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Review - Fly Porsche 917K Hot on the tail of the beautiful classic Fly Lola, comes another classic from the early 1970’s sports car world championships. This is the Porsche 917K. If you didn’t know the K stands for Kurtz meaning short, referring to the shortened cut away section of the tail, which appeared, on the new body styling for the 1970 season. The first release is the number 2 Blue and Orange JWB/Gulf car driven by the late, great Pedro Rodriguez to victory in the Monza 1000Kms race of 1971. (One of his last races, before he was sadly killed at the Noisring later that year). The car is presented in the now familiar Fly display box, with its dark blue & gold backdrop. The livery is a real must have for any collector, as it is probably the scheme most enthusiasts relate to when thinking of a 917K. The Powder blue main colour of the car, with its broad central orange stripe, complete with black piping, and those distinctive circular Gulf logos on the sides, tail uprights, and front wings just behind the lights. The detailed bodywork includes perspex covered front light units, a metal mesh front grille, NACA ducts, and silvered fuel & oil filler caps, as per the real car. The car has an accurate two arm single windscreen wiper, And the rather unusual tail side plates, which tended only to be fitted for high-speed tracks like Monza. At the rear of the car is a tubular subframe for the lights, and spare wheel; while just below this are the exhaust & gearbox mouldings. The Flat 12 cylinder engine is simply portrayed by a black aerodynamic cover as was fitted to the real car, but the central cooling fan is in a rather plastic looking cream colour. I may be wrong here but the photographs I’ve seen, and the two examples in museums have had a sort of gunmetal coloured fan. The interior is as always well detailed with an accurate representation of Rodriguez‘s helmet colours, white faced dials on the black moulded dash, and red seats, and extinguisher. The wheels are black Porsche 5 spokes, with a silver centre nut, white tyre piping, and Firestone lettering on the normal treaded Fly Classic tyres. On now to the running gear, the main chassis is retained by four screws, and is similar in size to the 908 type. The rear pod is held in place by a plastic lug, which slides into the main part of the chassis, and a screw, which also holds the subfarme, and Gearbox mouldings in place. The rear pod houses the normal Fly mabuchi type sidewinder engine, which drives the rear axle by a gear, mounted on the left side of the car as you look at it from the back. The engine pod is louvered to allow some cooling for the motor, and also contains the normal fly circular magnet just ahead of the motor on the centre line. As with virtually all sidewinder engine cars there is some lateral axle play, which for the real racer can be removed by fitting spacers, and the motor pinion leaves little room for clearance on the one tyre. But normally speaking these would do little to inhibit the cars performance. (In spite of what most clubs anoraks might tell the less experienced members). The cars first run was on my own Ninco track, and proved to have the normal slightly prone to oversteer habits of the other Fly classic cars. This is partly due to those harder treaded tyres, partly to the dumb-bell affect of the rear overhang, but mostly due to the reduced magnetic effect caused by the rather thick plastic in the engine pod. It is possible to obtain better performance if so desired by a little minor surgery, cutting away the plastic carefully below the magnet to expose ¾ of its area, and canting the front lip towards the track. The fitting of softer Venturi type tyres will also help give more cornering stability on a steel railed track, but if you don’t fancy this the car is still competitive compared to the other Fly classics. I took the car along to the Wolverhampton Slot Car Club, where reaction to the car was favourable, everyone thinking that it was the best looking classic Porsche so far. For comparison of performance I ran the unmodified Porsche 917K, along with a Lola T70, Ferrari 512S, Porsche 908, and the quickest standard Fly car at Wolverhampton the Venturi LM600. After several laps the best flying lap times are as follows. Porsche 917K 9.729 Porsche 908 9.720 Lola T70 10.610 Ferrari 512s 9.425 Venturi LM600 8.976 In summary then this is another excellent looking classic from Fly, far superior in looks and performance to the old hornby, & SCX versions of this car, It acquits itself well enough on the track against other Fly classics. But as ever needs some modification to the running gear to get right on the pace of the current GT1 class Fly cars. For most of us racer/collectors we will be happy enough to admire its lovely lines, and race it as it comes. Well done Fly, and keep those classics coming.