Blog

After 2 years of anticipation and months of prep work to plot routes, organise hotels, polo’s, stickers and the like, our departure is near. BergMeisteR Tour III will see 8 early 911’s cover 4.500 km in 8 days. Our route will take us through Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, France , Switzerland, Italy and Monaco.

Judging by a regular flow of enquiries, this event has started to reach a bit of halo-status among aficionado’s as the toughest test of early 911 resilience, shy of an endurance race event. Every element of the car is challenged in this road trip. Although we drive by the rules of the road, the driving is spirited and involves intense acceleration and braking. To give you an idea: last time, in 2012, I went through a set of Michelin TB’s in a week.

Space saver in late fuel tank on early chassis brings range and space!

Silverado, our 2.7 RS engined ST model, has participated in 5 Winter Trials and Lex renovated the front wheel bearings and disks. The bearings had rotted away in a couple of years and it was a miracle the car didn’t develop any problems this year…. All is fresh again and except for some wheel balancing on Monday, there isn’t much needed anymore. My cousin Simon from Canada is coming in again for the event and he will be driving my ‘Old Shoe”.

Silverado donning the BergMeister© Squiggly, representing the challenge ahead. Cars wearing this distinctively logo have already completed thousands of kilometers of spirited driving on Europe’s mountain roads.

We have done an in-house restoration of the gearbox, which was ready for a bit of work after 6 years of active life, racing and rallying. Synchro’s and bearings really suffer from driving on great varieties of road surface and loose dirt. The plates in the diff needed replacement as well. The gearbox is now fully WEVO spec, with Gate Shift Kit, transmission mounts, Stock PSJ shifter coupling, Billet Clamp, Blue 911 Semi Solid Transmission and Engine mounts and obviously a 915 Billet Shifter with Tall Knob. This car shifts better than a G50 equipped Carrera.

BergMeisteR© Squiggly as it will appear on participating cars next week.

After many years of producing rally shields which only serve a single event, I decided to try a different approach. A design which we have registered as a trademark and which has enough attraction to stay on a car even after an event is over. It does’t make the cars any faster, but it’s a wink to the road sign which warns of curves ahead and the orange arrows from the racing and rallying Porsches of the 60’s and 70’s.

As you can see there is still some work to be done on Woodstock, our yellow RSR, which you see in the back, but that car will be up and running by Tuesday, also with an in-house refurbished gearbox, but then an FIA compliant version. I put the license plates back on, the second seat in as my wife will be driving back with me from Monaco and cleaned the racing scars from the season opener off the body.

Woodstock will not only drive the Dutch Historic GT/Touring Car Championship, but will also complete the BergMeisteR Tour. I don’t know of any early 911 which handles this….

Woodstock on the Rolling Road to fine-tune the MFI.

This multipurpose work horse has been my buddy for 8 years by now and it has driven any kind of event, including driver education with my sons… It was the first car to drive  and race with our now famous RSR Brakes and it has a history of racing since 1993. When it was born as a 911S in 1973 it could not have fathomed the adventure which would lie ahead.

We have sourced some awesome 16″ RSR finish Fuchs, which we will be offering through our shop in a few weeks. Woodstock will pilot the wheels.

Beautiful 16″ Fuchs X 10J

Stay tuned for daily updates from Friday on Europe endurance tour for early Porsches.