Review: Porsche's 1973 Safari & 1000 Lakes Campaign - 911 2.7 Carrera RS
BACKGROUND
As part of recently appointed Chairman Ernst Fuhrmann’s decision to focus the company’s competition programme on the 911 as opposed to purpose-built sports prototypes, Porsche elected to attack the 1973 East African Safari Rally with the 911 Carrera RS.
Unparalleled in terms of its toughness, 1973 would mark the Safari’s 21st running and saw an array of top manufacturers duke it out over 5300km of tortuous gravel roads across Kenya and Tanzania.
1973 would not be the first time that Porsche had contested the Safari Rally. Most recently, Sobieslaw Zasada and Marian Bien had finished second in a factory loaned 911 ST during the 1972 event. A year earlier, they placed fifth driving a similar machine when Porsche had entered a three-car works team.
Determined to go one better in 1973 and take victory in the most important rally the company had not yet won, Porsche prepared a trio of M471-optioned 911 Carrera RS Sports, two of which ran under a Porsche KG banner for Sobieslaw Zasada / Marien Bien (chassis 9113600288) and Bjorn Waldegaard / Hans Thorszelius (chassis 9113600285).
The third machine was a quasi-works example entered on a preparation and service basis. It appeared under a Chipstead of Kensington entry for 1959 and ‘60 Safari winner, Bill Fritschy, who was accompanied by Viscount Kim Mandeville (chassis 9113600203).
All three cars were painted yellow and equipped with an array of upgrades in anticipation of the arduous test that lay ahead.
Bodyshells were reinforced and fitted with heavy duty shock absorbers, aluminium skid plates, spot lights, external air horns, steel bumpers from the regular 911, Safari ram bars and a grab handle on each C-pillar.
Ride-height was increased to 250mm and long-range 110-litre fuel tanks were installed.
Engines were standard 210bhp items albeit bench-tested and blueprinted. Five-speed gearboxes were imported from the RSR.
Inside, Porsche fitted a full complement of safety gear along with all the necessary Safari equipment like ropes, shovels and winches plus plenty of spare parts. It was hoped the new car’s significantly lighter weight would give the suspension a much easier time than in previous years.
1973 EAST AFRICAN SAFARI RALLY
Held over the course of five days from April 19th to 23rd, the East African Safari was round three of the inaugural World Rally Championship.
The opening trio of events had been won by Alpine (Monte Carlo and Portugal) and Saab (Sweden). However, neither firm had works cars among the more than 100 entries that started in Africa. Instead, Porsche’s chief opposition would come from Ford, Datsun and Peugeot that each fielded a quintet of factory cars (Escort RS 1600, 240 Z and 1800 SS and 504 respectively).
The day of the start dawned fine and the first car left Nairobi’s City Hall at 4pm. However, no-one had thought to clear the main road out of town and many cars departed straight into heavy rush hour traffic.
The opening section south-east to Kibwezi saw Fritschy lose 19 minutes owing to a couple of punctures.
Zasada and Waldegaard both then dropped several minutes with gear selection problems soon after they had passed Taita Hills en route to Mombasa. At the Mombasa checkpoint, Roger Clark’s Ford Escort led by two minutes from team-mate Hannu Mikkola. Waldegaard’s Porsche was third. Next best was the Datsun 240Z of Rauno Aaltonen a further seven minutes back.
After a three-hour stop in Mombasa, the field departed for Likoni and then headed further south to the Usumbara Mountains in Tanzania.
This leg ended with Zasada’s Porsche promoted to third behind the Fords of Clark and Mikkola. Waldegaard meanwhile had dropped down the order having lost ten minutes trying to rectify his gear selection problems. He was ultimately forced to carry on without third gear.
From the Usambara Mountains, the route looped back around and up the very rough ascent to Mlalo which took a heavy toll on the Porsches suspension; both Waldegaard and Zasada lost time changing components before the rally headed for its most southerly point with a flat out section down to Dar es Salaam.
