---
title: Porsche 917 · HICONIUM
description: "Built to a loophole, banned at its peak. Twenty-five cars lined up in a courtyard to satisfy the inspectors; two Le Mans wins later, it is the most valuable Porsche ever sold at auction."
canonical_url: https://hiconium.com/vehicles/porsche/917
image: https://hiconium.com/og/vehicle/porsche/917.png
---

> HICONIUM · Index: https://hiconium.com/llms.txt · Every page: append `.md` or send `Accept: text/markdown`.
> Path: [Home](https://hiconium.com/) › [Vehicles](https://hiconium.com/manufacturers) › [Porsche](https://hiconium.com/manufacturers/porsche) › 917
> On this page: [The price and the proof](#the-price-and-the-proof) · [Piëch’s gamble.](#piëchs-gamble) · [Technical specifications](#technical-specifications) · [917 vs 512](#917-vs-512) · [One car, three bodies](#one-car-three-bodies) · [Hip-high at 386](#hip-high-at-386) · [Ten 917s, not one](#ten-917s-not-one) · [917 K](#917-k) · [The 917 K register](#the-917-k-register) · [Fifty-nine tags](#fifty-nine-tags) · [Buying interest, silently.](#buying-interest-silently) · [Open a file on yours.](#open-a-file-on-yours)

![Five Porsche 917s — Gulf, Salzburg, Martini, Pink Pig and Sunoco — in one row in a near-black studio](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/hero-wide4-2560.jpg.w1920.q90.webp)

![Porsche 917 K in Gulf blue and orange, head-on](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/art/portrait/gulf.jpg.w1920.q90.webp)

Market value · road

$12M–$20M

Typical $14M · 1 sales

$2.8M $21M

[Open Market & Price](https://hiconium.com/vehicles/porsche/917#market)

# 917

The most valuable Porsche

Built to a loophole, banned at its peak. Twenty-five cars lined up in a courtyard to satisfy the inspectors; two Le Mans wins later, it is the most valuable Porsche ever sold at auction.

[View details](https://hiconium.com/vehicles/porsche/917#overview)

Market value · road

$12M–$20M

Typical $14M · 1 sales

$2.8M $21M

[Open Market & Price](https://hiconium.com/vehicles/porsche/917#market)

Market value · road

$12M–$20M

Typical $14M · 1 sales

$2.8M $21M

’06 ’24

Market history · in the terminal

[Open Market & Price](https://hiconium.com/vehicles/porsche/917#market)

Top speed 386 km/h (917 LH · Mulsanne 1971)

Power 630 PS (5.0L flat-12 · Type 912)

Le Mans 2 wins (1970 and 1971)

Weight 800 kg (frame: 42 kg)

Production 59 (1969 to 1973 · all variants)

0 to 100 2.3 s (917/30 Can-Am)

Distance 5'335 km (Le Mans 1971 · stood 39 years)

Can-Am power 1'100 PS (5.4L twin-turbo · 917/30)

List price DM 140'000 (1969 · ten 911s)

Homologation 25 cars (lined up 20 April 1969)

Market & Price

## The price and the proof

A terminal for one car: the model curve over the documented record, the benchmarks it is measured against, and the instruments that read it.

Records: 917 K · 917-024, ex-Siffert “Le Mans” film car — $14,080,000 · Gooding & Co, Pebble Beach · 18 Aug 2017; Bid declined · 917 K · 917-022, the McQueen hero car — $25,000,000 · Mecum Kissimmee · 18 Jan 2025. 5 documented road sales on file · 2006–2024.

HCN:917 Live model

$14'080'000 97.2% · 12M

1Y 5Y 10Y MAX +2Y

S&P 500 Gold

Crises

log lin

Model curve · anchored to 5 documented sales · benchmarks rebased at window start model v1 · seed porsche-917 · not investment advice

The readouts · model figures against the benchmarks 5 documented anchors · last sale 26 mo ago

Compound annual growth

| Window | This car* | S&P 500 | Gold |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1Y | +97.2% | +18.8% | +21.9% |
| 5Y | +19.2% | +11.4% | +17.6% |
| 10Y | +11.9% | +13.3% | +11.8% |

*Modeled price CAGR · S&P is a price index, no dividends

Deepest drawdown · model window

This car* -79.6% Aug 2017 → May 2024 · recovered Jul 2026

S&P 500 -50.8% Oct 2007 → Mar 2009 · recovered Mar 2013

Gold -39.3% Sep 2011 → Dec 2015 · recovered Jul 2020

Forecast ladder · model quantiles

| Horizon | P10 | P50 | P90 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| +6M | $12M | $14M | $16M |
| +12M | $12M | $15M | $18M |
| +24M | $12M | $15M | $20M |

