VIN: the Martini Racing Porsche 911 2.8 / 3.0 Carrera RSR / 2.2 Carrera RSR Turbo chassis 9113600576 R5
History of chassis 9113600576 R5
Chassis 9113600576, also known as R5, started life as one of the seven 911 RSRs campaigned by the works-assisted Martini Racing outfit in European rounds of the 1973 World Sportscar Championship.
R5 appeared alongside chassis R6 at Martini Racing’s first outing with the RSR: the Vallelunga 6 Hours on March 25th. This was round two of the ‘73 championship; Porsche had famously won the opening race at Daytona thanks to the Brumos RSR driven by Peter Gregg and Hurley Haywood (chassis R4).
For the Vallelunga event, R5 was allocated to the team’s number one driver pairing: Herbert Muller and Gijs van Lennep. Owing to a timing error, they lined up 15th for the race while the sister car of Follmer / Kauhsen qualified 21st with a lap time supposedly six seconds slower.
The two brand new Martini cars had a race long battle with one another that was eventually decided in favour of Follmer / Kauhsen when van Lennep had to make a last minute pit stop to change a front tyre. This let the sister car through to finish seventh overall and first in the GT class. R5 placed eighth overall and second in class.
R5’s next appearance was as Martini Racing’s sole entry for the Dijon 1000km on April 15th (round three). For this event the car had been uprated with titanium springs and a newly homologated trailing link rear suspension set up that reduced the front wheel’s tendency to lift while cornering. Porsche had also fitted a highly secretive new three-litre engine.
Muller / van Lennep qualified 13th, some 2.5 seconds quicker than the standard ‘customer’ RSR of Kremer Racing.
In the race, the only trouble for the Martini car was a change of rear tyre after excessive oversteer had worn it flat. Muller / van Lennep finished three laps ahead of Fitzpatrick / Keller in the Kremer entry to claim victory in the GT class.
Martini Racing ran chassis R6 and R8 at the Monza 1000km on April 24th, but R5 and R6 were back on track for the Spa 1000km on May 6th.
In Italy, the race organisers had put the Martini cars in the Group 5 Prototype class after a protest from a rival. As a consequence, the team decided to run a full-width rear spoiler that was not homologated for the Group 4 GT class. At Spa, R6 was equipped with the Monza-type rear spoiler and ran in the Prototype class. R5 was kept in standard trim to contest the Group 4 GT category.
R5 was originally allocated to Muller / van Lennep, but when they saw how quick R6 was, they decided to switch cars. R5 was therefore raced at Spa by George Follmer and Reihnhold Joest. Neither driver was initially happy with R5’s handling and Follmer’s best time was only good enough for 20th on the grid. John Fitzpatrick had been the quickest GT class contender and lined up 15th having gone round 6.7 seconds faster than R5.
Nevertheless, Follmer moved to the head of the GT field before handing over to Joest, who subsequently returned the car back to him a distant third in class. Although Follmer recovered to second in the GT group, it looked like a class win was out of the question until the lead Kremer RSR blew its engine just before the chequered flag. R5 thus secured its second Group 4 victory in a row.
Porsche then took another famous outright victory when Muller / van Lennep won the Targa Florio on May 13th in R6 (round six of the championship).
Round seven was the Nurburgring 1000km on May 27th, for which Martini Racing took a brand new Prototype class machine with a redesigned back end (R7). R5 was on hand to contest the GT class.
R5 was entered for Follmer / Kauhsen who were easily quickest of the GT class contenders and started 16th. Follmer then went on to establish a healthy lead until his race abruptly ended on lap seven when he lost control at the Adenau Bridge. R5 planted itself firmly into the barrier and incurred quite serious damage. It was not raced again that year.
By the time R5 next appeared in public, it had been rebuilt to 1974 RSR Turbo specification, albeit without the spaceframe back end used by the proper RSR Turbos of that year.
Nicknamed ‘The Tank’ on account of its extra weight compared to the other ‘74 works cars, R5 was entered by Martini Racing for the Imola 1000km race on June 2nd.
Instead of the usual turbocharged engine, the one fitted to R5 (Type 911/78) had been modified so that the cooling fan lay flat on top of the engine like a Porsche 917. Trialled in an attempt to reduce cylinder head temperatures, it apparently gave a few extra horsepower too. The idea was to test the system at Imola with a view to running it at Le Mans.
During practice, ‘The Tank’ (which was taken to Italy for Manfred Schurt and Helmutt Koinigg) had a coming together with a Jolly Club 911. As a result, it only qualified 23rd.
More problems for the Schurti / Koinigg ‘Tank’ followed when, on Saturday morning, it stopped after a few laps of unofficial practice with oil pouring from the base of its new fan housing. The Porsche mechanics set about curing the leak although, by the time the other cars lined up for the race, they were still working in the pits.
Schurti eventually got going, but soon after joining the race, he was back in the pits for another 45 minutes to have the turbo rebuilt as one of the fan blades had broken. The turbo eventually expired for good after 133 laps and R5 was not raced again.
R5 was subsequently sold to Vasek Polak for the Porsche collection at his Hermosa Beach dealership in California.
In later years, Polak sold R5 to collector, Jeff Hayes.
Notable History
Porsche System / Martini Racing Team
Silver Martini livery
25/03/1973 WSC Vallelunga 6 Hours (G. van Lennep / H. Muller) 8th oa, 2nd GT class (#8)
Fitted with 3.0 engine
15/04/1973 WSC Dijon 1000km (H. Muller / G. van Lennep) 9th oa, 1st GT class (#26)
06/05/1973 WSC Spa 1000km (G. Follmer / R. Joest) 10th oa, 1st GT class (#40)
27/05/1973 WSC Nurburgring 1000km (G. Follmer / W. Kauhsen) DNF (#66)
Rebuilt to partial RSR Turbo specification after Follmer’s crash at the Nurburgring
02/06/1974 WSC Imola 1000km (M. Schurti / H. Koinigg / H. Muller) DNF (#7)
Sold to Vasek Polak, California
Later sold to Jeff Hayes, California
Text copyright: Supercar Nostalgia
Photo copyright: Porsche - https://www.porsche.com
