Speaker 1: From CurtCo Media.
Jay Gillotti: I thought people might appreciate hearing the lives of what
Jay Gillotti: happened to these individual cars over the last almost 50
Jay Gillotti: years when we finished writing. Because at the end of
Jay Gillotti: 1971, all of these cars were obsolete. Some of them
Jay Gillotti: were sort of left for dead.
Speaker 3: This is Cars That Matter.
Robert Ross: This Robert Ross with Cars That Matter. Welcome. And I
Robert Ross: would like to welcome a very special guest today, Jay
Robert Ross: Gillotti. Jay is up in Seattle at present, I'm in
Robert Ross: Los Angeles. And we are having a great conversation over
Robert Ross: Zoom. Jay, welcome to our program.
Jay Gillotti: Thanks Robert. I'm glad to be here.
Robert Ross: Jay, you've got quite a story and I think we've
Robert Ross: got quite a conversation in store, especially for people who
Robert Ross: love a very, very special and very important race car.
Robert Ross: But before we tell everybody what that is, a little
Robert Ross: something about you. You retired from the big corporate life
Robert Ross: in 2016. And by my reckoning, you're still a young
Robert Ross: guy. You've been able to focus on essentially a second
Robert Ross: career as an automotive writer. I don't want to shortchange
Robert Ross: you. You've been actually doing that for a long time,
Robert Ross: but now you're doing it full time. So I don't
Robert Ross: know if I should say condolences or congratulations, but I
Robert Ross: think that's a great transition.
Jay Gillotti: I think it's congratulations. The good news is when I
Jay Gillotti: retired from the corporate world, I said that I wasn't
Jay Gillotti: really retiring. I just wanted to work on things that I wanted
Jay Gillotti: to work on. So that's pretty much what I'm doing.
Robert Ross: You certainly are. And of course your name ring a
Robert Ross: bell with me when I first got this notice to have
Robert Ross: a podcast with you. Because as a long time Porsche Club of America member, I've
Robert Ross: seen your name in Panorama. And obviously you've got a
Robert Ross: lot to say about Porsches. We're here to talk today
Robert Ross: about a book that you have just published with Dalton
Robert Ross: Watson Fine Books. It's a book called Gulf 917. Boy,
Robert Ross: that one word and that one number, it just pulls
Robert Ross: at the heartstrings of race fans everywhere. It would not
Robert Ross: be an understatement to say that this book is really
Robert Ross: a magisterial achievement. It's damn near two inches thick, about
Robert Ross: 500 pages and almost as many images. Jay, I wish
Robert Ross: our listeners could actually hold it in their hands because
Robert Ross: it's a hugely impressive tome.
Jay Gillotti: Thank you very much.
Robert Ross: It obviously culminates a close to 40 year love affair
Robert Ross: with the Porsche 917.
Jay Gillotti: Actually longer than 40 years, if we really want to
Jay Gillotti: get into it. It goes back all the way to
Jay Gillotti: the first time I saw Steve McQueen's film, which would
Jay Gillotti: have been the first time they showed it on network
Jay Gillotti: television in the U. S., which we think was somewhere
Jay Gillotti: around 1972 or 1973. So I would have been eight or
Jay Gillotti: nine years old, an impressionable age. Obviously it made a
Jay Gillotti: pretty deep groove in the psyche.
Robert Ross: Enough to make you the acknowledged expert on these cars.
Jay Gillotti: Well, maybe one of the acknowledged experts. There are several
Jay Gillotti: out there besides me.
Robert Ross: Certainly a modest one at that. For those listeners who
Robert Ross: may be familiar with the name Gulf and familiar with
Robert Ross: the Porsche model designation 917, it's a pretty complicated set
Robert Ross: of historical talking points. Tell us what makes the 917
Robert Ross: such an important car.
Jay Gillotti: First of all, it's a car that was designed to
Jay Gillotti: win The 24 Hours of Le Mans, which at that time and
Jay Gillotti: perhaps still is the most important motor race in the world. Certainly at that time I think globally, it was the most important motor race. And Ferdinand
Jay Gillotti: Piech who was head of research and development for Porsche
Jay Gillotti: clearly set out to build a car that was capable
Jay Gillotti: of winning overall at Le Mans. Porsche had been many, many class
Jay Gillotti: wins at Le Mans in the first 20 years of their existence,
Jay Gillotti: but they hadn't won the race overall. So that's what
Jay Gillotti: he really set out to do with the 917. And
Jay Gillotti: he was successful. Porsche was still a relatively small company
Jay Gillotti: in 1969 when they started building the 917, I think
Jay Gillotti: Porsche sold about 14, 000 cars. So you compare that
Jay Gillotti: to some of the other manufacturers, and Porsche really was
Jay Gillotti: still a small family owned company.
Robert Ross: Mercedes was like GM by comparison.
Jay Gillotti: And of course, Porsche has gone on to win Le Mans 19
Jay Gillotti: times in total since then. The second thing on the
Jay Gillotti: 917 is as with everything Porsche does is engineering based,
Jay Gillotti: and they're always looking for transfer from the race cars
Jay Gillotti: to the street cars. So the 917 brought us a
Jay Gillotti: lot of experimentation with exotic metals and alloys. It was
Jay Gillotti: the first use of vented and cross drilled breaks. It
Jay Gillotti: was the first experiment with ABS, antilock braking system. And
Jay Gillotti: of course turbo charging. For the Can- Am 917, that's
Jay Gillotti: technology that very quickly made its way to the street
Jay Gillotti: cars. And now, if you look at what Porsche is
Jay Gillotti: doing today, the majority of all of Porsche's cars, especially
Jay Gillotti: the sports cars are turbocharged. The third thing is the
Jay Gillotti: 917 has become a car culture icon, in part due
Jay Gillotti: to Steve McQueen and the film as we mentioned. It's
Jay Gillotti: a pretty high power association between a very charismatic individual,
Jay Gillotti: and I would argue the 917 is a highly charismatic
Jay Gillotti: car. In fact, Steve was famous for upstaging his costars,
Jay Gillotti: especially early in his career in film. And I would
Jay Gillotti: argue if you watch Le Mans, the 917 actually upstages him.
Jay Gillotti: The fourth thing on the 917 is just speed. People
Jay Gillotti: love sheer speed. And the 917 set numerous speed records.
Jay Gillotti: Now in 1970, Vic Elford was the first person to
Jay Gillotti: lap Lamont at 150 mile an hour average speed in the
Jay Gillotti: 917. '71, they were pushing something over 240 miles an
Jay Gillotti: hour down the Mulsanne Straight. And at Spa in '71, (inaudible)
Jay Gillotti: car's average speed was 154 miles an hour for 1,
Jay Gillotti: 000 kilometers. And that includes the time the car is
Jay Gillotti: stationary in the pits. And Pedro Rodriguez set the lap
Jay Gillotti: record at 162 miles an hour on a public road.