Median path with the 10th and 90th percentile · not investment advice

Transaction ledger · documented sales Mixed price basis · not estimates

All Road LM · Comp

Newest first

List Distribution

Search venue or lot

5 of 5 recorded sales · shown in USD · recorded currency in each record

- 2024 · 05 RM Sotheby's · Monaco · incl. buyer's premium Road $2.9M
- 2017 · 08 Gooding Christie's · The Pebble Beach Auctions 2017, Pebble Beach, USA · incl. buyer's premium Road $14M
- 2016 · 03 Gooding Christie's · The Amelia Island Auction 2016, Amelia Island, USA · incl. buyer's premium Road $3M
- 2010 · 08 Bonhams · Carmel, Quail Lodge & Golf Club · hammer Road $3.6M
- 2006 · 08 Bonhams · San Francisco · hammer Road $520K

The 917 taught the market patience: a used racer at $15’000 in 1975, a million-dollar film prop by 2000, a fourteen-million-dollar record by 2017 — and a twenty-five-million-dollar bid, declined, in 2025. Price is a vote cast in an afternoon. Value is what remains, documented below.

Price range · road · open Confidence · low A market of perhaps a dozen public trades, provenance-driven to a degree no other Porsche approaches. Gulf and film cars set the records; both Le Mans winners sit in museum collections and are effectively priceless; Can-Am turbos trade well below the coupés.

Floor

$12M

Typical

$14M

Ceiling

$20M

Estimate band for good road cars. 1 documented sales since 2019 plotted below.

$2.7M $12M $14M $20M $22M

Hover the spectrum to read a value, or a dot for the sale behind it.

Band and axis shown in USD. Sale positions use indicative fixed-rate conversion to USD; sale readouts retain recorded currencies. The band reflects documented 917 K coupés; the Le Mans winners are museum pieces, and Can-Am turbos trade below it.

Model record

$14,080,000

917 K · 917-024, ex-Siffert “Le Mans” film car

Gooding & Co, Pebble Beach · 18 Aug 2017

Road record

$25,000,000

Bid declined · 917 K · 917-022, the McQueen hero car

Mecum Kissimmee · 18 Jan 2025

The wider market · Porsche at auction · median per year · modeled between anchors 1,973 lots · 2003–2026 · exact yearly anchors · modeled line

[Explore all 40,882 results](https://hiconium.com/market#terminal)

Instrument calibration for this file is in progress — the terminal above reads the documented record directly.

Documented, FX-normalized public sales with per-field provenance; 917 K coupés only, Can-Am turbos and continuation cars separate. The model curve is synthetic between documented sales. Nothing here is investment advice.

Overview

## Piëch’s gamble.

In April 1968 the CSI cut the homologation requirement for five-litre sports cars from fifty cars to twenty-five. Ferdinand Piëch read the rule as an invitation: build a whole grid of prototypes at once and take the outright Le Mans win that had always escaped Porsche. Eleven months later the 917 stood on the Geneva stand at DM 140’000 a copy — a price that did not begin to cover it.

The first cars lifted and wandered at speed until a taped-together aluminium tail, improvised at Zeltweg, became the 917 K. Then it won: Le Mans 1970 in the rain, Le Mans 1971 at a distance record that stood for thirty-nine years — and when the five-litre class was closed on it, Can-Am, twice, with turbochargers, until nobody else would enter.

![Ferdinand Porsche signature](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/ferdinand-porsche-signature.png.w1080.q75.webp) Ferdinand Porsche
Founder

![Porsche 917 K in Gulf livery, head-on](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/gulf-k-front.jpg.w1920.q75.webp)

### Twenty-five cars in a courtyard

The CSI wanted twenty-five finished cars before it would homologate. On 20 April 1969 Piëch lined them up outside the works and invited the inspectors to drive any one they liked. They declined.

![The Type 912 air-cooled flat-12 of the Porsche 917](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/flat12-engine.jpg.w1920.q75.webp)

### The flat-12

Hans Mezger’s Type 912: an air-cooled 180-degree twelve fed by a single horizontal fan. 520 PS in 1969, 630 by 1971 — and 1’100 once two turbochargers were bolted to it.

![Porsche 917 K in Gulf livery from above](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/gulf-k-high.jpg.w1920.q75.webp)

### Dead flies and a new tail

The first 917 lifted at speed and used the whole road. At Zeltweg, John Horsman noticed the dead flies stopped short of the tail — the air never got there. A taped-on aluminium tail became the 917 K.

Power 630 PS

Top speed 386 km/h

Built 59

Le Mans 2 wins

Launch DM 140'000

Reference

## Technical specifications

### Powertrain

Engine 4.5 to 5.0L flat-12, air-cooled Type 912 · 180° twelve, twin-plug, Bosch injection, titanium rods

Output 520 to 630 PS 4.5L of 1969: ~520 PS; 5.0L of 1971: ~630 PS

Can-Am spec 5'374 cc twin-turbo · 1'100 PS race trim; to ~1 500 PS on the test bench

Layout Mid-engine, longitudinal

Cooling Single engine-driven fan the horizontal fan is the 917 silhouette

### Performance

Top speed 386 km/h (240 mph) 917 LH, Mulsanne 1971; Oliver timed unofficially to ~396

