The incredible transformations of a Porsche 917
There are different kinds of adventurers: some climb high mountains, others fly dangerous, fast airplanes, others dive in the deep sea. But Achim Grossmann, a landlord in the spa town of Wildbad near Calw, had other plans. He wanted to buy his dream car, the Porsche 917, and register it for use on public roads. The same undertaking had already been attempted in 1975 in Germany for Count Rossi (Martini-Rossi), but had failed; the car was finally registered in the US state of Alabama on the condition that it would never appear there.
Achim Grossmann was more successful. After extensive conversion work - all windows had to be made of glass, parking heaters had to be installed to prevent the windows from misting up, the lighting system had to be adapted to the existing laws and, above all, a voluminous exhaust system had to be fitted to cut down on the coarse pronunciation of the racing car, and much more - the 917 was given the license plate CW K 917 in 1977 and from then on thundered along the country roads around Calw in virginal white.
This color had already been given to the racing car when it was built in 1969, later it was once white-yellow, later purple-green, yellow-red, had accidents and finally ended up with Manfred Freisinger, who sold the frame and body to Grossmann for DM 20,000 in 1975. He rebuilt the car with a new 5-liter engine.
In AMS 14/1977, Grossmann said that servicing and maintenance should not be much more expensive than for the Porsche Turbo, only the 24 spark plugs and the 40 liters of engine oil required an additional payment. When he grew tired of the vehicle, the next owner returned the former racing car to its original purpose. The 917 first went to the States and finally came to Switzerland, now back in its blue and purple livery. Finally, the current owner Vincent Gaye bought the car. He completely restored it (again). He also wrote a comprehensive book, which will be published soon. And the car took part in the Le Mans Classic 2012, the photos were taken on this occasion.
You can find out more about the history of 917-021/012 on the Porsche 917 Register page. And if you would like to see more pictures of the Le Mans Classic 2012, please refer to our extensive article on this topic .
