The Porsche world’s favorite potato-chip-magnate-turned-vintage-racer, Cameron Healy, is among the coolest people in the world, and he has a serious love of Porsche. He’s been working with Rod Emory on a number of projects recently, including the full restoration of Porsche’s 1951 Le Mans-winning 356SL and subsequent preparation for the Pebble Beach Concours. For years, however, Healy has had Emory prepare his vintage racers for events up and down the West Coast. In addition to this gorgeous-yet-brutal Targa Florio 908/3, Healy also races a 356-powered Porsche-Cooper – affectionately known as ‘The Pooper’. When I last saw Healy during the Monterey race weekend, he and his wife were puttering around the track in a very early production 1964 Porsche 901. Enthusiast, indeed.
This particular 908 is chassis number 908/3-007, which was driven by Vic Elford and Hans Hermann as a works entrant at the 1970 Florio. Unfortunately, this one crashed out on the first lap of that wild race, but its sister cars went on to finish first and second overall that year. It was later updated to 1971 spec and saw podium at the 1000 KM Nurburgring with Gijs van Lennep and Helmut Marko driving. 908/3-007 was restored in the late 1990s by Morspeed (Jerry Woods Enterprises) for its Monterey Motorsport Reunion debut in 2000. After that it spent a bit of time with a collector in Europe before returning to the US in 2007 and joining Healy’s collection in 2012.
This is a short two-minute onboard clip of Healy driving at Sonoma Raceway in Northern California for a quick lap. That flat eight sounds phenomenal, and he is driving it a lot harder than I’d feel comfortable doing. Vintage racing is rarely 10/10ths, but he’s pretty close in this clip (even with a bungled shift toward the end of the lap). It’s great that this Porsche is so lovingly cared for and still driven on track, where it belongs.
