Who Values You?
Back a few years, Porsche set their sights on winning the Le Man 24 Hour Race, and to take the crown away from Ferrari or Ford. The new car was designed by chief engineer Hans Mezger under the leadership of Ferdinand Piëch and Helmuth Bott. In April 1968, facing few entrants in races, the CSI announced that the minimum production figure to compete in the sport category of the International Championship of Makes (later the World Sportscar Championship) was reduced from 50 to 25, starting in 1969 through the planned end of the rules in 1971. With Ferrari absent in 1968, mainly Porsche 908s and Ford P68s were entered there, with the Ford being a total failure. As a result, the old 2.2-litre Porsche 907s often won that category, with John Wyer’s 4.7-litre Ford GT40 Mk.I taking wins at faster tracks.
Starting in July 1968, Porsche made a surprising and expensive effort to take advantage of this rule. For as they were rebuilding race cars with new chassis every race or two anyway, selling the used cars to customers, they decided to conceive, design and build 25 versions of a whole new car with a 4.5-litre revolutionary new motor for the sport category with one underlying goal: to win its first overall victory in the 24 Hours of Le Mans on May 14, 1970. In only ten months the Porsche 917 was developed, based on the Porsche 908.
When Porsche was first visited by the CSI inspectors only three cars were completed, while 18 were being assembled and seven additional sets of parts were present. Porsche argued that if they assembled the cars they would then have to take them apart again to have floor space to prepare those cars selected for racing. The inspectors refused the homologation and asked to see 25 assembled and working cars. To accomplish this enormous task “All Employees” were immediately sent to the Factory to assemble the new 917, hence they were often called “The Secretary Cars.”
On March 12, 1969, a 917 was displayed at the Geneva Motor Show, painted white with a green nose and a black No. 917. Brief literature on the car detailed a cash price of DM 140,000, approximately £16,000 at period exchange rates, or the price of about ten Porsche 911s. This price did not even cover the costs of development. On April 20 Porsche’s head of motorsports Ferdinand Piëch displayed 25 completed 917s parked in front of the Porsche factory for the CSI inspectors. Piëch even offered them opportunity to drive any of the cars, which was immediately declined, yes they do 160kph in 1st gear effortlessly.
The car was designed by chief engineer Hans Mezger under the leadership of Ferdinand Piëch and Helmuth Bott. The car was built around a very light spaceframe chassis (42 kg (93 lb)) which was permanently pressurized with gas to detect cracks in the welded structure. Power came from a new 4.5-litre air-cooled engine designed by Mezger, which was a combination of bolting 2 of Porsche’s 2.25L flat-6 engines together as used in previous racing cars together as a single power plant. The ‘Type 912’ engine featured a 180° flat-12 cylinder layout, twin overhead camshafts driven from centrally mounted gears and twin spark plugs fed from two distributors. The large horizontally mounted cooling fan was also driven from centrally mounted gears. The longitudinally mounted gearbox was designed to take a set of four or five gears.
To keep the car compact, despite the large engine, the driving position was so far forward that the feet of the driver were beyond the front wheel axle. The car had remarkable technology. It was Porsche’s first 12-cylinder engine and used many components made of titanium, magnesium and exotic alloys that had been developed for lightweight “Bergspider” hill climb racers. Other methods of weight reduction were rather simple, such as making the gear shift knob out of birch wood, some methods were not simple, such as using the tubular frame itself as oil piping to the front oil cooler.
By this time the original 4.5-litre engine, which had produced around 520 bhp in 1969, had been enlarged through 4.9-litres (600 bhp) and then to 5-litres and produced a maximum of 630 bhp. In the 1973 Can-Am series, the twin turbocharged version Porsche 917/30 developed 1,100 bhp (820 kW) then turn the boost right up and you get 1,500 bhp Plus, and these cars raced against big block Chevy’s with just over 700 bhp. The Österreichring was the circuit where the car had won its only race at that time, Wyer’s chief engineer John Horsman noticed that the bodywork had a pattern of dead gnats dashed against it, revealing the airflow. The tail was clean—the lack of dead gnats indicated that the air was not flowing over the tail. A modification to the tail was cobbled-up on the spot in the pits with aluminium sheets taped together. This new short tail gave the 917 its much needed downforce. The plastic engine intake cover had already been removed. Now finally the cars were stable at very high speed, they stuck to the track instead of being very unstable at this speed.
Even today, there is only about one car missing from being crashed, others received a chassis from a car yet to be made, or two damaged chassis were blended together to re-make the car. The occasional experimental Chassis was scrapped, but much still exists of these amazing cars, even decades later there are still new spare parts, and there is at least one, fitted with a 911 flat six motor driving around roads in Europe, it is used on the road as a daily driver. All very interesting, but what is the point, the point is hidden in their current value. The original asking price was £16,000 GBP, so if you could buy one today, then what is the value? $10 Million USD is not near enough, Rossi’s car is supposedly valued at more than $40 million and the high cost of an average 917 chassis (around $20 million) coupled with the miles of legal red tape required to get one road-worthy means this dream car is as unobtainable as they come. (Jul 29, 2019)
Job 2:4 “And Satan answered the LORD, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life?” So what are you valued at? A scammer only values you for what they can scam out of you, your “Spouse” should value you extremely highly for who you really are, but God values you for who you can become when committed to him, what you can ultimately achieve with obedience to his way of life, and the Holy Spirit Power. The Porsche 917 naturally aspirated achieved a mere 630 bhp, but under a twin turbo charged, forced induction system, power was now in the range of 1,100-1,500 bhp, and this was easily achieved, and higher power potential is also available. What can you achieve with “Holy Spirit” Tubo’s fitted, especially with a “Factory Upgrade” and re-work by Heavens Angels, brought up to the highest possible standards?
We are told that Heaven values each one of us so much, that if you were the “Only” sinner in the entire Universe, Jesus would still have died to give you the opportunity of “Salvation.” So what value do you place on the worth of a Soul, or even your own worth? So often we sell ourselves so cheaply to a thoughtless crowd, live in a pig pen feeding pigs, when we are actually a Royal Child, one who somehow wandered far from our “Father’s House” and are very much a child of God, an Heir of the Kingdom, you are not “scrap Value,” Satan is often trying to degrade and to call you out-of-date and worthless, but you are of infinite worth and value, so why do we regularly sell ourselves short, so come on back home to your “Maker” Jesus Christ, and get a full restoration, re-build and re-furbishment, you are really worth every penny, for God knows so. Taste and see that The Lord is good, you will be amazed at what he can do in you and for you, if you only humbly come to him and let him work out a Re-Creation in you. The end results will be breath-taking, and your value will be enormous, and that will last for all Eternity. Matthew 16:26 “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” So how much are you really worth?
