Porsche, determined to take over from Ferrari as the leader in the international sports prototype racing, was building faster and faster cars with every season, closing the gap to the Italians. The six-cylinder 910 had scored class victories at the first five races of the 1967 season when the team arrived at the Nürburgring for the ADAC 1000 kms race.
Behind the wheel of the #17 Porsche 910 were Udo Schütz and American, Joe Buzzetta. The pair qualified in 7th behind the faster Type 2F and Lola T70, the trio of eight-cylinder 910s and one of the identical six-cylinder teammates. Impressively, all of the new Porsches out-qualified the 5.7-litre Mirage of Ickx/Attwood!
The Porsche 910s made a rapid getaway under sunny skies, five of them leaping ahead of the field after the “Le Mans start”. Had the day been wet, as it so often is in the Eifel Mountains, Porsche might have had an unfair advantage. But even in the dry the diminutive German cars kept up the pace, pushing the faster entries until they broke!
Despite being the slowest of the 910s off the line, the pairing of Schütz and Buzzetta were first to finish, albeit a mere 0.2 seconds ahead of the #19 910 and half a lap ahead of #18 after covering 1000 twisting, turning and undulating kilometers through the German countryside. Porsche was not just first in class like at so many other events, but first overall! The dawn of a new era was breaking!