is what the book 'Great Racing Cars of the Donington Collection' says about the car:

'Air-cooling and mid-mounted engines were two design tenets dear to old Ferdinand Porsche’s heart, and his son Ferry’s company continued to include these characteristics in their competition programmes long after his death.During 1961 while the ex-Formula 2 flat-four cars were being raced in Grand Prix events, the engineers at Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen worked hard to iron out teething troubles in a new flat-eight cylinder engine. A new chassis was developed for it, with a new system of independent front suspension in which the old idea of two trailing links on each side sprung by transverse torsion bars was replaced by double wishbones and coil-springs.By the time the problems were considered laid in 1962, the wishbone chassis was torsion bar sprung, and with its air-cooled horizontally-opposed eight-cylinder engine installed it made its debut in the Dutch Grand Prix, opening the year’s World Championship series.The engine’s internals were watchlike in their proportions, but despite its sophistication number one driver Dan Gurney likened the ‘Eight’s’ power and handling to a road-going VW Beetle! In truth it wasn’t quite that bad and with a little luck helping him on his way Gurney won the French Grand Prix at Rouen, and then led team-mate Bonnier home to a 1-2 success on Porsche’s home circuit at Solitude, going on to star in the German Grand Prix at Nürburgring, where he was beaten honourably by Hill’s BRM and Surtees’ Lola.At the end of the season Porsche withdrew from Formula 1 to concentrate on sports-car racing, and from the flat-eight project there grew a long line of multi-cylinder engine developments which reached their ultimate expression in the turbochargd 1000bhp flat-12 engines used in CanAm and InterSerie Championship-winning 5.4 litre Porsche 917s.'