0 to 100 km/h 2.3 s 917/30 Can-Am

0 to 200 km/h 5.3 s 917/30 Can-Am

Le Mans distance 5'335.313 km · 222.304 km/h average 1971 — the record stood until 2010

Fastest Le Mans lap 3:13.6 · Jackie Oliver, 1971 stood until 2008

### Chassis & running gear

Frame Aluminium spaceframe · 42 kg gas-pressurised to reveal cracks; 1971 winner ran magnesium

Suspension Fully independent Bilstein dampers

Brakes Ventilated discs, unassisted

Driving position Right-hand seat placed for clockwise-circuit balance

Wheels Centre-lock magnesium

### Body & cockpit

Construction Glass-fibre panels over the frame

Dry weight ~800 kg the magnesium car needed a 55-litre oil tank to reach the minimum

Cockpit Closed coupé, right-hand interior temperatures past 70 °C

Details Balsa shift knob, drilled ignition key

Tanks 200+ litres in Can-Am spec no scheduled fuel stops

### Production & identity

Built 59 chassis (1969 to 1973) 43 naturally aspirated — 36 K, 5 LH, 2 Spyder — and 16 turbos; some counts reach 65

Homologation 25 cars, 20 April 1969 lined up outside Zuffenhausen; the CSI declined to drive them

Chassis numbers 917-001 onward renumbered after crashes and customs — identities famously murky (026↔031)

Reveal Geneva Salon, March 1969

Launch price DM 140'000 (~$35'000) roughly ten 911s — and under development cost

![The spartan right-hand cockpit of a 917 prototype](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/cockpit.jpg.w1920.q75.webp)

![A Gulf Porsche 917 at speed on a dark tree-lined straight at dusk — render](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/mulsanne-2048.jpg.w1920.q75.webp)

![The Type 912 flat-12 on its stand](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/flat12-engine.jpg.w1920.q75.webp)

The records

0km

One race, 1971

Le Mans distance record — stood 39 years

0km/h

Mulsanne straight, 1971

the fastest thing Le Mans had seen

0PS

917/30, race trim

to ~1’500 PS on the works bench

$0million

Kissimmee, 2025

the bid that was declined

The rival

## 917 vs 512

Ferrari answered the same rule with the same trick: twenty-five cars, five litres, twelve cylinders. For one season the two met everywhere that mattered.

![The Gulf Porsche 917 K and the Ferrari 512 S nose to nose across a dark studio field, light trails in gulf blue and ferrari red interweaving above](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/art/duel.jpg.w3840.q90.webp)

Porsche 917 K

4.5–5.0L flat-12 · air-cooled

Ferrari 512 S

5.0L V12 · water-cooled

25 cars, April 1969 Homologation 25 cars, early 1970

~580 PS Power, 1970 ~550 PS

≈800 kg Weight ≈840 kg

Champion — 8 of 10 rounds 1970 season One championship win

Porsche 917 K

4.5–5.0L flat-12 · air-cooled

Ferrari 512 S

5.0L V12 · water-cooled

25 cars, April 1969 Homologation 25 cars, early 1970

~580 PS Power, 1970 ~550 PS

≈800 kg Weight ≈840 kg

Champion — 8 of 10 rounds 1970 season One championship win

Daytona, February 1970

First meeting at full strength: the Gulf 917s finish one-two; the fastest 512 is third, six laps down.

Sebring, March 1970

Ferrari’s day — Giunti, Vaccarella and Andretti win on reliability as the 917s falter.

Le Mans, June 1970

The decision. Rain, attrition, and a Porsche one-two-three; the best 512 comes home fourth.

Ferrari sold the 512 programme’s remains to privateers for 1971 and left the class; Porsche stayed and kept winning.

The silhouettes

## One car, three bodies

Fifty-nine chassis, one architecture — and completely different answers to what the air should do with it. Every 917 in the register below wears one of these three silhouettes.

![White styling model of the Porsche 917 K short-tail coupé](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/forms/form-k.png.w1920.q75.webp)

1969–1971

### Kurzheck

The short tail — the fix that won everything

The first 917 body was drawn for straight-line speed, and at racing speed it lifted — Brian Redman called it “incredibly unstable, using all the road”. The answer came at the Österreichring in October 1969, not from a wind tunnel: John Wyer’s engineer John Horsman read the dead flies on the panels — none behind the rear axle, where the air never touched the car — and had a shorter, upswept tail improvised overnight in aluminium sheet and tape.

Downforce where there had been lift. The Kurzheck carried both Le Mans victories and everything around them; it is the body the market means when it says “917”.

- Upswept tail, improvised at Zeltweg in sheet and tape
- Both Le Mans wins — 1970 and 1971
- The definitive body: 36 of 59 chassis

![White styling model of the Porsche 917 LH long-tail coupé](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/forms/form-lh.png.w1920.q75.webp)

1969–1971

### Langheck

The low-drag body, built for one straight

The long tail existed for six kilometres of France. With SERA’s Robert Choulet, Porsche shaped a body for the Mulsanne: a tail stretching far past the rear wheels, rear arches partly enclosed, drag pared to the minimum stability would allow. In 1971 it was timed at 386 km/h — the fastest thing Le Mans had seen.

