When he was invited back to Porsche in 1971, Ernst Fuhrmann was able to survey a company at the pinnacle of its 20-year existence. Two Le Mans victories and comprehensive domination of sports car racing made Porsche seem unassailable, while the 911 was an established if idiosyncratic sports car with a significant following. But Ernst was no fool and he saw that the amazing impetus which Ferdinand Piëch’s 917 had created could all be lost, and business fall away very quickly.
The new rules for 1972 excluded sports cars above 3.0 litres, a move widely seen as aimed as much at curbing Porsche’s hegemony as anything else. If the more open rules of the CanAm championship left further opportunities for the 917, and a chance to amortise its huge cost over a few more seasons, that still left the European theatre without a top-category Porsche racer. And the 911 itself, little changed in eight years, needed new momentum, which in Ernst’s view could come only from high-profile racing.
It was for this purpose that he conceived a lightweight, higher-powered 911, based on the T, which could be sold both as a road car and track racer suitable for Group 3. The car, launched as the Porsche Carrera 2.7 RS, easily achieved the 500-homologation minimum build required by the CSI, motor racing’s governing body, enabling Porsche to build a pure race version for Group 4. Logically, this was referred to as the 911 RSR. It
