Good Times (The Von Hanstein Legacy)

1969 Targa Florio: when racing was insanely dangerous, but less intense, and more fun.  This picture was taken before the race, probably at the end of practice.  Maybe the team attitude had something to do with Porsche 908/2's finishing 1-2-3-4 in the race?  Have you seen a team having this much fun in the modern era?  (Yes, qualifying at the sharp end of the field doubtless had something to do with it too.)

Huschke Von Hanstein had been the Porsche team manager from 1951 to 1967.  A Prussian dispossessed of his lands by the East German Communist government after World War Two, he was an expert at making lemonade from lemons.  He was famously diplomatic, relaxed, and friendly, capable of charming even the Le Mans organizers.  He enjoyed shooting home movies in the pits.  His way of going racing permeated Porsche for 20 years, even after his retirement.  There are some big egos in the picture below, but they seem to be enjoying themselves as a team.

Left to right:

Umberto Maglioli: two-time Targa Florio winner for Porsche, with Von Hanstein in 1956 and Elford in 1968.

Richard "Dickie" Attwood: most successful in big-bore sports cars, he won LeMans for Porsche in 1970.

Brian Redman: won at Spa-Francorchamps four times; three-time F-5000 champion in the States.

Ferry Porsche: usually attended only Le Mans; here for some spring sunshine in Sicily?

Hans Herrmann: a career almost as long as Maglioli's; Attwood's co-driver  at LeMans, after which he retired.

Udo Schutz: co-drove #266 to victory in this race with Mitter.  Retired when Mitter was killed later in 1969. 

Unknown, journalist? (red pants)

Rolf Stommelen: won in Porsches in the 1960's and 1970's; killed at Riverside in a Porsche 935 in 1983.

Vic Elford: won in just about everything Porsche built from 1967 to 1971, including 911 rally victories.

Rudi Linz: the only driver in this picture without a Wikipedia page.

Gerard Larrousse: another former rally driver, fast in a 917, ran his own Formula 1 team in the 1980's.

Unknown, journalist? (far right on pit wall)

Gerhard Mitter (in car): 3-time hillclimb champion for Porsche, killed at Nurburgring two months later.

Von Hanstein's picture on the cover of his biography.  He had some minor success as a sports car driver before World War Two.  His only major postwar race was the 1956 Targa Florio, with Umberto Maglioli, in a Porsche 550 Spyder.  He entered it as a kind of vacation.  But Maglioli was an open-road race specialist and Spyders always did well on the tight Targa circuit.  So their chances were good--and they won.  Von Hanstein promoted Porsche tirelessly.  And the racing team worked as hard under him as it did later.  The difference was that he knew how to leaven tension and exhaustion with humor.