It never won there. The calm the Kurzheck bought with its blunt tail was exactly what the Langheck traded for speed, and the K did the winning while the LH set the records. Five were built; the works sold exactly one.

- SERA / Robert Choulet low-drag development
- 386 km/h on the Mulsanne, 1971
- Five built — one ever sold

![White styling model of the open Porsche 917/30 Can-Am spyder](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/forms/form-spyder.png.w1920.q75.webp)

1969–1973

### Spyder

The open Can-Am body — roof and lights deleted

Can-Am ran sprints in daylight with almost no rulebook, so the roof, the doors and the headlights simply left the drawing. The 1969 PA Spyder tested the idea; the 917/10 hardened it into a blunt wedge with a broad, flat tail deck; and the turbocharged 917/30 stretched the form — longer nose, longer wheelbase, the wing carried between two fins.

In this body the 917 made its last and loudest argument: eleven hundred horsepower, back-to-back championships, and a series that folded rather than answer it.

- Open cockpit — no roof, no lights, low screen
- Wedge nose and finned tail deck on the turbos
- Can-Am champion 1972 and 1973

True scale

## Hip-high at 386

The numbers say 920 millimetres; the eye needs company. Against the two Ferraris and Porsches everyone knows, the 917 is not a car so much as a drawn line.

Porsche 917 K

4.14 m · 0.92 m high

Ferrari F40

4.36 m · 1.12 m high

Porsche 911 Carrera

4.52 m · 1.30 m high

1.80 m

0m 1m 2m 3m 4m 5m 6m 7m 8m 9m 10m 11m 12m 13m

Nominal factory dimensions; silhouettes traced from styling models, so proportions are approximate. The figure stands 1.80 m.

The straight

0km/h

Six kilometres of public road, closed once a year. In 1971 the long-tail was timed at 386 km/h on the Mulsanne — a hundred metres every 0.93 seconds, for three and a half minutes a lap.

917 LH · Hunaudières straight · Le Mans 1971

0 km 0.5 km 1 km 1.5 km 2 km 2.5 km 3 km 3.5 km 4 km 4.5 km 5 km 5.5 km Mulsanne — end of the straight

The variants

## Ten 917s, not one

The badge is shared; the cars are not. From the Le Mans-winning Kurzheck coupes to the 1,100 PS Can-Am turbos, each variant trades in its own world, where it trades at all. Choose one and the page below reads in its colours: its file, its cars, its market.

Filter by colour

917 K 1969–1971 · Gulf +2 36 built ~€13M 917 LH 1969–1971 · Martini 5 built ~€12M 917 PA Spyder 1969 · Porsche+Audi 2 built — 917/16 1970–1971 1 built — 917/10 1971 2 built — 917 Interserie Spyder 1971 3 built — 917/10 TC 1972 · Bosch count not separated — 917/20 1971 · “Pink Pig” 1 built — 917/30 1973 · Sunoco 6 built ~€3.5M 917 K-81 1981 · Malardeau 1 built ~€2.6M

## 917 K

1969–1971 · Works / very rare · 36 built

![Porsche 917 K in Gulf blue and orange, head-on](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/art/gulf.jpg.w1920.q75.webp)

Gulf

J.W. Automotive Engineering · 1970–1971

Both film cars — the $14.08M and $25M record chassis

Salzburg Martini

![917 K in Gulf colours — head-on](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/gulf-k-front.jpg.w1920.q75.webp) ![917 K in Gulf colours — from above](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/gulf-k-high.jpg.w1920.q75.webp) ![The Gulf #20 at Le Mans, 1970](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/lemans-period.jpg.w1920.q75.webp) ![A Gulf 917 K in profile — Canepa collection](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/gulf-k-profile.jpg.w1920.q75.webp) ![917 K, Petersen Museum](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/gulf-k-petersen.jpg.w1920.q75.webp) ![917 K, Porsche Museum](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/hero-2560.jpg.w1920.q75.webp) ![The Type 912 flat-12](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/flat12-engine.jpg.w1920.q75.webp)

The short tail that fixed the aerodynamics and won everything — both Le Mans victories, the distance record, the film cars. The variant the market means when it says “917”.

Born at the Österreichring in late 1969, when John Wyer’s engineer John Horsman read the dead flies on the bodywork — no smears on the tail meant no airflow — and improvised a shorter, upswept deck in aluminium and tape. Gulf/JWA and Porsche Salzburg ran the works campaigns; 1971 added the magnesium-framed 053, which won Le Mans and never raced again.

