Günter Steckkönig

Günter Steckkönig did not yet have his trademark moustache when he came to Zuffenhausen as a Reutter apprentice in 1953. That would materialise two decades later, by which time Steckkönig was a fully fledged Porsche experimental engineer and acknowledged endurance racer. Reutter Karosseriewerk was the assembler of Porsches, and the young Steckkönig knew exactly what Porsches were as his father used to take him to the Solitude races, a short distance from their home in the southern Stuttgart suburb of Degerloch.

“There were eight apprentices in the workshop at Reutter,” he says, “and my first job was to rub down and polish the aluminium brake drums and the wheels and ensure the surfaces were absolutely flat.” He was above all fascinated by the competition cars: “The racing department was in the same building, panelled off; we couldn’t see, but we could hear them.” His competence and enthusiasm would see him