Porsche had dominated the 1973 season so completely that the by mid-1973 the SCCA was already scrambling to adopt new rules in an attempt to level the playing field. Those cars, namely the Porsches, making incomprehensible amounts of power also suffered the most appalling fuel economy. The SCCA proposed that each car should be able to attain a minimum fuel economy of three miles per gallon.
Porsche and Penske had invested heavily in their program of large turbo-charged engines and the equally big 917/30 chassis. They were quick to protest the SCCAs proposed rule changes but in the end, the SCCA chose what it thought was the only way to save the series.
Porsche released Penske from the final year of their three-year contract and withdrew from the Can-Am. What only a few people knew was that Porsche had already started three new chassis for the 1974 season. The parts went into storage, unfinished.
Happily, those three chassis, numbered 004, 005 and 006 began to surface in 1979 when chassis 005 was sold to and completed by a private collector! In 1982, chassis 004 and 006 met a similar happy fate. Chassis 006 was sold as a kit of parts to Vasek Polak, owner of a California Porsche dealership, renowned for the race cars his shop prepares.
After years of painstaking work, 917/30-006 can now be seen participating in high profile vintage events, including at Laguna Seca in 1998, the Chicago Historics and the 2001 Rennsport Reunion at Limerock Park. Resplendent in glorious yellow and red Bosch livery, it draws a crowd wherever it goes.