[Open as its own file →](https://hiconium.com/vehicles/porsche/917/k)

- Le Mans winner 1970 (Herrmann/Attwood) and 1971 (Marko/van Lennep)
- 1971 distance record — 5’335 km, unbeaten for 39 years
- Both “Le Mans” film cars, 022 and 024, are Ks
- Record: $14.08M for 917-024 — the most valuable Porsche at auction

Engine 4.5–5.0L flat-12 · Type 912

Power 580–630 PS

Weight ~800 kg

Typical value · K · Kurzheck

€13M

€2.0M log scale · 3 documented sales · family in grey €27M

The paper trail · K · Kurzheck

Documented cars 7 of 36 built

Top public sale $25M Private sale · 2025 — Solar Productions → Redman → Attwood → Seinfeld

Never traded publicly 4 of 7 documented museum and long-hold cars

Latest movement Private sale · 2025 Solar Productions → Redman → Attwood → Seinfeld

[Open the register](https://hiconium.com/vehicles/porsche/917#vehicles)

59 works chassis, 1969-1973. Body-type counts vary by source; the Kremer K-81 of 1981 sits outside that count.

The cars

## The 917 K register

Documented individual cars — chassis, colour, ownership and sale history. Open one for its full provenance. Public records only; members see the complete registry.

07 documented · public records

![Porsche Museum — photograph](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/salzburg-23.jpg.w1920.q75.webp) № 01 · 1970 917-023 Porsche Museum The 1970 Le Mans winner — Hans Herrmann and Richard Attwood through the rain, 343 laps and 4’607 km for Porsche’s first outright victory. Herrmann retired from racing days later. Works property; the model’s ceiling is measured against the fact that this car can never come to market. No public sale

![Count Rossi — photograph](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/917-030.jpg.w1920.q75.webp) № 02 · 1970 917-030 Count Rossi The road one. Count Gregorio Rossi di Montelera had 030 finished in silver, registered it in Alabama (61-27737) and drove it on the public road — the precedent every street-legal 917 since has leaned on, including Claudio Roddaro’s Monaco-registered 037. Never publicly traded. No public sale

![Works / museum collection — photograph](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/martini-053.jpg.w1920.q75.webp) № 03 · 1971 917-053 Works / museum collection The last coupé built and the 1971 Le Mans winner — Marko/van Lennep, 5’335 km at a 222 km/h average, on the only magnesium frame ever raced. It was never started again; the works did not trust the ageing frame. Van Lennep learned only years later, from Norbert Singer, what he had been sitting in. No public sale

№ 04 · 1970 917-022 Solar Productions → Redman → Attwood → Seinfeld The “Le Mans” hero car — bought new by Steve McQueen’s Solar Productions, his note “Finished. Thanks for staying together” left on the door. Raced by Kauhsen/Joest in 1971, sold to Brian Redman for $15’000 in 1975, twenty years with Richard Attwood, then via Frank Gallogly into the Seinfeld collection in 2001. Bid to $25M at Kissimmee in January 2025 — declined on the block, then sold privately “in the $25 million range”. $25M Private Sale · 2025

№ 05 · 1970 917-024 Siffert → Paris warehouse → Graber restoration Jo Siffert’s own 917 — leased to Solar Productions and central to the filming of “Le Mans”. It led his funeral procession in 1971, then slept in a warehouse outside Paris for over two decades: one of the great barn finds. Restored by Graber Sportgarage around every original panel; its $14.08M at Pebble Beach 2017 is still the Porsche auction record. $14M · Aug 2017

№ 06 · 1970 917-031/026 Chandon → Amalfitano → private Hobbs/Hailwood’s 1970 Le Mans Gulf car, crashed by Hailwood and rebuilt by JWA around a works spare frame — customs paperwork kept the old number, creating the 917’s most famous identity tangle. Later an Interserie spyder; $3.97M at Bonhams 2010 (then a world record for any Porsche), restored to 1970 coupé specification, and bid to $15M without selling at Monterey 2021. $3.97M · Aug 2010

№ 07 · 1969 917-020 Vasek Polak → private (2005) One of the 25 homologation cars; Porsche Salzburg in 1970, then Martini colours in 1971. Decades with US dealer Vasek Polak, whose restorations at times swapped its identity with 023. Unsold at Christie’s Rétromobile 2004 against €1.5–1.8M; placed privately a year later. No public sale

The works board

## Fifty-nine tags

Every 917 left Zuffenhausen with a number, and almost every number has a story — raced, crashed, renumbered, hidden, sold. These are the files the register documents so far; the grey tags are open research.

### 917 K

Kurzheck coupés · 1969–1971

7 of 36 documented

[917-020 Identity swapped with 023 after the 1970 win; the museum tangle](https://hiconium.com/vehicles/porsche/917#vehicles) [917-022 The McQueen film car — “$25M range”, 2025](https://hiconium.com/vehicles/porsche/917#vehicles) [917-023 Le Mans winner 1970 · Herrmann/Attwood](https://hiconium.com/vehicles/porsche/917#vehicles) [917-024 Siffert’s film camera car — $14.08M, 2017](https://hiconium.com/vehicles/porsche/917#vehicles) [917-026↔ 031 Renumbered ↔ 031; Interserie spyder rebuild](https://hiconium.com/vehicles/porsche/917#vehicles) [917-030 Count Rossi’s street 917 in Poly Silver](https://hiconium.com/vehicles/porsche/917#vehicles) [917-053 Le Mans winner 1971 · magnesium frame](https://hiconium.com/vehicles/porsche/917#vehicles)