During this passage of the event, Zasada blocked Mikkola’s Ford from going passed. The Pole continually put his foot down in order to stay ahead with rocks shattering the Escort’s lights and windscreen in the process. The incident ended when Zasada overcooked it into a corner which saw his car roll twice across a bank which knocked both screens out and badly damaged the 911’s rear end.
Zasada made it to Dar es Salaam where his screens were replaced, but he retired shortly afterwards having lost second, third and fourth gears.
As for Waldegaard, he dropped another eight minutes in order to change his front struts and made it to the Dar es Salaam service point in fifth position.
Conditions were wet and slippery as the cars headed back up to Kenya. They crossed the border at Loitokitok for the fast run directly north to Sultan Hamud. More suspension changes for Waldegaard had dropped him to ninth by the time the field arrived back in Nairobi for an overnight stop.
By this time, Fritschy had retired having lost all gears apart from fifth with Porsche reserving their sole remaining spare ‘box for Waldegaard. In addition to gear selection trouble, Fritschy’s event had been blighted by no less than seven punctures.
The remaining cars departed Nairobi and headed directly north to the Aberdare Mountains. They crossed the floor of the Rift Valley before heading west in slippery conditions to Mount Mau Narok and then on to Kericho where Waldegaard needed another suspension change which cost the Swede a further 20 minutes.
Despite having been well out of contention for victory by this stage, Waldegaard and Thorszelius pressed on and were just a couple of hours from the finish line in Mombasa when an oil cooler detached itself from under the front fender. Unfortunately, Waldegaard was so busy trying to keep the car on the road with its severely compromised suspension that he didn’t notice the loss of oil pressure until it was too late and the engine cooked itself.
Datsun’s Kenyan pairing of Shekhar Mehta / Lofty Drews went on to take victory in their 240Z from Swedish team-mates Harry Kallstrom / Claes Billstam in one of the Safari Rally’s closest ever finishes.
1973 1000 LAKES RALLY
Bitterly disappointed with their 1973 Safari failure, Porsche immediately set about planning a re-run on the 1974 event.
In order to test an uprated suspension set-up (suspension and gearboxes had been the obvious weak point of 1973’s Safari campaign), Porsche entered a single Carrera RS for the 1000 Lakes Rally in Finland which took place between August 3rd and 8th.
Held over 517km of high speed gravel sections, the 1000 Lakes was round eight of the 1973 World Rally Championship and generally considered the most important event on the calendar.
A single car entry was prepared for Leo Kinnunen and Atso Aho. It appeared under the banner of Racing Team AAW which was the sporting division of Finland’s Porsche and Volkswagen importer.
Porsche elected to use Bjorn Waldegaard’s entry from the Safari Rally (chassis 9113600285) which was deemed in much better condition than the example used by Sobieslaw Zasada (which had been rolled).
The rally got underway at 6pm on Friday and Kinnunen was on it straight out of the blocks winning stages one and five.
However, as darkness and fog rolled in he began to struggle with the Porsche’s lights proving troublesome. This resulted in a spin on stage ten where Kinnunen nearly collected a gate.
Having dropped down the order to eighth, Kinnunen was finally able to exploit his horsepower advantage with the onset of daylight. He set fastest times on the last three stages into the halfway halt at Jvyskyla (stages 18, 19 and 20) which promoted him back up the order to seventh.
The first two stages out of Jvyskyla were dry, but then the heavens opened and Kinnunen lost much time struggling to see out in the pouring rain.
With conditions having dried up he then sensationally pulled back a substantial amount of time with five consecutive stage wins on some of the highest speed sections of the event (stages 25 to 29).
Even more impressively, Kinnunen went on to win all ten stages on the final day (stages 34 to 43) and ultimately recovered sufficient time to place third overall behind the winning Ford Escort RS 1600 of Timo Makinen / Henry Liddon and the Volvo 142 of Markku Alen / Juhani Toivonen.
Text copyright: Supercar Nostalgia
Photo copyright: Porsche - https://www.porsche.com
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