Jay Gillotti: That's the fastest sports car race ever run. And I
Jay Gillotti: doubt that record will ever be beaten.
Robert Ross: Jay, this is an incredible overview of an incredible car.
Robert Ross: Putting it into context, probably everybody listening to this show
Robert Ross: has seen the recent film Ford v Ferrari. And of course
Robert Ross: the Ford GT and the Ferrari 330s of the period were remarkable cars.
Robert Ross: But they essentially became antiques once the 917 hit the
Robert Ross: scene. It changed the game for everybody. Didn't it?
Jay Gillotti: The funny thing is the 917 in a way also grew
Jay Gillotti: out of the Ford versus Ferrari period, because the FIA
Jay Gillotti: theoretically was not only worried about the sheer speed of
Jay Gillotti: the GT40s with their seven liter big block American engines.
Jay Gillotti: But also, people tend to think that the French maybe
Jay Gillotti: weren't too happy about the Americans coming over and winning
Jay Gillotti: Le Mans the way they did with a kind of
Jay Gillotti: a crushing display of both money and horsepower. So the
Jay Gillotti: FIA changed the rules after Gurney and Foyt won in
Jay Gillotti: '67 in the Mark 4 GT, the FIA changed the
Jay Gillotti: rules and said for '68, you've got to come down
Jay Gillotti: to three liter prototype, which was the same as a
Jay Gillotti: formula one motor. But they left the door open to
Jay Gillotti: a 'sports car.' A series produced sports car could be
Jay Gillotti: up to five liters. John Wyer and the Gulf team
Jay Gillotti: carried on with the GT40 with a small block because the
Jay Gillotti: GT40, they had already built more than 50. So it
Jay Gillotti: was approved from a homologation point of view and they
Jay Gillotti: could continue to race the GT40.
Robert Ross: With a 289. Is that right?
Jay Gillotti: Yeah. So the Gulf team went on to win Le
Jay Gillotti: Mans again '68 and '69 with their GT40s. And Porsche
Jay Gillotti: in '68 of course came out with a three liter
Jay Gillotti: prototype, the 908, which they had invested a lot in and
Jay Gillotti: thought was going to be very successful. And it was
Jay Gillotti: successful.
Robert Ross: A lot of drivers like that car.
Jay Gillotti: They are terrific cars. However, at the end of '68,
Jay Gillotti: the Gulf team had won the championship for Ford, the
Jay Gillotti: manufacturer's championship because Le Mans counted for more points than any of the other
Jay Gillotti: races. The Gulf team had used all of three chassis
Jay Gillotti: during the season. Whereas Porsche had built somewhere around 40
Jay Gillotti: or more racing cars for their racing effort in '68.
Jay Gillotti: So that I think became a concern for ferry Porsche,
Jay Gillotti: just the amount of money that Porsche was spending. On
Jay Gillotti: the other hand, Ferdinand Piech, when the FIA changed the rules
Jay Gillotti: and said, " Okay, we'll bring it down to 25 cars
Jay Gillotti: for group four, five liter homologation." Ferdinand Piech had that
Jay Gillotti: light bulb moment and said, " Wait a minute, we're building
Jay Gillotti: all these cars anyway. Why can't we just go ahead
Jay Gillotti: and build 25 cars all at once and we'll get
Jay Gillotti: homologation approval for a five liter sports racer based on
Jay Gillotti: our 908." And that's really how the 917 project got started.
Robert Ross: Let's jump off and help me understand, and those listeners
Robert Ross: who may not have a full taxonomy of 917s under
Robert Ross: their belt, there are so many of them. What are
Robert Ross: all the variants? You talk about short tails, and long
Robert Ross: tails, and spiders, and these evil Can- Am cars. And
Robert Ross: there's even a 16 cylinder prototype at one time. Let's
Robert Ross: talk about the Gulf cars because that is what your
Robert Ross: book is about.
Jay Gillotti: The first 25 cars that were built actually came with
Jay Gillotti: two tails. You could have a short tail or a
Jay Gillotti: long tail. The tails were detachable, and you could run
Jay Gillotti: them either in a short tail or a long tail
Jay Gillotti: form. The problem was the car was highly unstable, no
Jay Gillotti: matter what tail you put on it at that point.
Robert Ross: Those tails obviously weren't a fashion statement. Tell us what
Robert Ross: they were used for.
Jay Gillotti: The long tail was supposed to be lower drag for
Jay Gillotti: high speed circuits. They did use the short tail at
Jay Gillotti: Spa, even though Spa is a high speed circuit. But
Jay Gillotti: neither tail worked particularly well because the car was so
Jay Gillotti: fast. The art of aerodynamics in motor racing at that
Jay Gillotti: time was still something of a black art. And they
Jay Gillotti: just didn't understand that the cars were going so fast,
Jay Gillotti: that they were creating lift at the rear of the
Jay Gillotti: car. The rear wheels were literally trying to take off
Jay Gillotti: at speeds up around 200 and beyond. So of course,
Jay Gillotti: when your rear wheels lift up off the ground, it's
Jay Gillotti: unstable and hard to control. But in '69 Porsche also
Jay Gillotti: tried the first open cockpit spider of the 917 for
Jay Gillotti: the Can- Am. (inaudible) drove the car in the Can-
Jay Gillotti: Am in 69, kind of an experiment. They didn't have
Jay Gillotti: the horsepower to really race against the McLarens. But Joe
Jay Gillotti: did pretty well. I think he finished in the top
Jay Gillotti: five in all the races he did in '69. For 1970 and '71,
Jay Gillotti: you mainly have two variations. You have the short tail,
Jay Gillotti: the 917K. And that's the tail that was jointly developed
Jay Gillotti: by the Gulf team and Porsche. Porsche also developed a
Jay Gillotti: new version of the long tail for 1971 in cooperation
Jay Gillotti: with SERA S-E-R- A, which is the French aerodynamicists. And
Jay Gillotti: that car was much more stable and much faster and
Jay Gillotti: allowed Vic, as I said, do that 150 mile an
Jay Gillotti: hour lap at Le Mans. Then we have the spiders,
Jay Gillotti: again, both for Can- Am and inter serie racing in
Jay Gillotti: Europe where you didn't need headlights. You didn't need to
Jay Gillotti: have a roof. There were sort of Can- Am rules,
Jay Gillotti: and there was no minimum weight. So you could cut
Jay Gillotti: the roof off and have a spider. And then for Can-
Jay Gillotti: Am in 72, they developed the 917/10, which eventually became
Jay Gillotti: the first Porsche to be turbocharged. And from the 917/10,
Jay Gillotti: we went to the 917/ 30 in 1973.
Robert Ross: That was the big brute. Wasn't it?
Jay Gillotti: Well, the 917/ 30 as raised by Mark Donohue and
Jay Gillotti: the Penske team developed. You hear all kinds of numbers
Jay Gillotti: and it's hard to really nail down what the numbers
Jay Gillotti: were, but certainly something in the region of 1, 200 horsepower
Jay Gillotti: or more depending on the boost was available to Mark
Jay Gillotti: in the 917/30. Probably the 917/ 10s that everybody else was racing
Jay Gillotti: were somewhere close to that in terms of horsepower.
