Against All the Others: Porsche’s Racing History, Volume 1 - 1968

By 1968, when we step into Porsche's racing history, the marque was well established in international competition, having won nearly every race and championship title at the time except Le Mans.

This year is significant: Porsche launched its no-holds-barred assault on its remaining goals with its 917. However, 1968 was not only 917s. Works and private teams campaigned 911s in rallies, hillclimbs, and road races, and did the same with year-old 907s, two-year-old 910s, and brand-new 908s.

Company management under founder Ferry Porsche and motorsports direction under his nephew Ferdinand Piëch were not always in precise sync, nor was the nephew always fully forthcoming to his uncle and boss. And that is a big part of the story that Against All The Others tells: Sometimes those “others” occupied the office next door.

Porsche’s Racing History is a multi-volume set that begins, near the middle of the tale, in 1968. Subsequent volumes in the series lead readers through trials and triumphs until the end of 1974. Then we take a step back 100 years to 1875 for the birth of dynasty founder Ferdinand Porsche. When he was 24, in 1899, Ferdinand raced the first car he ever built, a battery-powered Lohner. Several volumes drive forward the history from electric cars to internal combustion, illuminating the forces that influenced Ferdinand's working practices and then formulated his son Ferry’s thinking.

When the series catches up again with 1975, the remaining volumes take the reader through 1999. This is the story of Porsche’s first hundred years of racing, as cars evolved from wooden frames to carbon fiber, bodies from unpainted canvas to bold sponsor logos, and drivers from royalty and wealthy amateurs to paid professionals. The series draws on some 200 personal interviews with racing engineers such as Ernst Fuhrmann, Helmuth Bott, Helmut Flegl, Peter Falk, and Norbert Singer, and drivers including Hans Herrmann, Jacky Ickx, Derek Bell, Vic Elford, Walter Rohrl, and dozens of others. Previously unpublished photos, never-before-seen Works documents, and specially commissioned circuit maps will illustrate Porsche’s racing efforts Against All The Others.