Porsche 917: Count Rossi’s Daily Driver

The Porsche 917 is the car that gave Porsche its first overall victory at Le Mans in 1970. It is a terrifying, 600 hp, flat-12 monster made of magnesium tubing that weighs less than a VW Beetle. In its racing form, it is widely considered the most successful and most significant sports prototype racing car ever built. It was never meant for the road. But Count Gregorio Rossi di Montelera — heir to the Martini & Rossi vermouth empire — wanted one, and he was prepared to do whatever was necessary to make it happen.

The Porsche 917: The Most Violent Race Car in History

To understand the significance of what Count Rossi did, you first need to understand what the Porsche 917 was and what it meant to the people who drove it.

The 917 was Porsche’s response to FIA rules changes for 1969 that required manufacturers to build 25 road-able examples to homologate their sports prototype racing cars. Porsche built 25 917s (plus additional development cars) and presented them to the FIA in April 1969. The inspection was chaotic — the cars were incomplete, some of the engine covers didn’t fit, and the scrutineers were visibly uncomfortable with what they were seeing — but the FIA ultimately homologated the car.

The 917 in its original 1969 form was essentially uncontrollable at high speed. It had so much power and generated such lift at the rear that drivers reported the car becoming airborne on the long Mulsanne Straight at Le Mans. The aerodynamic instability was terrifying — several drivers refused to drive it, and those who did described it as fighting for their lives at speeds approaching 380 km/h. The car killed several drivers in 1969 and 1970 before Porsche, working with engineers from JW Automotive (Gulf), developed the K (Kurzheck, short-tail) bodywork that finally made it manageable.

In its 1970 and 1971 Le Mans-winning K specification, the 917 became the dominant force in endurance racing. Hans Herrmann and Richard Attwood won in 1970. Gijs van Lennep and Helmut Marko won in 1971. In the 1971 season, the 917s won every round of the World Sportscar Championship. The car was so dominant that the FIA changed the rules specifically to exclude it from competition after 1971.

This is what Count Rossi wanted to drive on the road.

Count Gregorio Rossi di Montelera

Count Gregorio Rossi di Montelera was the heir to the Martini & Rossi empire — the Italian company famous for its vermouth, its prosecco, and its long association with motorsport through the Martini Racing livery that appeared on Porsche, Brabham, Lancia, and other racing cars throughout the 1970s and 1980s. The Martini & Rossi fortune was substantial, and Count Rossi had the tastes of a man who had never needed to consider price.

He was also a genuine motorsport enthusiast who understood what the 917 was. He did not want a replica or a tribute. He wanted the actual car — a real Porsche 917 K, transferred from the racetrack to the road, registered, and usable.

In 1974, he found the right chassis. Porsche 917 K chassis 030 — a car that had raced in the 1970 season before being retired to factory storage — was available. Rossi purchased it and presented it to Porsche with a request: make it road legal.

The Legal Problem: No Country Would Have It

The challenge was considerable. The 917 K in racing specification was absolutely not a road car. It had no proper headlights (it used aircraft-style landing lights), no turn signals, no proper seat belts in road-legal format, no sound insulation, no air conditioning, and an exhaust system that was quite literally deafening — the engine and exhaust combination produced sound levels that would be illegal within 500 meters of any public road in most European countries.

Porsche’s engineers set to work modifying chassis 030:

Lighting: Proper road-legal headlights were fitted, along with turn signals at front and rear. Porsche sourced units that could be integrated into the existing bodywork without excessive modification.

Interior: Leather seats replaced the racing bucket seat. A primitive dashboard with road-legal instrumentation was installed. Sound deadening — minimal but present — was added. The result was still far from comfortable but was recognizable as a car interior rather than a racing cockpit.

Exhaust: Mufflers were fitted — large, heavy units that significantly reduced the sound output to somewhere approaching road-legal levels. The word “approaching” is doing significant work in that sentence. The modified 917 was still extraordinarily loud.

The Problem: Despite these modifications, no European country would register the car. Italy refused. Germany refused. Switzerland refused. France refused. The car was too low, too loud, too wide, and too dangerous for any European road authority to consider certifying it for public use.

The Solution: Alabama

Count Rossi did not give up. He investigated registration possibilities worldwide and found a solution in an unlikely place: the United States, specifically the state of Alabama.

Alabama’s vehicle registration requirements of the mid-1970s were significantly less stringent than European equivalents. Through a process that has never been fully documented publicly, Rossi’s representatives arranged for chassis 030 to be registered as a private vehicle in Alabama — with US plates, a US title, and full legal documentation as a road-legal private vehicle in the United States.

The remarkable condition: Rossi agreed to never bring the car to Alabama. This appears to have been an informal understanding rather than a formal legal requirement, but it reflected the absurdity of the arrangement. The car had US plates for a state it had never visited and would never visit, owned by an Italian nobleman who intended to drive it in Europe.

The legal reality: With valid US registration and US plates, the 917 could be driven on European public roads under international vehicle reciprocity agreements. European road authorities, confronted with a properly registered and documented vehicle, had little basis to object to its presence on public roads — whatever their personal opinions about the wisdom of allowing a Le Mans racing car to circulate on French autoroutes.

What It’s Like to Drive

The driving experience of a 917 on public roads is unlike anything else in the history of the automobile.

The Cockpit: The driving position in a 917 K is extraordinary. The driver sits so far forward in the car that their feet — operating the brake, clutch, and accelerator pedals — are ahead of the front axle. In a frontal collision at road speeds, there is no crumple zone between the driver’s feet and the object being struck. This is not a design flaw but an engineering priority: the engine, fuel tank, and driver must all be positioned for optimal weight distribution, and the rules of the late 1960s and early 1970s had not yet required front crumple zones.

Width: The 917 K is 2,000mm wide — the full width of a standard traffic lane in most European countries. Passing oncoming traffic at any speed requires both drivers to be fully committed to their own side of the road with no margin for error.

Noise: Even with the Porsche-fitted mufflers, driving the 917 on public roads was an act of sonic violence. The flat-12 engine’s exhaust note at idle was louder than most cars at full throttle. At speed, the sound was physically painful at close range. Count Rossi reportedly wore earplugs when driving it.

Behavior: The 917 K’s aerodynamic package — designed for 300 km/h racing circuits, not public roads — creates behaviors on ordinary roads that require extraordinary concentration. The car is sensitive to crosswinds in ways that conventional road cars are not. The suspension, calibrated for smooth racing circuits, transmits every road surface imperfection. The brakes — powerful racing disc units — require a firm, practiced foot.

Gearbox: The racing gearbox has no synchromesh. Changing gears requires the driver to match engine and gearbox speeds using heel-and-toe technique or double-declutching — skills that most modern drivers have never needed to develop.

Rossi’s Famous Drive: Stuttgart to Paris

Count Rossi is reported to have driven chassis 030 from Stuttgart to Paris — a journey of approximately 500 km on public roads, through Germany, across the Rhine into France, and down to the French capital. This journey, accomplished at whatever speeds the roads permitted and the car’s aerodynamic stability allowed, remains one of the most audacious acts of automotive self-indulgence in history.

The car’s current status is private. It remains in the hands of a collector, well-maintained and periodically demonstrated at historic racing events. It is the only Porsche 917 that has been permanently registered for road use in history — several others have obtained temporary permits for specific demonstrations, but chassis 030 is the only car with a continuous, permanent road registration dating from the 1970s.

It is the ultimate expression of what unlimited resources and absolute determination can accomplish: a Le Mans winner, made street legal through regulatory ingenuity, registered in a state that never saw it, and driven through the streets of Paris by a man who simply wanted to know what it felt like.