We visited Botniaring racetrack for a winter test of our 912 rally car. We know the long Botniaring track (4014m) very well, but this winter experience was our first one. It was a beautiful sunny late Friday afternoon. There was a lot of snow and we drove the Club track (1450m). The track is made on the normal tarmac track by simply removing the excess snow. The track is not ice, but rather hard icy snow. This track is used daily as part of the PRT test track operations. PRT test track provides professional driver training and vehicle testing facilities around the year. A lot of activities on the test track are for heavy vehicles.
Our 1967 912 rally car was in its own element on this kind of track. Our friends might remember that this car has a real rally history and it became 8th overall in the Swedish KAK rally in February 1967. The new Black Rocket 155/70-15 rally tyres with spikes had an excellent grip on the track. The handling was now very good. We have had some earlier problems, which finally were identified to be a problem with the limited slip differential (LSD) which was far too tight. This car has 1600 cc 912 engine which is rally tuned with help of our friend Pit Swhweiger / JPS Aircooled in Switzerland. We were driving the car carefully as it still has very low milage. The engine has rev limiter at 7100, but the engine feels as it would like to go beyond. The engine is quite drivable being a race engine, but the real torque and power start coming between 5-6000 rpm.
SWB 912 has far less power than 911, but on snow and ice it is a mighty competitor for a SWB 911. It has less overall weight and better weight balance than 911. It is a really fun car to drive it on snow.
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