Robert Ross: That's big power for the time, especially given the rubber
Robert Ross: technology, and breaking, and everything else they had to contend
Robert Ross: with. Turbos were pretty primitive animals back then too.
Jay Gillotti: Verbose were common in old track IndyCar racing and had
Jay Gillotti: been for quite a period of time. But to use
Jay Gillotti: a turbocharged engine for sports car racing on a road
Jay Gillotti: circuit was a whole new different animal to try to
Jay Gillotti: make the car controllable and make all that power usable
Jay Gillotti: on a circuit where you have to speed up, and
Jay Gillotti: slow down, and go around corners, and so on. That
Jay Gillotti: was all new territory. Donohue and the Penske team helped
Jay Gillotti: a lot with Porsche and developing that. As we say,
Jay Gillotti: the rest is history.
Robert Ross: By 1974, we had a 930 turbo 911.
Jay Gillotti: It's amazing how quickly that technology made it to the
Jay Gillotti: street. And then Porsche went on to win numerous additional
Jay Gillotti: victories at Le Mans with turbo charge 936, 956, 962.
Robert Ross: Thanks for that primmer on the 917, a fascinating family tree of
Robert Ross: remarkable cars. But within that family tree, you have focused
Robert Ross: on the so- called Gulf cars. Everybody probably knows Gulf
Robert Ross: Blue. I'm a fan of it. And a true confession. I've got
Robert Ross: a car, it's called blue because for me it represents probably the
Robert Ross: most iconic racing team in history. So you've got a
Robert Ross: book called Gulf 917. We got the Porsche factory, we've got Gulf Oil,
Robert Ross: we've got the John Wyer racing. Tell us what it's all
Robert Ross: about. How did it all come together?
Jay Gillotti: It's actually what I would consider an early experiment in what today we would call
Jay Gillotti: outsourcing. Porsche, by most accounts Ferry Porsche thought that Porsche
Jay Gillotti: was spending too much money on their racing. Not just
Jay Gillotti: money, but also engineering resources. In a small company, he
Jay Gillotti: thought perhaps his engineers were spending too much time actually
Jay Gillotti: traveling to the races and conducting the races as opposed
Jay Gillotti: to being at their desk and designing the next generation
Jay Gillotti: of Porsche street cars as well as racing cars. And
Jay Gillotti: then there was a little bit of if you can't
Jay Gillotti: beat them, join them. I mean, Porsche had lost the
Jay Gillotti: championship and lost at Le Mans to John Wyer's team in '68.
Jay Gillotti: So they came up with this idea to actually outsource
Jay Gillotti: the factory, the official factory Porsche racing team to John
Jay Gillotti: Wyer with Gulf sponsorship for 1970 and '71. That's how
Jay Gillotti: the Gulf 917 story got its start. Important piece of
Jay Gillotti: it was toward the end of 1969, the very first
Jay Gillotti: test session that was attended by John Horsman, who was
Jay Gillotti: the chief engineer for the Gulf team was a test
Jay Gillotti: session at Zeltweg in Austria. And they still couldn't get
Jay Gillotti: the 917 to behave on track.
Robert Ross: The 69 was a troublesome debut for that car. Is that right?
Jay Gillotti: The driver is were afraid of it. Some of them
Jay Gillotti: were anyway. My friend Vic Elford was not afraid of
Jay Gillotti: it. He loved it, even though it was a spooky
Jay Gillotti: handling. But being a rally driver I think gave him
Jay Gillotti: a little different level of confidence with being able to
Jay Gillotti: control the car on track, at least at Le Mans, which is
Jay Gillotti: where he almost darn near won Le Mans in 1969. They were
Jay Gillotti: 50 miles in the lead when the transmission case cracked.
Jay Gillotti: The 917 did win its first race in August of
Jay Gillotti: 69 at Zeltweg. But the still wasn't handling in a
Jay Gillotti: way that gave the drivers full confidence in what the
Jay Gillotti: car was doing. So in October of '69, the first
Jay Gillotti: test that was attended by the Gulf team with John
Jay Gillotti: Horsman as the engineer, they basically figured it out. John
Jay Gillotti: noticed that the little gnats, the little bugs were collecting
Jay Gillotti: on the front of the car, but there was nothing
Jay Gillotti: on the tail. There were no little bugs, no little
Jay Gillotti: dead bugs. Even though the tail flaps were raised almost
Jay Gillotti: full vertical position, there was just nothing. He just said, "
Jay Gillotti: There's no air getting on the tail. So there's no
Jay Gillotti: downforce back there." So the Porsche guys let him borrow
Jay Gillotti: one of the two coops that was there and they
Jay Gillotti: cobbled together using some sheet aluminum, and pop rivets, and
Jay Gillotti: tape. They basically created this upward sweeping tale. It was an
Jay Gillotti: amazing transformation. Brian Redman was the first guy to drive
Jay Gillotti: it when this cobbled together tail was ready. And I
Jay Gillotti: think he was pretty skeptical at first, but they had
Jay Gillotti: been trying to fix the car by adjusting the suspension
Jay Gillotti: with spring rates and shocks, and nothing was working. And
Jay Gillotti: the drivers would only go out for two laps, and
Jay Gillotti: then they would come in, they would shake their head.
Jay Gillotti: They would say, " No, it's no better." But when Brian
Jay Gillotti: tried the so- called horseman tail the first time, he
Jay Gillotti: stayed out for five laps and was going progressively faster,
Jay Gillotti: came in the pits, and famously said, " Now it's a
Jay Gillotti: racing car."
Robert Ross: Entomology in the service of motor sport. And by the way, the resulting
Robert Ross: cars were some of the most beautiful profiles of any race cars there.
Jay Gillotti: John Horsman gets a lot of good credit for solving
Jay Gillotti: the problem. But I think that we also have to
Jay Gillotti: remember that it's pretty well accepted that the Porsche engineers
Jay Gillotti: that were at the test, at least Helmut Flegl and Peter
Jay Gillotti: Falk who were the Porsche engineers at the test. They knew
Jay Gillotti: full well what the problem was. Their problem was with
Jay Gillotti: their boss because Ferdinand Piech had a mandate that the
Jay Gillotti: cars must be low drag. He wanted it to go
Jay Gillotti: fast down the straight. So minimizing drag was it for
Jay Gillotti: him. So they didn't quite know how to tell their boss, "
Jay Gillotti: We've got to sacrifice on drag to get some downforce
Jay Gillotti: so this car will handle," but they were conveniently then
Jay Gillotti: able to blame it on John Horsman and the Gulf
Jay Gillotti: team. And they could go to their boss and say, "
Jay Gillotti: Look, the car is four seconds a lap faster." And
Jay Gillotti: when you think as Brian would say, when you think
Jay Gillotti: how you struggle for a 10th or two.
