Porsche 908s Shine In Goodwood 70s Sportscar 3-Liter Demonstration

The shrill flat-eight sound of a pair of 908s running on track is enough to make any Porschephile’s day.

byBradley Brownell|
Porsche 908s Shine In Goodwood 70s Sportscar 3-Liter Demonstration
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Similar to the 90s era GT1 demo that we showed you a couple of days ago, Goodwood also played host to a group of early 1970s era sports prototypes, featuring a couple of Porsche's best. This was an era of rapid aerodynamic development, and Porsche did run some pretty trick aero setups in the late 60s and early 70s, but the two cars featured here were a couple of the more conservative designs. The white and red car is a 908/2 "Flunder" from 1969, and the Gulf-liveried car is a 908/3 Spyder campaigned in 1970/71. While Porsche's 917 was conquering the 5-liter classes at international races all over the world, their 908 was kicking some serious competition in the 3-liter class. 

Some of the cars in this demonstration, namely the Matra-Simca, featured later aero developments with more downforce and the huge elevated air intake box. Porsche's 908 was discontinued in 1972 when they switched focus from sports prototypes to production-based 911 racers. As some of their 3-liter competition evolved into Group 5 cars, Porsche left that class behind for a few years. As such, the Porsche pair is actually among the slower cars in the class (even as one of them suffers a spin early in the running), but it doesn't really matter as this event is meant for demonstration purposes only.

Given that some of these cars are fitted with louder Ford DFV and Matra V12 engines, it's occasionally a bit difficult to hear the Porsche engines over that wailing Ford, but when it does bleed through, you can tell that they sound phenomenal. With Matra, McLaren, DeCadenet, Lola, Alfa Romeo, and Porsche on the grid, the only thing missing is a Ferrari 312. It's certainly a great grouping of proper sports prototypes running around the circuit.  

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