This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Carrera RS 2.7, one of the most influential sports cars of all time. Pretty much the epitome of ‘race car for the road’, the RS sports a prominent spoiler conceived to reduce high-speed lift at the rear. Subject to functional development at the instruction of Porsche engineer, Peter Falk, and subsequently refined by factory stylist, Anatole Lapine, the resulting ‘ducktail’ has gone down in automotive history as being as iconic as some of Porsche’s most celebrated cars. Not bad for an angled bit of plastic.
Surprisingly, prior to development of the RS’s front airdam and rear spoiler, Porsche had conducted little work in the field of aerodynamics. Granted, a few years earlier, the 917 race car had been tamed, transforming it from a Porsche which factory drivers refused to climb into (on the grounds of massive instability at high speed), to a multiple Le Mans-winning machine respected the world over, but even this work was largely the responsibility of John Wyer Automotive, the Gulf-sponsored outfit enlisted by Porsche to take over the running of its 917 Le Mans programme after disappointing results in 1969. So the story goes, Wyer’s engineer, John Horsman, noticed a pattern of splattered bugs all over the 917’s, meaning short tail), delivering a huge amount of extra downforce, ultimately resulting in a version of the sports-prototype works drivers were confident wasn’t hellbent on killing them.
