Early 1970's FIA Diecast
1972 Rule Changes
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In the greatest case of commercial suicide ever performed by a sanctioning body, the CSI imposed a 3-litre limit on prototypes for the 1972 season. This engine limit eliminated the Porsche 917's from the championship. The incedibly popular closed-cockpit "sportscars" class was wiped out. So all of the Lola T-70's, Ferrari 512's and GT40's were now museum pieces.
This horrible change was in line with the times, and its interesting to draw a parallel between popular culture and the state of sports cars. In 1972, everything that was cool only a few years ago seemed to be falling apart. The Beatles had broken up due to petty personality conflicts. The Rolling Stones had recorded the watershed Exile on Main Street in 1971, but in 1972 made their worst-ever album Goat's Head Soup. The drugs caught up to everyone, and Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix overdosed. It's kind of like that one scene in Austin Powers where he talks about how all of his swinging ways were no more. Similarly, there is a crucial part of Hunter S. Thompson's book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas where he sits and laments the how the wonderful positive vibe that the sixties had promised degenerated into a grubby squalor.
The ugly, boxy, boring, and redundant 3-litre "prototypes" were to be the main show. This 3-litre formula made the prototypes essentially F1 cars with fenders. The suspensions, gearboxes and brakes were used as-is, and the engines were typically detuned to be more reliable.
The name of the series was changed to the World Championship for Makes. The 3-litre prototypes now carried the designation 'B5'. This title referred to FIA Class B, Group 5. Now this is confusing because previous to 1972 these 3-litre cars were called Group 6, and were also went by that name again in 1976. So for the four year period from 1972-1975, open prototypes were Group 5.
Production cars were in Class 'A' and were subdivided by engine size. The traditional races such as LeMans, Daytona, and Sebring remained as part of this schedule.
This engine limit eliminated the Porsche 917's from the championship, and they went on to race in Group 7 Interserie races. These were similar to American Can-Am spec cars and were not eligable for Le Mans. The races were daytime sprints rather than endurance contests, and all cars belonged to the same class. Interserie took away much of the world-class prototype talent from the traditional world championship. For example, Joest, Martini, and a young Sauber team all raced in Interserie. ...More about the Group 7 and Interserie
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Ferrari 312 PB Works Team
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While Ferrari was battling the Porsche 917 with its 512S, it was actually trying to get a jump on the next era of racing. They switched their development toward the 312PB and let privateers run the 512M in 1971. The 312 PB was a decent car out-of-the-box and did well against the other cars even with its smaller engine.
This era also marked the final factory participation for Ferrari in Sportscars. Their F1 drivers Jacky Ickx and Clay Reggazoni formed the backbone of the endurance program, and along with Brian Redman they did every round of the sportcar series. Ferrari were unsure that the F1-based engine in their 312 PB would last long distances, so Enzo flexed his political muscles and had the Daytona 24 Hours reduced to six. This also meant they did not go to Le Mans, which the French MATRA team won with it's missle-like car. Even though they won every other race, it proved that the value of Le Mans as a win was greater than the enitre rest of the schedule. The 312 PB is barely remembered, but the blue Matra is an icon.
As seen from the images the bodywork of the 312PB was modified frequently to match the race and weather conditions. Also, the factory did not sell the used cars to privateers when they were finished using them.
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Place |
Car
Sponsor |
Car # Class |
Model |
Ref. # |
Image |
| 16 | Porsche 908/3
Reinhold Joest  | 6
| Best
| 9057 |  |
| 1 | Lola T280 Ford
Gérard Larrousse  | 1
Gr. 7 | Spark
(France Special Edition) | SF033 |  |
European GT Championship
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This GT series started in 1972, and was essentially dominated by Porsche. However, there were some excellent cars and events. The Tour de France Auto was a multiple-day "tarmac rally" in which cars ran in "time attack" special stages. The 1973 version was won by the newly-introduced Lancia Stratos.
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1973
In 1973, further evidence of the decline of the 'World Championship' was seen as the classic Sebring 12 Hours was sanctioned by the up-and-coming GT-based IMSA series. It was also the final year of the Targa Florio as an all-out event. With the birth of IMSA and the popularity of Can-Am, the 3-litre "Group 6" Le Mans prototypes were becoming rare in North America.
However, this year was very competitive as Ferrari, Gulf, Matra, Martini and Brumos each won at least one of the ten rounds.
