On 5 August 1972, the three Porsche employees filed patent disclosure document No. 2238704 with the German Patent Office. It read: “The invention relates to a passenger car with a rear spoiler – one preferably mounted between side panels – and an aerodynamic device in the rear to increase the dynamic rear wheel pressure. The invention aims to provide a highly effective aerodynamic device for increasing the rear axle pressure of a passenger car or reducing the lift in the rear axle region when driving. However, this device also needed to be installed in the right position in the rear of the passenger car. Following its invention, this is achieved by combining the device with the rear engine cover to form a unit that extends over the overall width and projects beyond a substantial part of the rear hood in the longitudinal direction of the vehicle.”
Fifty years later, Falk can still remember his first drive in the near-production 911 Carrera RS 2.7: “The ride took some getting used to because the car was very light and had less suspension compression. In addition, there was a lot of noise because of the lack of insulation. But the longer I drove, the more impressed I was,” he recalls.
Test manager Helmuth Bott was shown the innovation and ordered further road tests. Nordschleife specialist, road test driver and racing driver Günter Steckkönig was responsible for the practical tasks, driving the new model with the rear spoiler on the new test track in Weissach. Steckkönig compared the handling with a 911 without wings – and drove faster and safer with the front and rear spoilers. Bott was impressed by this and, seeing an immediate safety benefit due to the car’s greater traction, decided to move ahead with production. Much like the front spoiler developed a year earlier, the rear spoiler was initially intended as a retrofit kit for 911 customers.
Things turned out differently, however. The 911 Carrera RS 2.7 was fitted with the combination of front and rear spoiler as standard for the first time. A ready-to-drive prototype was created within three months, and production of the limited-run series began. Shortly afterwards, the model unleashed a worldwide craze for spoilers. All rear spoilers, starting with the 911 Carrera RS 2.7, have been used to correct aerodynamics ever since. “At the time, I thought the spoiler was just a solution to a technical problem. It took me a long time to realise that we had created an icon,” recalls co-inventor Hermann Burst.