Robert Ross: That's an eternity, that's a lifetime.
Jay Gillotti: And then when they put it on Firestone tires, five
Jay Gillotti: seconds faster. Porsche had to do the engineering of actually
Jay Gillotti: creating the new rear body work based on the experiment
Jay Gillotti: that Horsman had done. And that allowed for a bunch
Jay Gillotti: of other changes to the car that we're now so
Jay Gillotti: familiar with. All the exhaust could exit out the back
Jay Gillotti: of the car, the ray's tail allowed for the transmission
Jay Gillotti: theoretically to stay cooler because there was more air circulation
Jay Gillotti: back there then in the original car. So they had to figure
Jay Gillotti: all that out. And they only had about four weeks
Jay Gillotti: to create the new body shape. Oh by the way,
Jay Gillotti: at the same time, they were also working on a
Jay Gillotti: new shape for the nose. So it was a combination
Jay Gillotti: also of the new shape of the nose with the Horsman
Jay Gillotti: tail. And they only had about four weeks before they
Jay Gillotti: had to go to Daytona for the super secret test
Jay Gillotti: in November of '69. And that is something I cover
Jay Gillotti: in the book because it's an interesting test because no
Jay Gillotti: photographs exist. It was so secret. And in the book,
Jay Gillotti: I actually commissioned a couple of paintings that are kind
Jay Gillotti: of like what if paintings. What if there were photographs?
Jay Gillotti: What might it have looked like at that test? But
Jay Gillotti: that test proved that the cars were ready to race
Jay Gillotti: in this new configuration in '71. The rest is history,
Jay Gillotti: as they say.
Robert Ross: Your book really is an exercise in obsessive detail. And
Robert Ross: that's a good thing by the way. One of the
Robert Ross: reasons that it's so again, I use the word magisterial,
Robert Ross: is that it doesn't leave any stone unturned. And it
Robert Ross: provides a VIN by VIN analysis of every single Gulf
Robert Ross: 917. And there are 14 chassis and you talk about all of them.
Jay Gillotti: Going into it, there was a thought in the back
Jay Gillotti: of my mind of why do we need another book
Jay Gillotti: about the 917? The 917 has been written about a lot.
Jay Gillotti: More books have been published about the 917 than any other
Jay Gillotti: Porsche racing car. I think I counted something over 20
Jay Gillotti: books that have been written in the last 40 plus
Jay Gillotti: years of course, about the 917. But I thought it
Jay Gillotti: would be nice to tell the story. The story hadn't
Jay Gillotti: fully been told from the English side, from the Gulf
Jay Gillotti: team's perspective.
Robert Ross: Wyer was British and all of this work was German car
Robert Ross: with German engineers and British development people. And of course, international
Robert Ross: team of drivers.
Jay Gillotti: There certainly were politics because not everyone at Porsche necessarily
Jay Gillotti: thought this was the greatest idea to outsource their factory
Jay Gillotti: cars to the Englanders. The thought is that not everybody
Jay Gillotti: necessarily went along with this. And Ferdinand Piech did a few
Jay Gillotti: things perhaps to hedge his bets. His mother Louise Piech
Jay Gillotti: owned Porsche Salzburg, which is the Austrian arm of the
Jay Gillotti: Porsche business that was the importer for Volkswagen and Porsche
Jay Gillotti: in Austria. So in that Daytona in 1970, the Gulf team
Jay Gillotti: shows up with their two cars, and all of a
Jay Gillotti: sudden there's a third 917 there that they weren't expecting.
Jay Gillotti: And it's entered by Porsche Salzburg. Fer Piech is there with Porsche
Jay Gillotti: factory mechanics. He's got theoretically two Porsche factory drivers, including
Jay Gillotti: Vic Elford. So there was some question about internal competition
Jay Gillotti: there, but the Gulf team did very well in that
Jay Gillotti: first race and Rodriguez and (inaudible) won with some
Jay Gillotti: help from Brian Redman won the race by 45 laps.
Jay Gillotti: It was a pretty crushing display, not only by the
Jay Gillotti: 917 itself finishing first and second, but also the Gulf
Jay Gillotti: team conducted the race in the way that Porsche was
Jay Gillotti: hoping they would. And that's really I think what Porsche
Jay Gillotti: was betting on was the conduct of the racing program would
Jay Gillotti: be very effective under John Wyer's leadership and with Gulf
Jay Gillotti: Oil from the United States helping with paying the bills.
Robert Ross: Was it just by accident that Gulf was brought in, and not Shell, or
Robert Ross: Union, or somebody else?
Jay Gillotti: Chapter three in my book is a chapter called Gulf
Jay Gillotti: versus Porsche. And it talks not only about the period
Jay Gillotti: of time where Gulf was racing against Porsche, but it
Jay Gillotti: also talks a little bit about how the relationship got
Jay Gillotti: started between John Wyer and Grady Davis, who was the
Jay Gillotti: executive vice president of Gulf Oil. Grady bought a GT40
Jay Gillotti: for himself that he thought he might race. That really
Jay Gillotti: started the relationship between Grady Davis and John Wyer. Grady
Jay Gillotti: Davis apparently consulted with John Wyer about how Gulf could
Jay Gillotti: best deploy its marketing dollars relative to motor sport. Most
Jay Gillotti: of the other oil companies were spreading their dollars out
Jay Gillotti: very widely with signage at the race tracks and putting
Jay Gillotti: one small decal on everybody's car. John Wyer, very cajole I
Jay Gillotti: think said, " If you would just sponsor one car in
Jay Gillotti: your colors, you would get much better exposure than the
Jay Gillotti: other fuel companies like Elf and Shell." And Wyer may
Jay Gillotti: have been a little bit self serving in that advice. But as it
Jay Gillotti: turned out, the combination of Gulf and John Wyer was
Jay Gillotti: pretty successful right out of the gate in 1967, which
Jay Gillotti: was their first season. They did pretty well. There's an
Jay Gillotti: interesting story about the colors because initially Grady Davis, they
Jay Gillotti: raised his GT40 at Daytona and Sebring in '67. And
Jay Gillotti: he had it painted in the more traditional dark metallic
Jay Gillotti: blue with the orange, which was more of the official Gulf
Jay Gillotti: corporate colors. But all the guys thought that color combination
Jay Gillotti: was a bit on the dull side. So they went
Jay Gillotti: looking for something that would pop a little more. So
Jay Gillotti: they came across the light blue with the Marigold, which
Jay Gillotti: is the official name of the orange. And people just
Jay Gillotti: instantly took a liking to it. And the livery developed
Jay Gillotti: a little bit during the '67 season, but it carried
Jay Gillotti: on for a number of years. There's a whole color
Jay Gillotti: science to the light blue and orange, and why they
Jay Gillotti: work together, and they're opposite each other on the color wheel.
Robert Ross: Complementary colors. Yeah?
