Part Two – 2017 Porsche 908 RSR Vision GT Hommage Meets 919 and 917K

by


2017 Porsche 908 RSR 31

Part Two: The RSR!  

The crew behind the gorgeous longtail 908 VGT design have a new beast for 2017’s fantasy-cars daydream.

A skilled group of professional car designers has been working on a side project after work hours for the last few years.  When not designing vehicles for a Chinese car brand, this group led by Alan Derosier has created magic in the form of not one — but two Vision Gran Turismo fantasy concepts.  They took the VGT idea to heart and applied it to one of the most storied brands in racing history: Porsche.  For licensing and rights reasons, Porsche does not appear anywhere in the SONY Polyphony Digital Gran Turismo game series.  As such, they were not one of the two-dozen carmakers who created a special design prototype for gamers to race.

Bummer, right?  Well, enthusiasts to the rescue.  We’re happy to see Porsche has given them a bit of recognition and glory for their incredible design achievement.  This is extra good because Porsche is known to be quite litigious when it comes to enforcing their trademarks.  A visit to the race team let sets the new RSR 908 design beside an original 908/917 and the latest 919.  Contrasts are immediately apparent — mostly in overall scale.  The VGT hommage is simply much larger than the 919 of today, and would need more relaxed, perhaps non-hybrid, race classes to justify its extra mass.

Here is a look at the original 908 LH in action on track, plus a side-by-side look at the original and its progeny.  

These 908-04 Longtails hark back to the days when aerodynamics were more of an art and less of a science as they are today.  Hunches and aeronautical experience, plus track feedback, is what informed the original 908 LH to grow its giant tail spike.  Today, the race rules and the Mulsanne chicanes on the Le Mans track make ultimate high-speed slipperiness less important than it was in the 1960s.

This RSR variant is more relevant to the tracks and rules of endurance racing today.  Its giant rear end sprouted vertical and horizontal stabilizers to keep the racer arrow-straight at insane speeds.  Yes, the wings might lop off a few top MPH in the name of downforce for this RSR version.  It is still breathtakingly beautiful to behold.

Even so, as the Chiron chases 300-mph in a road car, Porsche may dust off some of these ideas if it hopes to keep pace.

2017 Porsche 908 RSR – Vision GT Hommage

The Porsche 908/04 concept is the result of team work with contributions from five key people: Alan Derosier (Exterior Designer), Marcos Beltrao (Exterior Modeler / Rendering), Martin Peng (Component Modeler), Guillermo Mignot (Interior Designer), and Tom Wheatley (Image Retoucher). They all work for a Chinese automotive brand – and they all share a passion for a sports car manufacturer based in Suttgart-Zuffenhausen.