Sportomatic in Motorsport

1967 Marathon De La Route

In order to break the association of automatic or semi-automatic cars with unsporting drivers, Porsche wanted to showcase the sporting potential of the Sportomatic transmission. The ideal opportunity arised in the 1967 Marathon De La Route, an 84 hour trial at the Nürburgring.

Not quite a race, more a reliability trial, the event ran for three and a half days without a break.

For the event, Porsche entered three cars: a 911R (modified 911S for racing) fitted with Sportomatic, another 911S with Sportomatic and a final 911S with a 5-speed gearbox. While over 84 hours unsurprisingly none of the cars were without some kind of problem, the Sportomatic-equipped 911R won the event. It was no coincidence that the winning car with crewed with Porsche's finest drivers at the time: Hans Hermann, Vic Elford and Jochen Neerspasch.

Amazingly the 911R finished a full 34 laps, nearly 1000 kilometers, ahead of the second-placed car, a factory prepared MG-C GT. The Sporto-equipped 911S was forced to retire due to a broken valve spring, while the manual transmission car crashed on the 201st lap.

While the 911R had numerous problems including the ignition, oil tank and wheel bearing neither of the Sportomatic cars experienced any gearbox problems throughout the race. Interestingly, the Sportomatic cars also used less fuel per lap than the manual transmission car.