### 917 LH

Langheck coupés · 1969–1971

1 of 5 documented

[917-043(044) The psychedelic “Hippie” — Christie’s record, 1998](https://hiconium.com/vehicles/porsche/917#vehicles)

### 917 PA

Open spyders · 1969

1 of 2 documented

[917-028 Siffert’s 1969 Can-Am season; never publicly traded](https://hiconium.com/vehicles/porsche/917#vehicles)

### 917/10

Can-Am turbos · 1971–1972

4 of 13 documented

[917/10-001 Works development car, later Gulf colours](https://hiconium.com/vehicles/porsche/917#vehicles) [917/10-002 Siffert’s STP Can-Am car](https://hiconium.com/vehicles/porsche/917#vehicles) [917/10-003 L&M — Donohue’s 1972 development mule](https://hiconium.com/vehicles/porsche/917#vehicles) [917/10-015 Bosch-liveried Interserie car](https://hiconium.com/vehicles/porsche/917#vehicles)

### 917/20

The one-off — “Pink Pig” · 1971

1 of 1 documented

[917/20-001 Le Mans 1971, brakes; the museum’s butcher chart](https://hiconium.com/vehicles/porsche/917#vehicles)

### 917/30

The 1 100-PS Can-Am spyders · 1973

2 of 6 documented

[917/30-004 Penske Sunoco — Donohue’s championship family](https://hiconium.com/vehicles/porsche/917#vehicles) [917/30-005 RM Paris 2014 — the traded turbo](https://hiconium.com/vehicles/porsche/917#vehicles)

### 917 K-81

Kremer’s 1981 rebuild

1 of 1 documented

[K81-01 Le Mans and Brands Hatch 1981 — the coda](https://hiconium.com/vehicles/porsche/917#vehicles)

Counts follow the works ledger (some tallies reach 65 with rebuilt frames). Grey tags: chassis documented only as built — files in research. 64 tags

HICON BID

## Buying interest, silently.

A HICON Bid is a confidential expression of buying interest on the Porsche 917 file — never public, never shown to other members. It is not a binding purchase, and HICONIUM holds no funds.

[Sign in](https://hiconium.com/sign-in)

HICON Bids are a member instrument. Sign in to place one.

The vault

## Open a file on yours.

You keep one? The record starts in your garage — identity, papers, photography, and the market evidence this file already carries, bound to your chassis.

[Sign in to open a file](https://hiconium.com/sign-in) [How membership works](https://hiconium.com/membership)

The value drivers

## What moves the price

Two 917s can look identical in a photograph and twenty million apart at the hammer: the file decides. These are the documented attributes the market pays for — and the ones it discounts.

Gulf & film provenance 25%–60% The Steve McQueen “Le Mans” connection and the blue-and-orange livery. Both record cars are film cars. ’17 · 917-024 · $14.08M; ’25 · 917-022 bid to $25M Works Le Mans history 20%–40% A documented JWA/Gulf or Salzburg works entry. The two winners are museum pieces — the closest thing trades at a premium. ’21 · 917-031/026 bid to $15M on its 1970 Hobbs/Hailwood history Clean chassis identity 10%–25% Numbers were swapped for customs and insurance — 026 became 031, 020 traded places with 023. A file without doubt is the rarest option on a 917. Gooding on 917-024: “history is clear, concise, and easy to document” Originality & the great sleep 10%–20% The Paris warehouse find kept its original tub, tank and spare — restored with every panel it left the works with. 917-024’s 23 years in storage read as value, not neglect Can-Am turbo spec 25%–40% The 1’100 PS turbopanzers awe but do not trade: repeated no-sales, and a public loss between 2012 and 2016. 917/30-004: $4.4M ’12 → $3.0M ’16; /30-005 and /10-001 unsold Spyder conversion 10%–25% Coupés cut into Interserie spyders trade under intact cars, and a restoration back only partly recovers it. 917-031/026 unsold at a $15M high bid against $16–18.5M, 2021

Indicative band · the base car

$12M–$20M

a good, honest road car — before its file is read

$5.0M $70M

Spans are indicative, drawn from the documented sales cited beside each attribute. The calibrated multipliers — and how they compound for one specific chassis — are member instruments.

The x-ray

## Anatomy of $14 million

Two 917s can be identical in aluminium and twenty million apart in paper. Layer by layer, this is what the record price of 917-024 was actually buying.

![A Gulf 917 K in profile (illustrative photograph)](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/gulf-k-profile.jpg.w1920.q75.webp)

$14 080 000 Gooding & Company · Pebble Beach 2017 · 917-024

- Film provenance ≈ 34% McQueen’s “Le Mans” camera car — the blue-and-orange myth, on celluloid
- Works & Gulf history ≈ 26% A 1969 works chassis inside the JWA/Gulf story every poster tells
- The Siffert connection ≈ 22% Leased to Solar Productions by Jo Siffert himself
- Continuous file ≈ 18% Known ownership chain and documentation without gaps

Editorial weighting for reading, not measured data — the market prices the whole file at once.

