My friend Dirk Layer sent me photos a while back of a recent project to come out of the same shop as the 73 Carrera shown featured in the May 2013 issue of Excellence and shown here: http://renn-spot.blogspot.com/2013/03/73-911-rs-blue-chip-restoration.html.
When I was in Southern California shooting the 73 last year, I had the opportunity to go for a ride in this 74. Honestly, the 3.0 RS had kinda been below my radar and I didn't know all that much about them. But after being exposed for only a short while, I recognized exactly how spectacular the 3.0 RS is. So many accolades have been thrown at the feet of the 73 2.7 RS for the past forty years, but the 3.0 is so much MORE! And it arrived only one year later....
Essentially an RSR for the street (sorta) the 3.0RS is lighter, more powerful, has more tire and better brakes and suspension than the 2.7. Porsche invested a lot of additional effort into strengthening the tub with extra plates around the torsion housings and large gussets throughout the engine compartment. They are also MUCH rarer which is probably why most of us don't know more about them. Even the exhaust note and throttle response is an amplification of what you would expect from a 2.7RS.
The car shown here is a low mileage original car that received more of a "freshening up" than a restoration. The paint and interior had been partially restored previously, but what was remarkable was how unmolested and original all of the mechanicals were. Rememeber, most of these cars were converted to race cars somewhere along the line, so to find one this original and correct is nearly impossible.
Dry ice was used to carefully remove some unoriginal paint that was on the bottom of the car, exposing the original paint and the factory undercoating which was applied thinly in the wheel-wells. Notice how thin the paint is on the floor-pan, with primer peeking through in many areas.
This is what I consider a data-point car. A car that someone can use as a reference when restoring another 3.0 RS or something similar.
