1961 Porsche RS 61 Sports Racing Spyder

This was the last of the cars that Bob Holbert drove to his SCCA E Sports Racing Championship in 1961 and 1962 as well as the newly created U.S. Road Racing Championship in 1963. Holbert's success was no big surprise. He was America's top Porsche driver. But this Porsche surprised Bob. Holbert had ordered the chassis/body you see here after crashing his first RS-61 at Mosport. Upon delivery he discovered his new car was four inches longer in the engine bay area to accommodate Porsche's latest race engine. The flat eight's debut took place at the Targa Florio in 1961. Two 8-cylinder cars were entered where one crashed and the other finished 3rd. Since the lighter-weight Fuhrmann four-cam engine was serving Holbert so well, and in his mind caused his long wheelbase car to handle better, he never raced with the 8-cylinder engine. Nevertheless, the car is now fitted with the engine for which this chassis was designed although it can easily be converted back to the Holbert configuration. A flat-eight-powered coupe enjoyed its first big victory in the Targa Florio of 1963 and the 8-clyinder W-RS carried Edgar Barth to the European Hill Climb Championships in both 1963 and 1964. Too expensive and complex to be sold to customers the flat eight remained a factory prototype.