Classics at the Castle Porsche Concours 2010 – Photo Gallery

The Classics at the Castle Porsche Concours 2010 event was held Sunday, September 12th on the grounds of Hedingham Castle, situated in the village of Castle Hedingham in England. Now in its 4th year, the Classics at the Castle has established itself as the unique event for enthusiasts & owners of all Porsche model types built 1948-1973. This get-together continues to endorse the growing strength in numbers of the UK classic Porsche community.

The “Classics at the Castle Concours” bills itself as not the usual point scoring saga related to squeaky clean presentation, wet paint and “who spends wins,” but as a process of informed selection. A team of specialist judges look at all the assembled cars throughout the day and weigh up the pros and cons of condition, authenticity, originality and presentation. They make a number of awards in various categories across the model ranges to cars which may be perfect, interestingly presented, rare or just well loved. “Outlaws”, modified, restored and original examples are all considered.

Among the multitude of Porsche 356, 904, 911, 912 and 914s on display, the following three factory race cars stood out among the rest.

1973 Porsche 911 Carrera RSR – Referred to internally at the factory as R6, this is the actual car that won the 1973 Targa Florio driven by Herbert Muller and Gils Van Lennep. The 1973 Targa Florio was to be the final Targa with world championship status. This was the last great road race, the Mille Miglia and Carrera Panamericana had long since been discontinued because of the dangers involved. Dr Fuhrman of Porsche, flown in for the race in the company plane, had every reason to be satisfied with the outcome. A Carrera had again scored an upset against supposedly superior competition of Matra and Ferrari, giving Porsche its 11th Targa Florio victory.

On this car, the ‘ducktail’ of the standard Carrera was extended on either side, resulting in the so-called “Mary Stuart collar” – after Mary, Queen of Scots. The inclusion of fiberglass doors and front lid, Pexiglas side windows and removal of the spare wheel reduced the cars weight to 890kgs – 50kgs less than the GT version.

1969 Porsche 908/2 Longtail Spyder – As run at Le Mans in 1970, the 908/2 Longtail Spyder had the advantage of weighing a 100kgs less than the coupe – at under 600kgs and powered by a 908 3.0-litre, eight cylinder engine, it reached speeds of over 200mph down the Mulsanne straight.

This factory prototype (005) is known to have been first raced as a works Martini sponsored entry at the 1969 Sebring 12 hour race where it finished 7th overall driven by Vic Elford / Richard Attwood, before running at the 1970 Le Mans 24 hour race in longtail configuration, where it finished 3rd overall and 1st in class driven by Rudi Lins and Helmut Marko. The car was later used in the filming of the movie ‘Le Mans’ with Steve McQueen.

1974 Porsche 911 2.1 Turbo Carrera RSR – In 1974 the factory produced just four prototype Turbo RSR’s. To reduce weight below 800kgs, the Turbo Carrera had to be drastically lightened further still by using paper thin plastic materials for all non-stressed parts of the body such as bumpers, lids and doors. The engine capacity for the Prototype group was 3.0 litres, but a coefficient of 1.4 was added for any sort of supercharged engine. This meant that the engine capacity of the Turbo Carrera had to be a relatively small 2142cc. None the less, these cars were able to accelerate from 0-62mph in 3.2 secs and reached top speeds of 186.4mph on the Le Mans straight.

This car – R13, finished 2nd overall at Le Mans in 1974, driven by Herbert Muller and Gijs van Lennep, splitting the 1st and 3rd place finish of the 3.0 litre Matra 670B’s. Muller and Van Lennep continued their pairing as works drivers in this car throughout 1974 at Watkins Glen, Paul Ricard and Brands Hatch.

Photographer Tim Scott of Fluid Images documented the 2010 edition of the Classics at the Castle Porsche Concours. He offers the following 175+ images that capture the varied selection of Porsche street and race cars that graced the lawns of Hedingham Castle. To see more of Tim’s work, visit fluidimages.co.uk.

Classics at the Castle Porsche Concours 2010 – Photo Gallery (click image for larger picture)

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[Source: Classics at the Castle; photo credit: Tim Scott / Fluid Images]