Derek Bell initially made a name for himself, racing in open-wheeled cars including Formula 2 and Formula 1. However, it is long-distance sports car racing, particularly in Porsches, where Bell forged his legacy as a champion with five overall victories at Le Mans, three victories in the 24 Hours of...
I couldn’t quite pinpoint why, during the research and writing of this profile, that I kept hearing the Lennon/McCartney hit “Come Together” somewhere in the back of my head. I have often used the metaphor of how some of the most interesting motor racing tales are based on an almost...
For the burgeoning Formula Two category for 1½-liter cars, French star driver Jean Behra based a new racing car of his own on Porsche components. In 1959, it showed its class by beating the factory Porsches in the year’s biggest F2 race. Built in Modena, Italy, in 1959, for French...
Sir Stirling sits back and relaxes at the 2013 Goodwood Festival of Speed after being interviewed by the author It was with great sadness that we learned of the passing of Stirling Moss over the Easter weekend. He died on 12 April 2020 in Mayfair, London, England at the age...
The fifth and the last of the 718/2 F2 cars, with chassis number 718/2-05 was an experimental formula racing car. It had the 718/2 chassis, but a different body. The car never got its own type number. It was a one-off car, continuous development project that later evolved into something that became the prototype for the 1961 Porsche 787 F1 car and then even for the 1962 Porsche 804 F1 car. 718/2-05, was first seen at the F2 race on Solitude race track near Stuttgart in July 1960.
In 1959 Porsche unveiled the prototype of a narrow, open-wheeled car called the Porsche 718/2 that married the 718's mechanicals with a more traditional single-seat Formula body. For 1960 the production 718/2, starting with chassis number 718201, received revised bodywork, a 6-speed transaxle, and a wheelbase extended by 100 mm. A total of five cars were built. Some of these four-cylinder cars were later raced in F1 under the 1962 1½ litre formula.