The identity files

## Numbers that moved

Racing chassis were equipment, not heirlooms: numbers moved with customs papers, insurance claims and rebuilds. Reading a 917 begins with reading past its plate — three documented cases from the register.

917-026 917-031

Le Mans 1970 → 1971

Hailwood crashed the Gulf car at Le Mans; JWA rebuilt it around a works spare frame and, for customs, kept the old number. The rebuilt car raced on as 026 — while the original frame went home to the works and came back as a spyder wearing 031.

917-020 917-023

The Polak years

US dealer Vasek Polak at times held both cars, and restorations in his shop swapped their identities — a tangle the registry notes on both files to this day.

917-043 917-044

Pebble Beach 1998

The psychedelic “Hippie” long-tail was catalogued and sold as one chassis while the literature argues it is physically the other — the only complete LH the works ever sold carries the argument in its file.

Heritage · Porsche 917

> “Finished. Thanks for staying together.”

![Porsche 917 K in Gulf livery, head-on](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/gulf-k-front.jpg.w1920.q75.webp)

![Porsche 917 K in Gulf livery, museum three-quarter view](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/gulf-k-petersen.jpg.w1920.q75.webp)

1968 · The rule

### Twenty-five cars

It began as an accounting decision by the rule-makers. In April 1968 the CSI lowered the number of cars needed to homologate a five-litre sports car from fifty to twenty-five, and Ferdinand Piëch — thirty-one years old, running development, spending money the company would only later admit to — decided Porsche would simply build them all. The decision fell in July 1968. The car was on the Geneva stand the following March, priced at DM 140’000: roughly ten 911s, and still a loss on every chassis.

The inspectors came in the spring and found three cars finished, eighteen half-built and seven in boxes. Porsche argued they would all be stripped for racing anyway; the CSI walked away. So on 20 April 1969 all twenty-five stood in line in the works courtyard, and Piëch invited the officials to drive whichever they liked. They declined, signed, and the 917 existed.

The hands

### Three men, one gamble

The 917 had many fathers; three signatures matter most — the man who ordered it built, the man who drew its engine, and the man who fixed its tail with sheet aluminium and tape.

![A young Ferdinand Piëch at the engine test bench, Ferry Porsche beside him — Porsche works, 1960s](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/people/piech-dyno.jpg.w1920.q75.webp) At the dyno · Porsche archive

#### [Ferdinand Piëch](https://hiconium.com/people/ferdinand-piech)

Head of development · the gamble

Read the 1968 rule change as an invitation, ordered twenty-five cars built at once, and spent money the company would only later admit to. The 917 is his answer to what Porsche was willing to risk.

![Hans Mezger in the mid-seventies, hand on the rear wing of a 911 Turbo on the test road](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/people/mezger-930.jpg.w1920.q75.webp) Mid-’70s · Porsche archive

#### [Hans Mezger](https://hiconium.com/people/hans-mezger)

Konstrukteur · the Type 912 flat-12

Drew the air-cooled 180-degree twelve — 520 PS in 1969, 1’100 turbocharged — and the car around it. The engine is why the 917 could be outlawed but never beaten.

![John Horsman, pen over the timing sheets, with John Wyer at the Le Mans pit counter, 1968](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/people/horsman-lemans68.jpg.w1920.q75.webp) With John Wyer · Le Mans 1968

#### John Horsman

J.W. Automotive · the Kurzheck

Read the dead flies on the bodywork at Zeltweg — no smears on the tail meant no airflow — and improvised the short tail overnight. The 917 K that came out of it won everything.

![The 1970 Le Mans-winning Porsche 917 K in Salzburg red and white](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/salzburg-23.jpg.w1920.q75.webp)

![Porsche 917 LH long-tail in Martini livery](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/martini-lh.jpg.w1920.q75.webp)

1969 to 1971 · The fix

### The taped-up tail

The first 917 was fast and nearly undriveable. The long tail generated lift; Brian Redman called it “incredibly unstable, using all the road at speed”, and works drivers quietly preferred the old 908. The answer came not from the wind tunnel but from an observation at the Österreichring: John Horsman, John Wyer’s engineer, noticed the dead flies on the bodywork stopped short of the tail. The air never got there. A shorter, upswept tail was cut from aluminium sheet, taped on overnight — and the 917 K was born.

What followed was the most complete domination sports-car racing had seen. In 1970 Hans Herrmann and Richard Attwood brought the red-and-white Salzburg K home through the rain for Porsche’s first outright Le Mans win. In 1971 the white Martini K of Helmut Marko and Gijs van Lennep — its frame in magnesium — covered 5’335 kilometres at an average of 222 km/h, a distance no car would beat for thirty-nine years. Down the Mulsanne, the long-tail LH was timed at 386 km/h.

1971

13 June 1971

### The distance record

Marko and van Lennep’s magnesium-framed K covers a distance no Le Mans winner will match until 2010. The car is retired on the spot.

Thirty-nine years untouched — the deepest engineering flex in the file.

