The Mercedes Benz 0317 Porsche Transporters

Porsche invested heavily in their racing programs in the late 1960’s, with the pursuit of an all-out win at the Le Mans 24-Hour race their prime objective.  They succeeded for the first time in 1970, and Porsches subsequently won eleven more times at Le Mans up to 1987.  This was approximately the time when the iconic transporters built to aid and facilitate the racing program were being used by Porsche and its close allies.   Special transporters built for the logistics of transporting the race cars, spare parts, equipment and the crews that made the cars go.

To reflect their status as a top motorsports competitor, Porsche commissioned three custom built race transporters in late 1966 to replace their aging open race transporters (see above).  New transporters, that would allow Porsche to carry race cars on two levels, plus all the spares and tools required to move cars from race to race.  Porsche selected the Mercedes Benz 0317 bus chassis for the project because of their robust design and powerful engines. Each bare 0317 chassis was delivered to Stuttgart based coachbuilder Robert Schenk.  When completed, each transporter was painted dark red with silver stripes and grey lower body sections and the Porsche script in silver on each side (as the next illustration shows).

The three transporters were completed and delivered on a staggered schedule between 1967 and 1969.  Each looked almost identical to each other from the exterior, but each had slight differences.  All three were used extensively by Porsche before being loaned out to their racing partners or sold on.  They were always repainted in different sponsors colors in the process and appeared in many different livery variations.  To keep track of the three 0317 transporters and their different liveries, as well as who used or owned them and when, tracking each one by its original registration number is necessary.  That number is how each transporter is commonly referred to and distinguished from each other.

S YZ 32

This was the first of the transporters delivered to Porsche by Robert Schenk in 1967.  It spent the 1967, 1968 and 1969 racing seasons with Porsche, painted in its original color scheme.  In 1970 and 1971, the transporter was loaned to John Wyer Automotive Engineering (JWA).  John Wyer was the former racing manager for Aston Martin and he managed the Porsche works 917 program those two seasons.  During the time with JWA, S YZ 32 was painted in the light blue and orange of the team sponsors, Gulf Oil as seen below.

S YZ 32 was sold to BMW in 1972 and was then painted in the BMW Motorsports livery of white with red and blue stripes livery (see below).  BMW used the transporter for their racing efforts until 1981 when the transporter was passed on to Helmut Marko (one of the 1971 Le Mans winning drivers for Porsche), who campaigned a private BMW M1 that season.  Ultimately having lived a very busy and hard life, S YZ 32 was scrapped sometime in the late 1980’s and is the only one of the three 0317 transporters that does not survive today.

S C 9003

This was the second 0317 delivered to Porsche, in 1968.  At first in its original red, silver and dark grey livery, it was retained by Porsche until 1983.  In 1971, it was loaned by Porsche to Martini Racing International and painted in their silver racing livery and iconic colors of its sponsor (as seen above).  It would remain in this livery until 1976, when the transporter still being used by Martini Racing, was repainted white to reflect the color of the Porsches the team was running at the time.  (See below).

In 1979, Porsche received an offer from David Thieme, who with the backing of his Essex Petroleum company, was fielding a pair of Porsche cars at Le Mans in 1979.  The transporter was repainted in the Essex livery.  Still white, but with horizontal red and blue stripes.

After S C 9003 was used by the Essex Team at Le Mans in 1979, it went back to Porsche and was partially repainted (basically with the Essex logos removed) in this livery.

It would soon re-liveried in the colors of the Porsche factory’s new sponsor Rothman cigarettes and their latest Le Mans conquering race cars (see below).

By 1983, the transporter was getting fairly worn out and Porsche sold it to collector Kerry Morse who in turn sold it to Kevin Jeanette of Gunnar Racing.  Jeanette used it for a time, having it shipped to the United States.  It was purchased from Jeanette in 2008 by Roald Goethe who has assembled a large collection of ex-Gulf sponsored racing cars (ROFGO Collection).  It was restored in its Gulf Oil colors in the USA before being shipped to England where it resides now, becoming a major attraction in the collection.

SM 2187

This was the last of the three transporters built, delivered to Porsche in 1969.  Like its sister S C 9003, after its Porsche service, it was loaned and repainted in the colors of Martini, Essex and Rothmans.  It was owned by Porsche until 1983, when like S C 9003, it was sold to Kerry Morse.  It was subsequently traded to a collector named Gerry Sutterfield who in 2003 sold the transporter to the Porsche centric Brumos Collection.  It was restored in its original Porsche livery of red, silver and grey and is displayed at the collection’s museum in Florida when not on display at major historic racing events.

All of the model Porsche transporters in this article were made by the company Premium ClassiXXs and are in 1/43 scale.  They are no longer in production, but can be searched for and found on various online auctions and retailer sites.

´

Some other companies have made some of the transporters over the past few years and some are available in other larger and smaller scales as well.  The website supercarnostalgia.com was a valuable resource in cataloging these transporters and their histories.

This image illustrates the size difference between a 1/18 scale model of S YZ 32 and a 1/43 scale model transporter in my collection (not a 0317).