Four Small Wheels 05/2001

test build 2

Wayne Moyer test builds Marsh Models' Porsche Can-Am 917/10

Mark Donohue and the mighty Can-Am conquering Porsche 917-10 are so inextricably associated that most people, including many knowledgeable race fans, forget that wasn't Mark who won Porsche's first Can-Am championship, but George Follmer. Porsche had first tried the Can-Am back in 1969 with a straight 917 for Jo Siffert, but quickly found that a light, nimble car with a small (5 litres was small in the Can-Am) engine couldn't beat Chevrolet cubic inches in the Can-Am "sprint" races. After having spent the better part of a year and a lot of Porsche money developing the FIA-spec 917 into a very different beast with an all-new 5-litre flat-12 engine with a separate turbocharger for each bank of six cylinders, Porsche, Roger Penske Racing, and Mark Donohue had a huge surprise ready for McLaren for the 1972 Can-Am season.
The twin-turbo "Porsche Panzer" started the season with a five-litre engine that could, if necessary, produce 1000 horsepower compared to the Chevy V-8's 800 or so. By mid-season, the 917-10 was running with a 5.4 liter engine that probably produced in excess of 1200 horses. The 917 wasn't that much faster than the McLarens (or anything else) in a straight line; Porsche used all that horsepower to overcome the drag produced by the first body design capable of producing more downforce than the car's weight. Figures were never released, but both Mark and George have said that the car could have been driven (at speed, of course) upside down across a ceiling if they could get it there. It wasn't that much faster than a McLaren in a straight line, but when it came to a curve, there was nothing else in the racing world (and Formula One is specifically included) that could stay with the Porsche 917-10. Cornering g-loads of 1.6 were mentioned (this is 1972, remember) but nobody except competing drivers really believed those numbers then - at least for a while.
Typical "new-car" problems cost Mark an extra pit stop during the season opener at Mosport, but he still finished second. Then during practice at Road Atlanta, Mark crashed and tore up his knee badly enough to require surgery. The Porsche would be ready for Road Atlanta, but Mark would be out for several months. Penske put in a call to George Follmer, who had driven with Mark in the Penske "Sunoco" Camaros during the 1967 Trans-Am season, and who just the day before had clinched the 1972 Trans-Am Championship driving the Roy Woods (ex-Penske) AMC Javelin. Follmer immediately flew to Atlanta and hopped into the seat of the most powerful road-racing car the world had ever seen.
Stop and think about this a minute! Follmer had never driven at Road Atlanta and was totally unfamiliar with the course. He had never driven anything like the "Panzer" (well, neither had anybody else but Mark) and had never even heard the term, much less experienced "turbo lag". He found the short-wheelbase 917-10 had some unusual characteristics; besides its incredible side-load turning forces it was "skittery" at high speeds and because of the turbo lag "you had to be finished with braking and have your foot well on the throttle at the beginning of a turn". Nevertheless, Follmer put the "L & M" Porsche on the pole and won Road Atlanta going away. Penske and sponsor "L & M" launched a "Let George Do It" publicity campaign that probably needs some explaining to Continental readers. "George" was the name affectionately applied to aircraft autopilots developed during WWII and perfected for airline use during the late 1950's. "Let George Do It" was a popular American phrase applied to any easy task that could be handled by an automaton. Catchy, but not particularly complimentary to Follmer, as it implied that just about anybody could win a Can-Am race if they had a 917-10.

The twisty, up and down hill Watkins Glen circuit was something else; George only managed to herd the power-oversteering Porsche into 5th place, but then went on to win both Mid-Ohio and Elkhart Lake from the pole before Donohue returned for the Donnybrook race.

Nobody, including George, doubted that Mark was Penske's Number One driver. But even if Mark won the last 4 races of the season, he couldn't beat Denny Hulme. George, on the other hand, needed only one more win (or a couple of lower finishes) to take the 1972 Can-Am title. Penske's solution was to put George in the backup car (of course Roger had a spare 917). Mark's car had carried race number 6 for that first race and it hadn't been changed when George stepped into the driver's seat. Now, however, although George was the series points leader, Mark was back in Porsche #6 and George drove #7. It went further than that; although Follmer himself has stated that he believed the cars were as equal as Penske could make them, he often started the remaining races with Mark's practice and qualifying engine while the #6 car had a fresh engine for each race. George out-qualified Mark at Donnybrook and finished 4th while Donohue failed to finish. That was the last Can-Am win for team McLaren; Mark won the next race at Edmonton with Follmer 3rd; Follmer put #7 on the pole at Laguna Seca and lead Donohue to a 1-2 finish, out-qualified Mark again at Riverside and won the race (Mark was 3rd) to win the 1972 Can-Am Championship with exactly twice as many points as the second-place Hulme.

It's something of a commentary on Follmer's career that although he was the first American driver to win the Can-Am Championship and the only person to win the Trans-Am and Can-Am titles in the same year, he's the forgotten man in American road racing. It must give him some satisfaction to recall that in "equal" cars, he out-qualified Mark Donohue in three out of four races and won two of them while Mark was able to beat him only once. Next year Mark with a much better handling 917-30, would absolutely dominate the Can-Am, but I suspect that will be another story.