Jay Gillotti: And again, the Steve McQueen movie, the great question is
Jay Gillotti: if he hadn't made the movie when he made it,
Jay Gillotti: would we even be here talking about the Gulf cars?
Jay Gillotti: I don't know. I can't answer that question, but it's
Jay Gillotti: an interesting thought experiment.
Robert Ross: You're talking about chief engineer John Horsman for the Wyer racing,
Robert Ross: he was instrumental in informing your book, is that correct?
Jay Gillotti: Yes. And we lost John this year, unfortunately. But I'm
Jay Gillotti: so glad that I met him and had a little bit
Jay Gillotti: of a relationship with him enough to consult with him.
Jay Gillotti: We got him to allow us to scan all of
Jay Gillotti: his period documents that he still had from that period.
Jay Gillotti: Many of those documents we present in the book. The
Jay Gillotti: race data sheets are particularly interesting I think. What John
Jay Gillotti: would do is when he came back from each race,
Jay Gillotti: his handwritten notes would be typed up by his secretary
Jay Gillotti: in a standard format that they had started using with
Jay Gillotti: the GT40s. For each car at each race, there is
Jay Gillotti: this two page onion skin like document. They were taped
Jay Gillotti: together and they're in a loose- leaf notebook that John
Jay Gillotti: had for all these years. And Halloween of 2017 actually
Jay Gillotti: is when I'll never forget spending a couple of days
Jay Gillotti: with John going through the first draft of the book
Jay Gillotti: and all my questions. And then we went and scanned
Jay Gillotti: all those documents very carefully untaping them, taking them out of
Jay Gillotti: the notebook, and then scanning them and putting everything very
Jay Gillotti: carefully back into the notebook. But it's great to share all
Jay Gillotti: that information, especially for people who really want to geek out
Jay Gillotti: on gear ratios, suspension settings. He makes note of the
Jay Gillotti: weather.
Robert Ross: That's fascinating. I love it. We're going to take a short break,
Robert Ross: but we'll be right back.
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Robert Ross: We're back with Jay Gillotti. Jay, of the interesting things
Robert Ross: about your book is that you obviously give a lot
Robert Ross: of pages to the drivers. I know that a few
Robert Ross: of these guys have become friends. Talk about some of
Robert Ross: those stars that were actually driving these cars.
Jay Gillotti: One of the perspectives I took on this book is
Jay Gillotti: that people might not necessarily know a whole lot about
Jay Gillotti: this period of history. Maybe they've seen the movie so
Jay Gillotti: they're interested in the cars, but they don't maybe know
Jay Gillotti: the history in great depth. Maybe they don't know a
Jay Gillotti: whole lot about the drivers themselves. That's why I also
Jay Gillotti: include a very brief introductory chapter on the early history
Jay Gillotti: of Porsche, because people might not be Porsche aficionados, but
Jay Gillotti: they might think the cars are pretty cool. And that
Jay Gillotti: way they can learn a little bit about where Porsche
Jay Gillotti: came in its first 20 years. But the drivers who
Jay Gillotti: are still with us, many of whom have become friends of
Jay Gillotti: mine and helped a lot with the book would be
Jay Gillotti: Brian Redman, Vic Elford, and Derek Bell. But we have
Jay Gillotti: a sidebar for each of the important drivers that did
Jay Gillotti: multiple races with the Gulf team. So that includes also
Jay Gillotti: the great Jo Siffert and the great Pedro Rodriguez who
Jay Gillotti: were the number one drivers and who were two of
Jay Gillotti: the top drivers of that era, both in sports cars
Jay Gillotti: and Formula 1. Both very charismatic individuals. There was a
Jay Gillotti: tremendous rivalry, at least on the track between Siffert and
Jay Gillotti: Rodriguez. They famously hit each other at the start of the
Jay Gillotti: race at Spa in 1970. There's quite a bit of
Jay Gillotti: video of that. So it was pretty intense rivalry. They
Jay Gillotti: both thought they were the best driver and were out
Jay Gillotti: to prove it. And they were both very successful. Pedro
Jay Gillotti: Rodriguez was a little more successful in the Gulf cars
Jay Gillotti: as it turned out, but they made for an exciting
Jay Gillotti: pair. I don't know how John Wyer, he tried to
Jay Gillotti: manage them, but I'm not sure he was tremendously successful. And
Jay Gillotti: I think once they got out on the track, they
Jay Gillotti: kind of did their own thing.
Robert Ross: They were unmanageable at that point.
Jay Gillotti: Pedro Rodriguez, by most accounts, he was the more calculating
Jay Gillotti: driver. He was the more naturally strategic driver who would
Jay Gillotti: wait and look for his opportunity, not overstress the car.
Jay Gillotti: Because remember this is endurance racing we're talking about, we're
Jay Gillotti: not talking about sprint racing. Siffert was more of the charger
Jay Gillotti: as Brian Redman would say. So Siffert pretty much only
Jay Gillotti: knew one way to go. And that was as fast as
Jay Gillotti: possible. And that unfortunately cost them the race at Le Mans in 1970,
Jay Gillotti: which turned out to be Porsche's first win at Le
Jay Gillotti: Mans. Really should have gone to the Gulf team of
Jay Gillotti: Siffert and Redmond. But didn't because Siffert missed a gear
Jay Gillotti: and blew the engine, which was the 917's Achilles heel.
Jay Gillotti: Like all great heroes, our 917s have an Achilles heel
Jay Gillotti: that you have to watch out for. And unfortunately that cost Siffert and
Jay Gillotti: Redmond the race in '70.
Robert Ross: That engine was obviously a layout that had not been
Robert Ross: explored by Porsche until that time. So Mezger designed essentially
Robert Ross: a flat 12. Is that right? I mean, that was
Robert Ross: quite a complicated power plant.
Jay Gillotti: I'm glad you brought that up because we need to
Jay Gillotti: give great credit to Hans Mezger who was Porsche's engine
Jay Gillotti: genius for many, many years and participated in or designed
Jay Gillotti: many of Porsche's great engine. The 917 certainly one of
Jay Gillotti: those, when you think about it. The layout is similar
Jay Gillotti: to a flat eight 908, what with four more cylinders.
Jay Gillotti: The main difference is the power takeoff is from the
Jay Gillotti: center of the crank through a system of gears that
Jay Gillotti: goes down to a prop shaft basically. And that was
Jay Gillotti: done to minimize vibration. So they used a lot of
Jay Gillotti: the dimensions and even some of the exact dimensions of
Jay Gillotti: the 908 engine, but just made it four cylinders bigger,
Jay Gillotti: took the power off the center of the crank. The
Jay Gillotti: most amazing thing to me about it is they ordered
Jay Gillotti: the parts for all 25 engines without ever building a prototype.
Robert Ross: Talk about a leap of faith and some confidence in their own engineering.
