John Wyer Automotive Engineering entered two Porsche 917 LH cars at the 1971 24 Hours of Le Mans under Gulf Oil sponsorship. Car No. 17, entrusted to Jo Siffert and Derek Bell, wore the Powder Blue and vivid orange Gulf livery that has defined the visual language of endurance racing for over five decades. CMR — Classic Model Replicars — reproduces this car at 1:12, a scale that rewards close study of the 917's most dramatic aerodynamic interpretation.
The Porsche 917 LH: Built for the Mulsanne
The 917 LH — Langheck, meaning long tail — was the variant developed specifically for the sustained high-speed demands of the Mulsanne Straight. Where the 917K used a shorter, chunkier tail generating more downforce, the LH's enclosed, tapering bodywork minimised aerodynamic drag to extract the highest possible top speed. For 1971, JWA's cars used an enlarged 4.9-litre naturally aspirated flat-12 engine producing approximately 600 bhp, an evolution of the 4.5-litre unit that had powered the previous season's campaign. The real car measured approximately 4,920 mm in overall length — significantly longer than the 917K — giving it a silhouette unlike any other prototype of the period.
Siffert, Bell, and the Weight of That Number
Jo Siffert, the Swiss driver who had become one of Porsche's most valued factory-supported competitors, shared the No. 17 car with Derek Bell, then still building his Le Mans record — Bell would eventually win the race five times. The pair did not finish the 1971 event. That race was won by the Martini Racing 917K of Helmut Marko and Gijs van Lennep, which set a distance record of 5,335.313 km that stood until 2010. Siffert died at Brands Hatch in October 1971, just months after Le Mans, lending the No. 17 car a particular historical weight for collectors of Swiss motorsport heritage and Porsche factory history alike. The Gulf livery on these cars was also being filmed at that very race for Steve McQueen's 1971 film Le Mans, cementing the blue-and-orange scheme in wider popular culture.
CMR at 1:12: Engineering the Long Tail
CMR — Classic Model Replicars — is a European specialist whose catalogue concentrates on large-format motorsport reproductions at 1:12 and 1:18. The 1:12 format is particularly well-suited to the 917 LH: the elongated tail section, the enclosed rear bodywork, the Gulf livery's precise Powder Blue paintwork and orange accent striping all gain resolution at this scale that smaller formats cannot deliver. The proportional accuracy of the long-tail body — one of the most aerodynamically distinctive shapes in prototype racing history — is the central argument for choosing this scale over a smaller alternative.
