If one racing car outside of McLaren is symbolic of the brutal power of the Can-Am series, it’s the Porsche 917. Especially in its most distinctive version, the 917/30 with its 1,000-plus-horsepower turbo engine. To this day, the Porsche 917s that once competed in the Can-Am series continue to fascinate. Let’s take a closer look at the success story.

Racing fans in the USA tend to view Porsche’s Can-Am history with mixed feelings. Some have fond memories and see Porsche’s involvement in the series as an enrichment. Others still point out today that they stopped attending Can-Am races because of Porsche. It’s even claimed that Porsche killed the series, a statement vehemently contradicted by the likes of Brian Redman. The Brit was a driver himself and recalls: ‘As early as 1972, there were signs that Can-Am was in decline. The global economy was weak, too many races were being won by the same team, spectator interest was waning and prize money was also lower after Johnson Wax, who had been the sponsor for six years, pulled out. The energy crisis did the rest.’ But regardless of where you stand on the issue, there is one thing that everyone agrees on: by ending McLaren’s supremacy, the squad from Zuffenhausen achieved something that many Can-Am fans had longed for, for many years.

In the early Can-Am years, Porsche was only present thanks to the efforts of privateer drivers, in particular Tony Dean, who secured the marque’s first overall Can-Am victory in 1970 with his 908 at Road Atlanta. By that time, the potential of Can-Am had already been recognised by the Porsche importer in North America. It was a German, Josef Hoppen, known in the USA as Jo Hoppen, in charge. He oversaw the ‘Special Vehicles Department’ at Volkswagen of America and his area of responsibility included motorsport in the USA, Mexico and Canada. Initially, the focus was on Formula Vee as an up-and-coming single-seater racing series. However, Porsche was soon added to the Volkswagen of America portfolio thanks to the joint Porsche 914 project. The expansion offered Hoppen opportunities to promote Porsche through motorsport.

There was no question for Hoppen that the Can-Am series, which enjoyed enormous popularity at the time, was the best platform for Porsche. And after the 917 was unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show in the spring of 1969, Hoppen immediately saw the potential of the car for Can-Am racing: ‘I thought to myself, if we cut the roof off and made a Spyder out of it, the 917 could form the basis for a strong, competitive Can-Am programme that we could use to promote not only Porsche, but also our newly acquired Audi brand.’ …

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by Christian Reinsch and René de Boer

Photographs: Porsche, Michael Keyser, Cahier

With nine WRC drivers’ titles, a Junior World Championship and 80 wins in WRC rallies, Sébastien Loeb is by far the most successful rally driver of all time in terms of numbers. He has also won rounds of the World Rallycross and World Touring Car Championships, finished second overall at Le Mans and tested for Formula 1. AUTOMOBILSPORT spoke to the all-rounder at an event in the South of France. Loeb’s long-time partner Richard Mille had invited us to chat with him about his career and the topics he is passionate about, in a quiet atmosphere on the outskirts of Saint-Tropez.

AUTOMOBILSPORT: Where do you think your talent and your passion for motorsport come from?

Loeb: I don’t come from a motorsport background. As a kid, I did a lot of gymnastics, I was quite good at that, but then I became more interested in riding mopeds with my friends, even some races. But my real goal was to get my driving licence and to drive a car, which is what I did when I was 18, and with the help of my grandmother, I could buy my first car, a Renault 5 GT Turbo. I didn’t have a particular passion for cars, but a passion for driving. And then I started to drive on the road. I never wanted to go racing or anything, but I could spend an hour just driving two corners in the middle of a field, over and over again, because I wanted to take these corners perfectly. Just challenging myself. I was only happy when I had the feeling it was perfect.

Then I saw something about this project ‘Rallye Jeunes’, which was organised by the French federation and a manufacturer, which at the time was Peugeot, and everybody in France under 25 years of age could enter. You paid a small fee, it would be around 15 euros today, and you were in the regional selection. The winners of the regional selections went on to the national final, and the winner of that earned a rally season. I just wanted to battle with some other guys, but I won the regional selection, I went to the final and there, I posted the fastest time of the day. Even the journalists were certain that I had won and that I would do the championship, but there were judges who decided as well, it was not just about the time. And they decided that another driver had won.

The following year, same story. I did the selection again, won, went to the final and dominated that, but at the end, I made a mistake, so again, no prize. Still, somebody came up to me and said, ‘If you are the first of 15,000 for two years in a row, you are something special, so I will help you.’ And he provided me with a car and I started rallying. That was Dominique Heintz, with whom, later on, I set up Sébastien Loeb Racing, our own team. And he is still a good friend. Had it not been for him, I wouldn’t be here.

He ran me for the first three seasons, and in the third season, I won the title in the Saxo Kit Car Cup, a category in which everybody had identical cars, and that is how Citroën became interested in me. They provided me with a car to do the French gravel championship that I won, then I did the Junior World Championship with Citroën that I won, then the French championship that I won, and then they gave me a car for the world championship round in Italy, and I finished second in my first official WRC round. From that moment, I had the opportunity to go to every team. So that is how it all started.

AUTOMOBILSPORT: You were up against some really good drivers, including Colin McRae, Carlos Sainz ... Whom do you rate as the strongest driver you competed against?

