At the time of his ’69 cameo, Lauda was ‘just’ a junior jobbing driver with dreams of climbing the ladder to F1. The final 1969 round of what is now WEC represented another chance to show his stuff – taking over from owner-driver Otto Stuppacher’s opening stint, the Austrian managed to help haul the Bosch Racing Team car up to ninth in its Group 4 class out of 21 entries.
Making one more appearance in a 908/2 at the Norisring in 1970, for Lauda it was but a fleeting sports car tenure. However, the 910’s pedigree – and particularly its lightweight handling capabilities – had already been proved by key wins claimed at the 1967 Targa Florio by Rolf Stommelen and Paul Hawkins and by Udo Schutz and Joe Buzzetta at the Nürburgring Six Hours in the same year.
Though these victories were significant, Stuttgart wanted more, eventually snaring Daytona the following season with a 907H driven by the committee line-up of Elford, Neerpasch, Stommelen, Siffert and Hermann in addition to the latter two winning Sebring in 1968.
The first of 28 910s produced, 001 was a sports car workhorse for many years. Developed to also compete in hillclimb events, Hermann took 001 to a third place at the 1966 Sierra-Montana-Crans meeting before it was then bought by Rudi Lins, eventually competing in 250 races in total. In 1994 it was acquired by a private collector being carefully restored back to its original spec when it was produced in 1966.
Porsche 910-001 is now on sale at Motor Classic & Competition Corp – more information can be found here.
