1964 Porsche 904 GTS

When I first started going to races in the 1950s, I had the great good fortune to be able to tag along to some of the events in Connecticut and New York with Harry Blanchard. Blanchard ran a Porsche dealership in Greenwich, and had been a successful sports car driver, especially in his RSK. It was that experience that made the RSK one of my all-time favorite cars. Blanchard was invited to enter his car, in F2 trim, in the United States Grand Prix at Sebring in late 1959. He was there just to make up the numbers but finished an impressive 7th. Sadly, Harry entered the same car at the Buenos Aires Grand Prix only a few weeks later, where the car crashed, over-turned, and Blanchard was killed.

That crash triggered a memory, for at one of the races I went to, I recall someone saying that the Porsches were certainly quick, but a car that dangerous with a rear engine like that would never survive, and that Porsches were just a passing Fifties fashion!