Loeb: …

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by Robert Weber and René de Boer

Photographs: McKlein, Richard Mille/Mathieu Bonnevie

There are records that aren’t entirely glamorous – and Armin Hahne holds one of them. It’s got nothing to do with a glittering string of victories. But Armin is definitely the driver who has completed the most laps of the Nürburgring Nordschleife. As a race driver, of course, but above all testing Bridgestone tyres, which he did for around 30 years. Hahne’s motorsport career began in karting before he switched to the touring car scene in 1976 at the age of 20. He competed in around 600 races until 2012. Not only in Europe, but also in Japan, the USA, Australia, Malaysia and New Zealand. He was a dedicated expert, fast and experienced. Hahne will turn 70 years old on 10 September.

To me, he always seemed like a high-class mercenary, standing in the gun smoke as long as it paid. A professional racer who shuttled between Fuji and Laguna Seca, between Kyalami and Le Mans. And almost without exception as a works driver. For Ford and BMW, for Rover, Nissan, Honda, Mazda, Maserati, Lexus and also for Jaguar, for example at Le Mans in Tom Walkinshaw’s 550-horsepower XJ220 (1993). In his heyday, he was one of the absolute top drivers. A tough fighter. Of course, he won the 24-hour race at ‘home’, the Nürburgring (1991). He also won the 24 Hours of Spa twice (1982 and 1983) and the 1,000 Kilometres of Bathurst in Australia (1985). Only at Le Mans did he never manage a place on the podium. His best result there was fifth in a Porsche 911 GT1 (1997). In 1991 he won the Jaguar Cup (racing the XJR-15) and collected a million dollars in prize money! In the many, many endurance races he competed in, he shared the cockpit with a lot of talent: Denny Hulme, Hans Heyer, Klaus Ludwig, Reinhold Joest, Hans-Joachim Stuck, Harald Grohs, Steve Soper, Jo Schlesser, Bertrand Gachot, Joachim Winkelhock, Kris Nissen, Michael Bartels and many others.

Fans will remember his truly horrific DTM accident at the Nürburgring in 1989. Luckily he survived. That was in a Ford Sierra RS 500 Cosworthl, with which he’d won six DTM races the previous year. The crash happened at the Eifel race in the spring when Klaus Ludwig spun after the Dunlop corner, in the uphill section, ahead of the 40-car pack racing door to door on the first lap. Ludwig was left facing the wrong way in the middle of the road with the onrushing cars approaching. The car in front of Hahne just managed to swerve out of the way, but Hahne’s Ford Cosworth slammed head-on into the Mercedes at around 200 km/h. The impact was like an explosion. For the spectators who saw it in person and everyone who had seen it on TV or on the monitors in the pits, there was a very real fear that both drivers had been killed. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case. Ludwig got off relatively lightly. Hahne, who was trapped in the wreck, was more seriously injured. He suffered various broken bones in his legs and arms, bruises and a few internal injuries. The spectators watched with trepidation as he was transported away in a helicopter …

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by Eckhard Schimpf

Photographs: Archiv Armin Hahne, McKLein, Kräling, BMW, Archiv Eckhard Schimpf

When the legendary Schnitzer racing team closed its doors at the end of 2020 following its demise as a BMW works squad, and all of its equipment was put up for sale, Stefen Trautwein moved to protect the history of one of Germany’s most famous racing teams by buying it. Under the Schnitzer Classic banner, Trautwein and his son Yannik are keeping history alive – and they are doing so in a way that the Schnitzer name deserves, namely on the racetrack.

It was like a time machine. In the paddock at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Austria, stood the well-known race transporter with Schnitzer stickers, in the pits stood three BMW touring cars, lined up with millimetre precision. The pit equipment was looking its finest, everything nicely arranged and easily at hand. You could be forgiven for thinking that Charly or Dieter Lamm or Herbert Schnitzer were about to walk around the corner at any moment. Just like in the old days.

For Stefen Trautwein, who has been active in historic motorsport for almost 30 years, mainly with BMWs, Schnitzer Motorsport was a well-known address. ‘I used to go there for parts all of the time and built up a very good relationship with both the Lamm brothers and Herbert Schnitzer over the years,’ he says. ‘When it became clear that the collaboration between BMW and Schnitzer was coming to an end, it was a piece of news that stuck with me. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I got in touch with Herbert Schnitzer, there were many discussions and I then proposed to take over the historic part completely – either everything or nothing. We came to an agreement fairly quickly. It was clear to us that a team with such a long, successful history should not just cease to exist.’

Stefen Trautwein took over as the third generation of his family business, which specialised in parts production, in 1985. ‘I’ve always been enthusiastic about technology, and I was also interested in motorsport,’ he says. The business was doing well, flourishing in the field of CNC technology, so in the mid-1990s Trautwein acquired his first racing car, a Lola T212. The collection soon expanded: Formula 2 cars and a BMW M1 from the Procar series followed. This was the beginning of his passion for BMW. Trautwein took part in a couple of races as a driver, but his fascination was primarily with technology, and so he often helped other drivers who were competing …

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by René de Boer

Photographs: Dino Eisele, Silas Stein, Hardy Mutschler, Martin Bormann, EG Photography