Jürgen Barth was one of the drivers
Ordered from the sports division of Porsche by the US racing driver Michael “Mike” Keyser in November 1971, the 911 2.5 S/T saw action at several races in the USA and at the endurance world championship during the 1972 season. One of the drivers back then was Jürgen Barth, a Porsche factory driver and an employee of the sports division of Porsche. The overall winner of the Le Mans 24 Hours race in 1977 can still vividly remember those days even now, 44 years later: “Mike Keyser had invited me to Sebring and we planned to drive the full 1972 endurance championship. Mike had even hired a small TV team to accompany us through the season.”
In the 1972 season, Jürgen Barth and the 911 2.5 S/T raced in the Daytona 6 Hours and the Sebring 12 Hours in Florida, followed by the Targa Florio as well as the 1000-km race on the Nürburgring together with Mike Keyser. Together with Sylvain Garant from Switzerland, Keyser and Barth finally took up the gauntlet of the season’s highlight – the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Not only did the trio, under the banner of the team Louis Mezanarie, take the class victory for GT cars up to 3 litres, but also clinched a formidable 13th place overall.
The restoration is posing a real challenge for Porsche Classic experts
All these years later, the restoration is posing a real challenge for the Porsche Classic experts – especially when it comes to the bodywork. As soon as the car had arrived at the workshop the experts discovered that not only had the 911 been converted to what was later dubbed the ‘G-model’, but it had also suffered accident damage, which had been bent back into shape unprofessionally. In addition to deformation in the tunnel as well as on the side rails, corrosion had done serious damage, in particular in the wheel housing panels, the tunnel and the roof. The roof, which had been deformed beyond repair, suggested that children had used the car as a welcome playmate for a considerable length of time, making the repairs to the bodywork particularly complex, which included the challenging conversion and reconstruction of the flared wing extensions, partly done by hand. The 911 2.5 S/T was given a new roof as well as new tank bottom.
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