All of this history, of course, is in support of the fact that Marsh Models, having done every McLaren type and major variation seen in Can-Am racing (yes, I know there are still some interesting color schemes left) has now moved into the Porsches. Marsh Models' MM064 is another "typical" Marsh multi-medium kit that's very easy to build but produces an excellent, well-detailed, and very accurate model. It's not quite as "shake the box" as the Zerex Special was, but it's certainly well within the capabilities of a novice 1/43rd scale modeller.

The body, rear wing and wheel/tyre combinations are all excellent resin castings and there are 23 white-metal parts, 4 machined aluminum outer wheel rims, and 31 photo-etched parts that include the exposed cockpit chassis tubes and the rear chassis tubing - the 917-10 used a "space-frame" chassis. The instruction sheet includes exploded drawings, a parts list with complete painting information, and four sharp color-photo reproductions of the completed model. Easily sufficient to build this well-engineered kit, but if you'd like even more detail information, the October 1972 "Road & Track" had detail drawings, photos, and even a road test of the 917-10.



Here are Wayne's Notes on the photos above - Note the "fiberglass" fan blades and exposed chassis tubes in the spartan cockpit. Marsh has the little details right. That huge rear wing and "shovel" nose produced the most downforce seen on a racing car at the time. This model looks right from every angle. The photo-etched rear chassis tubes should, of course, be round, but you can't have everything! Note the "partially filled" overflow bottle; it even has the connecting tube and cap cast integrally. Polished lower body panels are especially realistic.
Parts preparation was easy; the one-piece resin body was near-perfect right out of the box, with smooth surfaces, crisp louvres (LOTS of louvres) and deeply undercut air intakes and exits. My sample had no pinholes or surface blemishes and only some very small mould lines on the bottom edges and inside the cockpit opening. The vertical tail fins are very thin and sharp (had to be difficult to cast those!) and were, along with the rear wing, perfectly straight. They're so thin that a very gentle application of mild heat (warmth?) would correct any curvature; again, that wasn't needed on my sample! There are some "feed tags" on the bottom of the casting that must be sanded smooth in order for the white-metal baseplate to fit correctly but those presented no problem. All told, it took me less than five minutes to get the body ready to wash and not much longer than that to clean up the white-metal castings. The alloy Marsh uses now is harder - and more brittle - than the older true "white-metal", so take care not to bend the smaller parts while removing their mould lines. I chose to polish the "bare metal" lower body panels rather than paint them, and the alloy does polish to a nice shine! Painting this one is easy as a bright "refrigerator white" is correct and Ford "Dove Gray" is a good match for the light gray interior color of all Penske cars of the period. I suspect the chassis tubes might have been painted gray, too, but I left them "bare metal" just for the contrast. I have both the old Solido model and the Starter kit finished as #6 with Mark's name and really wanted to build this one as Follmer's Championship car. The number "7" would have been a nice contrast, but I saw George "Do It" at Mid-Ohio in #6, so that's the way I chose to build this one. Note that #6 had the headrest padding when Donohue was in the car, but not when the taller Follmer was driving.	I remember the red stripes being a problem when I built the Starter kit; nothing's changed. The louvres are too deep to "stretch" the decals down into them; I first used a black wash on the louvres, applied the stripes, sliced them, used solvent on them, and then did a lot of touchup work. There's got to be a better way, and I'd really appreciate seeing someone do a piece in FSW! This is a Marsh kit so naturally everything fits quite well and no major modifications are needed, but I did find a couple of things you should know about. First, fold the bracket that holds the overflow bottle as required and glue the tiny taillights into the rear framework before "folding" the frame and gluing it to the body. Trust me; it will be easier that way. The metal lower body panels aren't quite symmetric; they fit one way better than the other. Check them before you apply any glue. Also, I had to "slot" the front axle holes both vertically and horizontally to get both front wheels to touch the ground. I don't know why, as the body isn't visibly twisted, but everything looks fine now. I had no other problems of any kind, but you'll find that the instructions don't even mention the intake "fan", part 26. That was apparently fiberglass as every photo I've seen shows the blades and hub to be a medium tan color with a slight green tint. Polish the rim, paint the blades that color, and use the kit's photo-etched center and you'll have a fan that matches photos perfectly. Needless to say, every Porsche book and every book on the Can-Am has many photos of the "L & M" 917-10, along with all the sports car magazines of the period. Reference material wasn't a problem here, and I can say that my finished model matches all those photos, along with the detail sketches in "R&T" exceptionally well. There's enough detail to make it a highly realistic miniature, but nothing was the least bit "fiddly". The model and its race graphics look "just right" from any aspect, and all dimensions save one check out to published values just as well. The model is about 0.4 inches longer than the "R&T" values would indicate, but it matches photos and scale drawings so well that I think the error occurred back in 1972; if one digit is changed appropriately, it will match the model's length perfectly. Marsh gets my vote here. All in all, another "typical" Marsh Models kit: well engineered and beautifully cast parts that let you build a very accurate and nicely detailed model with a minimum of fuss and no un-necessary aggravation. The decals take a bit of work on this one, but I've been getting spoiled of late anyway. I saw George Follmer run away from the field at Mid-Ohio in this car and I'm really pleased to add a model to my collection at last. Now to find that dark "Sunoco Blue" for the 917-30.