More stories have been told about the Porsche 917 than any other racing car built. Even talented drivers have paid a heavy price for getting on the wrong side of the 917 - and those few who mastered it still talk about it in reverential tones. Just the thought of driving one makes a mere mortal such as me want to run and hide.
Richard Attwood knows the feeling. He first drove the 917 at Le Mans in the car's maiden season, 1969, and at the 21-hour mark was leading by a country mile when the gearbox failed. He must have been gutted. "On the contrary," comes the reply, "I've never been more glad to get out of a racing car in my life."
At least Attwood survived that first race - and went on to win Le Mans in the 917 the following year. A private British entrant in the 1969 race, John Woolfe, wasn't so lucky: he crashed his 917 and died during the first lap.
The problem was that no one had ever built a racing car like the 917 before. Before it appeared, the fastest racing cars were just nudging 200mph on the long Mulsanne Straight at Le Mans. The 917 - with special aerodynamic bodywork and engines generating almost 600bhp - managed 220mph in 1969 and, by 1971, about 245mph. Forty years ago there wasn't the computing power or wind-tunnel expertise to keep a car stable at such velocities.
Attwood's memories of the early cars are vivid. "Every lap, as you went down the straight, you could look in the mirror and see the horizon appear to move as the back of the car started to come off the ground." Other drivers reported wheelspin at more than 200mph, not because of excess power but because the rear tyres were no longer in contact with the tarmac.
Advertisement
Despite this, Attwood says: "The car was the most brilliant racing car you could hope for."
Derek Bell, five times Le Mans winner and 917 racer, agrees. "On really quick circuits, they were faster even than the Formula One cars."
It wasn't just professional racers who were drawn to the 917. Steve McQueen made an entire film called Le Mans, in which his character, Michael Delaney, uses a 917 to battle his Ferrari-borne nemesis for victory in the world's greatest motor race. Even in the controlled environment of a film set, the 917 could still bite. David Piper was an experienced British driver hired for the filming. After a fast run past the camera, his 917 skidded out of control and crashed heavily, pinning Piper in the wreck. The shunt cost him his leg, though if you see a picture of the wreckage - his seat and the engine are the only recognisable components - it is miraculous he escaped with his life. Piper races his 917 to this day.
The car I am to drive is mechanically identical to the one in which Attwood won Le Mans, and he is here to coach me through its finer points. It has a 580bhp 4.5-litre flat-12 engine and a four-speed gearbox. The cockpit is painfully small for someone as generously proportioned as me, and Attwood has the bright idea of removing the seat so I can sit on the floor. You turn a key and the engine starts, just like in a Ford Fiesta. "It's part of the Porsche approach," Attwood explains. "The way they built their cars, the least reliable component was always likely to be the one behind the wheel, so they deliberately made it as foolproof as possible. That's why the gearbox has synchromesh on all gears and why they paid so much attention to getting proper ventilation in the cabin. Porsche knew drivers would make fewer mistakes."
After a cautious couple of laps, Attwood is waiting for me in the pit lane. His exact words fail to penetrate my helmet, but the gist is: "Get back out there and don't come back until you've had a proper go."
Advertisement
If you do what I do for a living, you'll never get a better invitation than that. So I put my fear in a box, ignore the car's seven-figure value and drive the 917 as fast as I can make it go. And, to my considerable surprise, I discover that, while far from easy to drive, it is at least manageable. At first the acceleration seems so absurd as not to be real - it reaches more than 170mph on even quite short straights - but blessed with fine weather, a deserted Silverstone circuit and no pressure, I soon begin to enjoy the purity of the steering and the howl of the engine - identical to what you hear in McQueen's movie, just turned up to 11.
I wonder how hard to push, but when I feel it start to slide in the corners I know it's time to back off. It may seem controllable, but I suspect more able 917 pilots have had the same thought, before a quick trip to the nearest crash barrier. So I ease off, cruise back to the pits and hand the 917 back to the man who helped to make its name.
To this day it holds the average-speed lap record at Le Mans - never to be beaten after changes were made to the circuit's design to slow the cars. Nothing could be more fitting.
See the 917 and other Le Mans prototypes on the hillclimb twice daily over the weekend of the Goodwood Festival of Speed, July 3 - July 5 2009
Fast and Furious: Anatomy of a thoroughbred racer
Advertisement
The gearknob of a 917 is made from balsa wood to save weight.
Even the ignition key is a fine metal lattice, which saves a few milligrams.
The 917 was so dominant in the US Can-Am race series that in 1973 it won every round it entered, forcing a rule change that in effect banned it.
The ultimate 917 was the 917/30, which was brought out of retirement in 1975 to lap the Talladega race track at 221mph, driven by Mark Donohue. At the time it was the fastest lap recorded by any car anywhere in the world.
The 917's engine is cooled by air rather than water and remains the only air-cooled flat-12 motor.
Advertisement
Although it is a pure racing car, the Le Mans rules said the 917 had to carry not only two people but also a spare tyre.
The greatest rivalry among 917 drivers was between Jo Siffert and Pedro Rodriguez. When asked to describe their relationship, Siffert called it "fine, except every time we get on the track, the little Mexican bastard tries to kill me".
The 917 was designed by Ferdinand Piëch, grandson of Ferdinand Porsche.