![Porsche 917 K in Gulf livery from above](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/gulf-k-high.jpg.w1920.q75.webp)

![The spartan right-hand cockpit of a Porsche 917 prototype](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/cockpit.jpg.w1920.q75.webp)

The myth

### Blue and orange

The factory’s racing was run through John Wyer’s Gulf-backed team, and the pale blue and orange of Gulf Oil became the colour the car is remembered in — helped by a film. Steve McQueen had wanted to race Le Mans himself in 1970; the insurers said no, so he filmed it instead. Solar Productions leased Jo Siffert’s 917-024, bought 917-022 outright, and shot “Le Mans” in and around the 1970 race. The film lost money, McQueen left the project bruised — and the car got the most valuable advertisement in motorsport history.

The market took fifty years to catch up. Brian Redman bought the hero car for 15’000 dollars in 1975. The same chassis made 1.32 million in 2000, entered the Seinfeld collection, and in January 2025 drew a bid of 25 million dollars at Kissimmee — declined, then settled privately in the same range. Its sister film car, 024, slept over two decades in a warehouse outside Paris before selling for 14.08 million in 2017: still the most valuable Porsche ever sold at auction.

On the record

### Milestones, on a line

The moments that set the 917's standing. Use the arrows, and hover a point to read what happened.

1969 Geneva reveal DM 140'000, ten 911s

1969 Twenty-five in the courtyard Homologation, the hard way

1970 Le Mans, won Herrmann / Attwood · 917-023

1971 The distance record 5'335 km at 222 km/h

1971 “Le Mans” premieres McQueen, Gulf blue, a flop

1972 Banned at its peak The five-litre class closes

1973 Can-Am, crushed 917/30 · 1’100 PS

2017 The $14M Porsche 917-024 at Pebble Beach

2025 $25 million, declined The McQueen car at Mecum

March 1969

#### Geneva reveal

Eight months after the decision, the 917 stands at the Geneva Salon — at a price that does not begin to cover the car.

The gamble is public: a grid of prototypes built to a loophole.

20 April 1969

#### Twenty-five in the courtyard

All twenty-five cars line up outside Zuffenhausen. Piëch invites the CSI inspectors to drive any of them; they decline and sign.

The photograph of the line-up is the founding document of the legend.

14 June 1970

#### Le Mans, won

In pouring rain the red-and-white Salzburg 917 K takes Porsche’s first outright Le Mans victory — 343 laps, 4’607 km.

The win the whole programme was built for; the winning car never sold.

13 June 1971

#### The distance record

Marko and van Lennep’s magnesium-framed K covers a distance no Le Mans winner will match until 2010. The car is retired on the spot.

Thirty-nine years untouched — the deepest engineering flex in the file.

June 1971

#### “Le Mans” premieres

The film loses money on release — and fixes the 917 in Gulf blue and orange in the public imagination for good.

Fifty years on, film provenance is the strongest value driver money can actually buy — the winners never trade.

1972

#### Banned at its peak

The rules that created the 917 are rewritten to end it. Porsche ships the programme to America instead.

Scarcity by decree: no more were needed, so no more were built.

1973

#### Can-Am, crushed

Donohue wins the last six rounds; McLaren has already left. After a fuel rule ends the turbos, the series itself folds.

The only car to have killed a championship by winning it.

18 August 2017

#### The $14M Porsche

The ex-Siffert film car, found in a Paris warehouse after two decades, sells for $14.08M — the most ever paid for a Porsche at auction.

The record that still stands; provenance did all the lifting.

18 January 2025

#### $25 million, declined

Bidding on 917-022 reaches $25M; Seinfeld lets it fail, then sells privately “in the $25 million range”.

The ceiling of the Porsche market, set and not yet cleared.

51 cars started

The race

## Le Mans 1970 — the first one

Fifty-one cars started; the rain decided who mattered. Porsche Salzburg’s №23 — the red and white 917 K of Hans Herrmann and Richard Attwood — drove around the chaos for a day.

16:00 — Start

Fifty-one starters, eleven of them 5-litre prototypes. The 917s of Elford and Siffert set the early pace.

7 of 51

Classified

4 607.811 km

Distance

191.99 km/h

Average

343 laps

Course

Herrmann / Attwood · 917-023 · Porsche Salzburg

![917 K in Gulf colours, Petersen Museum](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/gulf-k-petersen.jpg.w1920.q75.webp)

![The Gulf 917 K at Le Mans, 1970 — period photograph](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/lemans-period.jpg.w1920.q75.webp)

![917 K Gulf, Porsche Museum](https://hiconium.com/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/hero-2560.jpg.w1920.q75.webp)

The ascent

Chassis 917-022

## One chassis, fifty years

Chassis 917-022 — McQueen’s hero car — is the market’s own biography: every era priced it by what it believed a racing car was worth.

$15’000

A used racing car

Brian Redman buys the film hero car privately — obsolete equipment, fondly remembered.

USA · private

1975 2000 2017 2025

Documented, sale by sale, in Market & Price.