Jay Gillotti: And it worked. First time on the Dino, it made
Jay Gillotti: something like 540 horsepower, more horsepower than any previous Porsche
Jay Gillotti: engine and was the first Porsche engine to make more
Jay Gillotti: horsepower than its weight. And then pretty soon with the little
Jay Gillotti: development and tuning, they got it up to something like
Jay Gillotti: 580 horsepower from the four and a half liter version
Jay Gillotti: that they race in '69. One other thing that's fun
Jay Gillotti: about that engine is unlike many of our other Porsche
Jay Gillotti: flat engines, or flat six 911s, the 917 is not
Jay Gillotti: a boxer. The opposing cylinders do not box. They move
Jay Gillotti: in the same direction. So that's why we argue about
Jay Gillotti: this endlessly, but most of us refer to it as
Jay Gillotti: 180 degree V12 because the opposing cylinders move in the
Jay Gillotti: same direction. That's a fun argument in the Facebook group
Jay Gillotti: that we have.
Robert Ross: Tell us a little bit about that.
Jay Gillotti: Well, the primary group on Facebook is called 917 The
Jay Gillotti: Legend, and I've been participating in it now for, I
Jay Gillotti: think almost 10 years. And it's grown to an amazing
Jay Gillotti: number of members. It's up to 15,600 members, which is
Jay Gillotti: to me mind boggling. But it shows the tremendous enthusiasm
Jay Gillotti: that's out there around the world, literally around the world
Jay Gillotti: for the 917. The two GTO groups combined I think
Jay Gillotti: have about 6, 000 members, and we're sitting at 15, 600 for
Jay Gillotti: 917 the legend. So that's pretty cool. And the other
Jay Gillotti: really cool thing about the group is we are still
Jay Gillotti: to this day turning up photos that have never been
Jay Gillotti: seen before.
Robert Ross: Isn't that great?
Jay Gillotti: These amazing old photos, many of them are just snapshots
Jay Gillotti: or whatever that have been digitized and show up in the
Jay Gillotti: group. And we have some really lively column discussions.
Robert Ross: I'll bet you have some characters. There's always a few.
Jay Gillotti: We have some unresolved chassis renumbering issues with a few
Jay Gillotti: of the 917s. So that becomes a very lively discussion
Jay Gillotti: occasionally. It's fun though. We try to keep it fun
Jay Gillotti: and friendly.
Robert Ross: Boy, it really is fun to get into the weeds.
Robert Ross: And again, I mean your book does that in a
Robert Ross: fascinating way. Just being able to read the history of every
Robert Ross: one of those 14 chassis.
Jay Gillotti: They've all had interesting lives. It's so interesting to me.
Jay Gillotti: I thought people might appreciate hearing the lives of what
Jay Gillotti: happened to these individual cars over the last almost 50
Jay Gillotti: years when we finished writing. Because at the end of
Jay Gillotti: 1971, all of these cars were obsolete. Some of them
Jay Gillotti: were sort of left for dead.
Robert Ross: These things weren't just old used cars once their racing
Robert Ross: careers were over. And I guess one of their drivers
Robert Ross: was able to actually acquire one. Jo Siffert got a
Robert Ross: 917. And that 917 of course resurfaced after a long spell in
Robert Ross: a barn. And it came to auction.
Jay Gillotti: That's chassis 24. A lot of us refer to it
Jay Gillotti: as 24-2 because it's really the second car to carry
Jay Gillotti: the chassis number 024. But it was sold to Siffert
Jay Gillotti: and he leased it to Solar Productions for the filming
Jay Gillotti: of the Le Mans movie.
Robert Ross: That's the star car of the movie.
Jay Gillotti: Well, it's one of them because the other one is
Jay Gillotti: chassis 22, which was actually owned by Solar and is
Jay Gillotti: mainly driven by Steve McQueen in the stage sequences that
Jay Gillotti: were filmed for the movie. So the two cars are
Jay Gillotti: both stars. Siffert's car then, the sad moment came when
Jay Gillotti: it appeared in his funeral in 1971. Siffert and Rodriguez were
Jay Gillotti: both killed in 1971. That's the sad part of my
Jay Gillotti: story is both of my number one drivers didn't survive.
Jay Gillotti: Siffert was killed in a Formula 1 accident and Rodriguez
Jay Gillotti: was killed in a Ferrari, in a sports car race.
Robert Ross: It was a dangerous job back then, those guys were daredevils.
Jay Gillotti: Siffert's car appeared in the funeral procession. 50, 000 people in
Jay Gillotti: Fribourg, Switzerland turned out for his funeral and they had the
Jay Gillotti: big black piece of cloth across the car, but then
Jay Gillotti: the car was sold and it was gone. It was
Jay Gillotti: lost for the better part of 25 years. It was
Jay Gillotti: stored in a barn near Paris, I think in France.
Jay Gillotti: And then eventually it was discovered and restored. And then
Jay Gillotti: that's the car that sold at the Gooding auction a
Jay Gillotti: few years ago.
Robert Ross: 2017. I was all over that thing. And of course
Robert Ross: the closest I'll ever get to owning one is a
Robert Ross: 32nd scale model, but it was a remarkable thing to see.
Robert Ross: And of course the big secret is that it was in The
Robert Ross: Brumos Collection, and it's on display there now.
Jay Gillotti: It's definitely a piece of history. It never actually raced.
Robert Ross: Probably why it's still in one piece.
Jay Gillotti: Yeah. Yeah. And again, all he did individual chassis have led rather
Jay Gillotti: interesting lives since the end of 1971. Several of them
Jay Gillotti: were actually had their roofs cut off and they were
Jay Gillotti: converted to spiders for inter serie racing in Europe. They've all now
Jay Gillotti: been restored back to coupes because they're more valuable that
Jay Gillotti: way. Some people are not happy about that part of
Jay Gillotti: it, but they're all back in Gulf colors now and
Jay Gillotti: restored to coupe form. Nobody was ever thinking 50 years
Jay Gillotti: ahead of how are the historians going to know what
Jay Gillotti: we did with these cars? They had no way of
Jay Gillotti: knowing how valuable they were going to be.
Robert Ross: Your book does serve to bring things up to the
Robert Ross: current state and will be regarded as a reference tool going
Robert Ross: forward to actually support the provenance of each one of
Robert Ross: these important automobiles. And not to put too fine a
Robert Ross: point on it, these were important automobiles because the Siffert
Robert Ross: car that sold at Gooding in 2017 sold for $ 14
Robert Ross: million. That's not chump change. And clearly I think it
Robert Ross: indicates the significance of these cars not just to a
Robert Ross: coterie of collectors who could afford them, but in the
Robert Ross: whole fabric of Motorsport. That's a rare race car that achieves
Robert Ross: that kind of valuation.