Porsche 911 Carrera RSR 2.8
Porsche had excellent success in selling its 2.7-litre 911 Carrera RS road car, and easily achieved the 500-unit minimum to allow an uprated version of car to be entered into FIA Group 4 (Grand Tourismo Sport). The 2.8 Carrera RSR followed and was one of the best off-the-shelf race cars ever built. This car is easily identified by its small "duck-bill" rear spoiler.
Porsche 911 Carrera RSR (3.0 "Prototyp")
While Porsche gave its customers the 2.8 Carerra, they campaigned a 3.0 litre "prototyp" version of the car for the Martini and Brumos teams. While they initially looked similar to the 2.8 RSR on the outside, these cars did not compete in the Group 4 GT classes. Instead, these cars were entered in the Group 5 "Sportscar" class against the Matra and Alfa prototype spyders. At Le Mans, the cars were run with a different sweeping rear wing that was a precursor of the famous "whale-tail".
1974
1974 was the year of long gas lines, so driving around in a circle for an entire day seemed rather silly. Sebring was cancelled (but 40,000 fans showed up to get drunk anyway). Daytona was run as a 250 mile IMSA race. Back in Europe, Matra swept the year.
Ferrari also declined to participate in the championship...
Porsche 911 Carrera RSR 3.0
Porsche had excellent success in selling its 2.7-litre 911 Carerra RS road car, and easily achieved the 1000-unit minimum to allow the car to be entered into FIA Group 3 (Grand Tourismo Serial). The 3.0 Carerra RS and RSR followed by having over 100 units built as an 'evolution' of the 2.7. This car is easily identified by its distinctive "whale tail" rear spoiler.
The European Sportscar Championship was for 2.0 Litre spiders. It was a rare example of a privateer prototype series that had good grids and competetive racing. These obscure Alpine-Renault A441 cars are the lone diecast artifacts from this era.
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Place |
Car
Sponsor |
Car # Class |
Model |
Ref. # |
Image |
1 | Alpine Renault A441 ‘elf’
Alain Serpaggi | 4
| Solido
100 Series | 20 |  |
1975
In 1975, LeMans was run as an non-championship independent event for the first time since the post-tragedy year of 1956. The rest of the year was dominated by Alfa Romeo, who was run by the Willi Kauhsen team (with special sausage sponsorship at the 'ring). In the US, the Can-Am series was cancelled after problems with one-team dominations. Daytona and Sebring were run as IMSA races, so Watkins Glen became the only prototype race in North America. Matra packed up and left auto racing alltogether, as they had climbed every mountain. They went back to making even more deadly missles for NATO nations.
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Place |
Car
Sponsor |
Car # Class |
Model |
Ref. # |
Image |
| 2 | BMW 2002
Jörg Obermoser | 69
Div. II | Neo
| 45448 |  |
| DNF | BMW 3.0 CSL
Hans-Joachim Stuck | 30
Div. I | Minichamps
| 430 752930 |  |
This official description of car is from the 1975 DRM, but this may be incorrect. The only driver listed is 'Hans Hayer'. A check of all of the results databases has it most likely being from the event 1975.
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Place |
Car
Sponsor |
Car # Class |
Model |
Ref. # |
Image |
| 5 | Porsche Carerra RSR 'Jaegermeister'
Hans Heyer | 4
| Minichamps
| 430756904 |  |
1976 Rule Changes - (We've hit rock bottom)
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With the loss of Ferrari, Matra, and Porsche from the Prototype championships, the field was looking lean. There was an effort to get a better balance amonge the teams. So beginning in 1976, the European-based World Championship for Makes split into distinct schedules for prototypes and GT cars. The thought was that the GT cars would be a back-to-basics approach for privateers. The Prototypes were a single class of 'Group 6' cars with 3-litre normally aspirated or 1.5L turbos. Porsche bravely made cars for both championships.
Group 5 was a class for highly modified "production" cars that were homologated in groups 1-4. This sihlouette formula meant that you could take a production vehicle and change all but the basic engine layout, body dimensions, and general shape. Porsche made the 930-based 935 turbo for this class, which also went on to be the privateer workhorse for the IMSA GTX class. For Le Mans, they made the 936 prototype, which dominated the year by winning at La Sarthe and 4 of 6 other championship rounds. Interestingly, old Group 7 Can-Am spec cars were allowed to run in the Mosport round. This allowed "worlds to collide" as an AVS Shadow MkII raced against an Alpine-Renault A442.
1977
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In 1977, Porsche pulled out of the prototype championship and raced only at Le Mans, winning for the second year in a row with the 936. The void let Alfa Romeo cruise to victory in all eight rounds of the regular schedule. Both American rounds were for the GT classes, so the only prototype races in North America were the revised Can-Am races.
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