Wednesday, March 23, 2011

PORSCHE 917/20.001 WHITE PIG 1971 LE MANS TEST WEEKEND


I was really intrigued by the shape of this machine, it certainly will instill fear for its shear brute if it happens to appear in my rear view mirror.




The Porsche 917/20, which was re-dressed in 1971 Le Mans as The Pink Pig made its debut at the test weekend in April 1971. Driven by Willi Kauhsen and Gijs van Lennep underneath Magnesium frame.





But the manner it ended the race that day is still ambiguous. Some says Lennep overlooked signals to pit which lead the car to run out of fuel. Some says it was an electrical fault.





Whatever it was, this pig paved the way for futher refinement of speed and power of its predesasor, 917K. 917K hit the fastest speed ever recorded at Mulsanne straight and I think until today hold the fastest lap in Le Mans circuit.



By its stocky and squatty look, wide and short frame, it was instantly dubbed as a pig


What we normally see in the market is The Pink Pig. In fact, there was abundance of High Speed's Pink Pig last time around.

 
I actually managed to pick couple of them up and strip them out. Then, I made use of 917 # 22 Lennep's 1971 Winner decal, the easiest to get, for its Porsche markings. Add CIBIE and startnumber 20, it was all done.



Who would believe the one inside Minichamps box is actually a High Speed. Now that's not sugarcoating but just want to put it where it supposed to be....

3 comments:

  1. Hello Rosslann,
    Superb, thanks a lot for this post! Actually I'm tempted since some times already to make the very same car using the same starting base, but unfortunately even High Speed models are becoming rare here in Manila so I have had to postpone this project up to now. For those who like perfection, there's a catch: when seen from the rear, the real Pink Pig had slightly different rear wings during the race than those initially tested in practice.

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  2. Hi Lorenzo!
    Great observation you have there.
    Have to agree. The test pig has only one horizontal bar to mount the tail lights but the Pink Pig has additional panels hanging to the bar. In fact I tried to saw off that rear end but ended up damaging 2 models. Guess, I didn't have the right tools then. I gave up before I lose the last one. Appreciate your close attention though. Thanks again.

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  3. Thanks Rosslann for further sharing your experience about this model! I'll keep this in mind when I modify mine.

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