Jay Gillotti: They're not the rarest of Porsche racing cars because Porsche
Jay Gillotti: did build quite a number of them. But because of
Jay Gillotti: their appeal, I don't think I'm out on too much
Jay Gillotti: of a limb to say that the best of the
Jay Gillotti: 917s are the most valuable of any Porsches in the
Jay Gillotti: world. We don't know exactly how valuable the best of
Jay Gillotti: the best are because they don't sell publicly. So we
Jay Gillotti: don't know exactly how much they're worth. A few of
Jay Gillotti: them that have really super race histories have been in
Jay Gillotti: the same hands for a long, long time. So we
Jay Gillotti: don't really have an idea of how they would compare
Jay Gillotti: with say Ferrari GTO money or whatever. But they're up
Jay Gillotti: there for sure. I don't particularly love the word icon.
Jay Gillotti: But if there's a good use of the word icon,
Jay Gillotti: I think our Gulf 917s are right there.
Robert Ross: No argument at all. Well, we're going to take a
Robert Ross: quick break, but we'll be right back.
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Robert Ross: Welcome back to Cars That Matter. Let's talk about the
Robert Ross: book itself as a want to be writer. I think
Robert Ross: I understand what it would take if I could become
Robert Ross: a good writer. And clearly I've seen that in your
Robert Ross: book. Is it a fair question to ask how long
Robert Ross: it takes to actually complete a book? Can you take
Robert Ross: us through that process?
Jay Gillotti: I'm not sure if my answer is representative of most
Jay Gillotti: books in the automotive space. It might be. In my
Jay Gillotti: case, you could argue it's a 40 year process because
Jay Gillotti: I started collecting the information when I was in high
Jay Gillotti: school or certainly in college. When I was a freshman
Jay Gillotti: in college, I bought my copy of John Wyer's book
Jay Gillotti: called The Certain Sound. So that's way back in 1982.
Jay Gillotti: The book had come out I think in 1981.
Robert Ross: I'll bet you still have it.
Jay Gillotti: Yeah, I still have it. And now I'm glad I have it because if
Jay Gillotti: you go on eBay, you're looking at 350 bucks for
Jay Gillotti: a copy of that particular book. It's funny, the cars
Jay Gillotti: have gone up in value, but even some of the
Jay Gillotti: things like books and posters have gone up tremendously in
Jay Gillotti: value as well. But in the early 1990s, I had
Jay Gillotti: a little bit of an epiphany where you have certain
Jay Gillotti: car guys who can just quote you facts and figures
Jay Gillotti: and just, they can carry all the information in their
Jay Gillotti: head about every Porsche ever built, or every BMW, or
Jay Gillotti: every Ferrari or whatever. And I just realized I wasn't
Jay Gillotti: going to be that guy. So I said, well what
Jay Gillotti: can I do? Maybe I can focus on one car
Jay Gillotti: and really try to develop my expertise in one particular
Jay Gillotti: car. And I said well, the 917 is my favorite.
Jay Gillotti: So I'll concentrate on that. Since the early '90s, I
Jay Gillotti: really tried to collect every shred of information that I
Jay Gillotti: could find. From a writing perspective, I did a fair
Jay Gillotti: amount of writing in the corporate world. When I joined
Jay Gillotti: the Porsche Club in 2009, I started writing for our
Jay Gillotti: region newsletter here in the Pacific Northwest region called The
Jay Gillotti: Spiel. And I did over 40 feature articles for The
Jay Gillotti: Spiel before I sat down to do the book. So
Jay Gillotti: I'd had quite a bit of practice with that kind
Jay Gillotti: of writing. So when I actually did sit down to
Jay Gillotti: write the book on January 3rd of 2017, I had
Jay Gillotti: a lot of information and a lot of experience going for
Jay Gillotti: me. So I think the writing of the first draft
Jay Gillotti: and then completing the book actually went pretty fast just
Jay Gillotti: because of all the prep work. I know there are
Jay Gillotti: other projects in the automotive book space that go faster.
Jay Gillotti: And I know there are a lot that take much,
Jay Gillotti: much longer than what we took on this book.
Robert Ross: It sounds like you were able to take many, many
Robert Ross: decades of experience and study and all of a sudden bring it to life within a
Robert Ross: pretty short period of time.
Jay Gillotti: The other advantage was I had a vision in my
Jay Gillotti: head. My other hobby is music recorded, a number of
Jay Gillotti: albums of my original songs that I've written. When you
Jay Gillotti: go to make an album, you sort of have to
Jay Gillotti: have an idea of what you want the finished product
Jay Gillotti: to be. And with the book, it was very much
Jay Gillotti: the same thing. I had a pretty clear idea of
Jay Gillotti: what I wanted the finished product to be. I knew
Jay Gillotti: the structure. I knew I wanted it to be chassis
Jay Gillotti: by chassis, race by race. So it was already pretty
Jay Gillotti: well organized in my head. And it was just a matter
Jay Gillotti: of then pulling all the information together into some kind
Jay Gillotti: of a sensible narrative. And I also knew that I
Jay Gillotti: wanted to try to thread needle between being a reference
Jay Gillotti: book and a story book. In the world of car
Jay Gillotti: books, some books are really, really great reference books. And
Jay Gillotti: the authors are really concerned about getting all the information
Jay Gillotti: in there for posterity.
Robert Ross: But boy, they can be as dry as a piece of
Robert Ross: Melba toast. I mean, you need something to wash it down.
Jay Gillotti: Exactly. And then there are a great story books that
Jay Gillotti: are written about cars and automotive history, that you can't really
Jay Gillotti: necessarily use as reference books at all. So I tried
Jay Gillotti: to go down the middle between those two and produce
Jay Gillotti: something with a lot of good reference material. Some of
Jay Gillotti: which had not been seen before, had not been published
Jay Gillotti: before. But I was hoping people would actually read the
Jay Gillotti: book. So I tried to also make it readable the
Jay Gillotti: way it flows from one car to the next and
Jay Gillotti: within a certain chapter, how it goes from one race
Jay Gillotti: to the next. My advice to people who buy the
Jay Gillotti: book is don't read more than one chapter at a
Jay Gillotti: time, because there's a lot of information there. And if
Jay Gillotti: you want to just read one race at a time
Jay Gillotti: for that particular car, that's not a bad way to
Jay Gillotti: do it either.
Robert Ross: Can you tell us a couple of discoveries you made as
Robert Ross: you were writing the book? Was there some stone you turned
Robert Ross: over and all of a sudden oh my gosh, look
Robert Ross: at what's under this.
Jay Gillotti: Yeah, there were a few. I didn't think that I
Jay Gillotti: was necessarily the greatest networker in the world, but I
Jay Gillotti: had some success networking amongst the owners, and their representatives,
Jay Gillotti: and previous owners of the car. Another person that we
Jay Gillotti: lost this year unfortunately, is a guy by the name
Jay Gillotti: of (John Thomas) , who was a great friend and co-
Jay Gillotti: driver, and wing man for Otis Chandler. And Otis Chandler
Jay Gillotti: of course, was the owner of the Los Angeles Times
Jay Gillotti: and owned one of my cars, the chassis 17- 004. He
Jay Gillotti: owned it for many years, but he couldn't really fit
Jay Gillotti: in it because he was too tall.
