I thought I’d start my week by reflecting on one of my favorite race cars, the Porsche 909 Bergspyder. This car was to be purpose-built to compete in the European Hill Climb Championship and the design focused on extreme light weight and agility.
Weight is the enemy of performance
A high power to weight ratio provides good acceleration. However if the same car can gain the equivalent power to weight ratio by reducing weight,the lighter car will have superior handling and braking.
Porsche factory entries had a long history of dominating European hill climbs.The European rules stipulated a 2.0 litre engine displacement but there was no minimum weight requirement. In 1968 Porsche designed the dimunitive 909, and only two were ever built.
Total length of 344 centimeters
Total weight 385 kilograms
285 Horsepower
0 – 100 Kph in 2.5 seconds
This was the performance edge Porsche was to exploit for success.
Ferdinand Piech was the driving force behind the project and he determined the key to winning was light weight.
It was rumoured he checked every component with a magnet he carried in his pocket, if it stuck, engineers were told to source a lighter alternative.
Porsche 909 Bergspyder a showcase of exotic materials
The chassis was a tubular spaceframe constructed using aluminum tubes about the size of your thumb. No steel was employed, not even for fasteners as every gram was counted.
The wiring loom was silver and balsa wood was employed for resistors.
The suspension was constructed from titanium, ( Mark Donahue once called it “Unobtanium” due to its cost for racing parts. )
It had a tiny 15 litre fuel tank which was pressurized to save the weight of a fuel pump.
There was no alternator fitted as the batterycould supply the spark for the duration of the race.
The most remarkable use of exotic materials was the use of Beryllium for the brake rotors (discs). The cost was insane, in todays dollars each disc would be in the five figure range. The dust from Beryllium is also listed as a category 1 carcinogen on par with asbestos and radium.
285 horsepower was provided by the Porsche 2.0 litre flat 8 originally designed in 1962 to power Porsche’s entry into Formula One racing.
Weighing only 385 kgs, the 909 could accelerate from a standstill to 100 km/h in just 2.4 seconds.
The 909 was constructed at a time when safety was not considered a priority and development was based on race experience and not computer modeling, I can only imagine what the driver’s experienced piloting an untested sports racer up a twisting mountain road with the flat eight shrieking behind him and his legs well ahead of the front axle.
The front suspension anti-roll bar is positioned above the driver’s thighs, and his feet act as the ‘Crumple Zone’.
In the early years of racing safety was approached with a cavalier attitude and danger was considered an inevitable part of the sport. In the previous year while racing the 910, Rolf Stommelen would crash and break his arm, while in another incident Scarfiotti would lose his life.
The 909 raced only twice driven by Rolf Stommelen (recovering from a broken arm) and garnered only 2 podium finishes, a second and a third. This ended the 1968 season and Porsche chose not to enter the 1969 hill climb season, choosing instead to put there efforts into endurance racing.
I find it interesting to consider what the 909 could have become if it would have entered a full development phase rather than being shelved. Given to a team like that of John Wyer (that took the 917 from being a terrible car to a winner in one winter), the 909 might have also become legendary.