Robert Ross: He was a big guy, yeah.
Jay Gillotti: His friend and his car guy adopted brother John Thomas
Jay Gillotti: is the guy who really drove it most often when
Jay Gillotti: they would either go vintage racing or just go play
Jay Gillotti: with the cars for fun. And John was very enthusiastic
Jay Gillotti: about the book. He loved that car, and he would
Jay Gillotti: just go on and on about how much he loved
Jay Gillotti: it, how much he loved driving it. That particular car
Jay Gillotti: has an unusual tail, unusual looking tail with unusual rear
Jay Gillotti: wheel arches. In our Facebook group, we had been speculating
Jay Gillotti: for years and years, trying to figure out where did
Jay Gillotti: this tale come from? Why does it look so strange,
Jay Gillotti: etc., etc. I managed to solve that one by talking
Jay Gillotti: with John Thomas directly because he had really been in
Jay Gillotti: charge of looking after the car for all those years
Jay Gillotti: that Otis owned it. So we were able to explain
Jay Gillotti: that one. Another one is the two cars that were
Jay Gillotti: purchased by Gerry Sutterfield directly from Porsche in 1975. One
Jay Gillotti: of which is the car that ended up with Otis
Jay Gillotti: Chandler, but the other one is chassis 16. That particular
Jay Gillotti: car, there was a little mystery around how much work
Jay Gillotti: had Porsche done on those cars before they were sold.
Jay Gillotti: And so actually having the honor of being allowed to
Jay Gillotti: use Gerry Sutterfield's photo of the two cars when they
Jay Gillotti: first came from Porsche really solved all those mysteries about
Jay Gillotti: the fact that Porsche essentially did nothing to them cosmetically.
Jay Gillotti: Porsche just got them rebuilt mechanically and got them running.
Jay Gillotti: But cosmetically, they still had their 1971 paint jobs. Chassis
Jay Gillotti: 16 still had the orange roof paint scheme on it
Jay Gillotti: from 1971 at Watkins Glen, where it had that livery.
Jay Gillotti: And of course in the case of the car that
Jay Gillotti: went to Otis Chandler, where you can see that it
Jay Gillotti: did not have those strange rear wheel arches that later
Jay Gillotti: appear and still up here on the car. So that
Jay Gillotti: kind of stuff was really fun. I liked the detective
Jay Gillotti: work, even though there wasn't that much detective work to
Jay Gillotti: do because these cars are so well known. There wasn't
Jay Gillotti: too much in the way of mystery to uncover or
Jay Gillotti: sort out, but we uncovered and sorted out a few
Jay Gillotti: of them.
Robert Ross: The cars themselves would have been a whole heck of
Robert Ross: a lot more well known if we'd all been able
Robert Ross: to go to Pebble Beach this year, because I know
Robert Ross: that there was a special class. And you're instrumental in
Robert Ross: organizing that. The good news is that it's going to
Robert Ross: happen next year in 2021. Can you tell us about
Robert Ross: what was planned at the Concours d'Elegance at Pebble Beach?
Jay Gillotti: I wouldn't say that I was instrumental. I was one
Jay Gillotti: person who did a little bit of lobbying and suggesting
Jay Gillotti: gently that maybe this would be a great year to
Jay Gillotti: celebrate the 917 at Pebble Beach because it's the 50th
Jay Gillotti: anniversary of Porsche winning Le Mans for the first time.
Jay Gillotti: And I thought it would be appropriate for Pebble Beach
Jay Gillotti: to celebrate that kind of a milestone. And there's never
Jay Gillotti: been a class for the 917s at Pebble Beach before.
Jay Gillotti: So I was one of the people kind of doing
Jay Gillotti: a little bit of gentle suggesting and was very nice
Jay Gillotti: of the folks at Pebble Beach to invite me to
Jay Gillotti: be a part of the subcommittee along with (Ken Gross)
Jay Gillotti: and (Paul Haggemann) to just sort of advise the selection
Jay Gillotti: committee in the background about the history of the different
Jay Gillotti: cars and which cars might be worth going the extra
Jay Gillotti: mile to try to invite to be in the class.
Jay Gillotti: Certainly if it had happened this year, I think it
Jay Gillotti: would have been a very, very good display, very representative
Jay Gillotti: display on the history of the cars. And hopefully knock
Jay Gillotti: wood if we can all be out there next August,
Jay Gillotti: it'll still be a good. And who knows, maybe it'll
Jay Gillotti: be even a slightly better display. It's always a chance
Jay Gillotti: that one or two cars that weren't available this year
Jay Gillotti: might be available next year. We'll just have to wait
Jay Gillotti: and see. But the 917 is a car that matters,
Jay Gillotti: and Pebble Beach is the greatest car show. So actually
Jay Gillotti: when I was talking to Derek Bell for my book,
Jay Gillotti: I had this crazy idea about bringing the 917s to
Jay Gillotti: Pebble Beach. And I asked Derek about it because he's
Jay Gillotti: been involved with Pebble Beach a lot over the years.
Jay Gillotti: And Derek sort of said, well, of course, we have
Jay Gillotti: to have the greatest sports car at Pebble Beach. I
Jay Gillotti: mean for him, it was like it's a no brainer. So
Jay Gillotti: I was happy about that.
Robert Ross: Well, there is much look forward to. And that'll be
Robert Ross: a great opportunity to celebrate the 917 and your book
Robert Ross: as well.
Jay Gillotti: We should mention that the other things that were planned
Jay Gillotti: for Pebble Beach this year are pretty mind boggling. So
Jay Gillotti: assuming it all comes together with a lot of the
Jay Gillotti: same content for next year, it should be amazing event.
Jay Gillotti: It always is an amazing event. But when you talk
Jay Gillotti: about gathering previous best of show winners and featuring (inaudible)
Jay Gillotti: , those kinds of things will be I think equally
Jay Gillotti: great, even though I'll probably be hovering over my 917s
Jay Gillotti: very closely.
Robert Ross: I'll make sure to spend some serious time with you
Robert Ross: there. And maybe we'll have a follow up to this
Robert Ross: conversation. Jay, thanks so much for joining us.
Jay Gillotti: Thank you.
Robert Ross: Thanks to Jay Gillotti, the author of the book Gulf 917 for
Robert Ross: joining us today on Cars That Matter. Come back next time
Robert Ross: as we continue to talk about the passions that drive
Robert Ross: us and the passions we drive. This episode of Cars
Robert Ross: That Matter was hosted by Robert Ross, produced by Chris
Robert Ross: Border, edited by Chris Porter. Sound engineering by Michael Kennedy.
Robert Ross: Theme song by Celeste and Eric Dick. Additional music and
Robert Ross: sound by Chris Porter. Please like, subscribe, and share this
Robert Ross: podcast. I'm Robert Ross. And thanks for listening.
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