www.porscheroadandrace.com Roland Kussmaul Published: 30th March 2018 By: Kieron Fennelly Online version: https://www.porscheroadandrace.com/roland-kussmaul/ Rallye Paris-Dakar 1984: Porsche 911 Carrera 3.2 4×4 (Type 953) – driven by (from L-R) #175 Jacky Ickx, #176 René Metge, #177 Roland Kussmaul For many years, the éminence grise of Porsche’s competition department, but now in retirement, Roland Kussmaul seems busier than ever. He left Porsche officially at the end of 2008, but our attempts to meet him were thwarted for several years by his amazingly busy schedule. More recently, we were luckier: despite a programme still just as full, he found time to meet us at his home in the charming village of Eberdingen, a convenient five miles www.porscheroadandrace.com from Weissach. www.porscheroadandrace.com Roland Kussmaul, ca. 1972 Now at 79 years of age, Roland Kussmaul explains that he has finally stopped travelling as much as he used to. Essentially, this most dynamic of pensioners, was for thirty years at the heart of Porsche’s American Le Mans programme as well as helping with the independent Lizard team. This commitment entailed for example thirteen trips to the US in eight months in 2012. Kussmaul is retained as a consultant to Porsche Motorsport and still meets his old friend, Olaf Manthey, who has long managed a ‘semi-official’ Porsche works team. Repco-Rallye Australia, August 1979: Porsche 924 Rallye driven by Jürgen Barth and Roland Kussmaul www.porscheroadandrace.com Roland Kussmaul was another of the wave of engineering graduates from Stuttgart University that joined Porsche at the end of the sixties. He recalls that exciting time when Ferdinand Piëch, a man who “knew what he wanted” was driving Porsche Motorsport to the very top with an energy that was felt throughout the company. Testing the Type 953 in Algeria in the autumn of 1983, (left) Roland Kussmaul, (right, partly obscured) Helmuth Bott “He would demand a solution to a problem and would tell his people they had five days to come up with it,” says Kussmaul of Piëch’s famous technique for getting 110% from his staff. Although he had come to Porsche when it was still run by the family, the name of Roland Kussmaul did not appear ‘in despatches’ for almost a decade, which might seem a little odd given his indispensable contribution to the development of the 911 in particular. He explains: www.porscheroadandrace.com “My degree was in mechanical engineering and I was selected to work on the Leopard tank programme. That meant I was based at Weissach, but obviously not in the competition department. I worked on several evolutions of the Leopard which involved extensive driving trials.” Roland Kussmaul testing the Porsche Carrera 3.2 4×4 Paris-Dakar car (Type 953) at the Army’s armoured vehicle section of the VW test track at Ehra-Lessien in 1983 Then in 1974, Peter Falk, the quietly spoken manager of the racing division, approached Roland. This was at a time when Porsche had reverted to supporting third party race teams rather than fielding its own. Falk asked for Kussmaul’s help with the Kuehne & Nagel team. The international freight forwarder was sponsoring a brace of 911s in European rallies and encountering recurring difficulties with dampers and suspensions and Kussmaul was selected to liaise with the damper manufacturers. Kussmaul’s expertise in this area had www.porscheroadandrace.com already been recognised and at a time when Porsche was taking an increasing interest in its competitors (especially with the advent of the 924 and 928) he was often deputed to evaluate Ferraris and other rival offerings on the compact circuit at Weissach. The damper project was effectively Roland Kussmaul’s ticket to Porsche Motorsport and when in 1978 Porsche decided to reintroduce its own works team, he was appointed service manager alongside Jürgen Barth. The 911 had won virtually all major rallies and the object now was to win the Safari rally in Kenya. As Paul Frère put it, the Safari was an event where structural strength rather than outright speed and power was what really counted. Though finishing second again (as in 1974), Porsche learned much from this experience, as did Roland Kussmaul: “Africa is nothing like a European rally where you have the road book and service back up and off you go. The distances are vast, you have to do endless reconnaissance and be able to repair the car yourselves.” www.porscheroadandrace.com Rallye Monte Carlo, 1982: Jürgen Barth and Roland Kussmaul driving a Porsche 924 Carrera GTS www.porscheroadandrace.com Rallye Monte Carlo, 1983: In one of the last rallies together, Jürgen Barth and Roland Kussmaul drove a privately entered 911 SC 3.0 Coupé to an overall ninth place finish Porsche had once again recruited the services of Bjorn Waldegård, winner in a 911 of the 1969 and ’70 Monte Carlo Rallies. “I was his co-driver,” says Roland. “We had no electronic equipment then and my job was to monitor everything from landmarks to road surfaces to listening to the car (like the flight engineer in a piston engine aircraft), at every step. www.porscheroadandrace.com Rallye Paris-Dakar, 1984: Roland Kussmaul and Erich Lerner in the #177 Porsche 911 Carrera 3.2 4×4 It was quite fantastic for a young guy like me to be sitting alongside a champion like Waldegård, an amazing experience. I learned a lot on a few months.” Waldegard’s technique could sometimes almost defy description: Kussmaul recounts how the Swede got the 911 over water courses crossed by plank ‘bridges’ narrower than the car: “He’d come broadside so that the 911 was up on two wheels as he went over the planks – pure stunt driving!” www.porscheroadandrace.com Rallye Paris-Dakar, 1984: René Metge’s winning #176 Porsche 911 Carrera 3.2 4×4 in the Porsche Museum Workshop in 2010. Roland Kussmaul was deeply involved in the whole Type 953 project www.porscheroadandrace.com Rallye Paris-Dakar, 1984: René Metge’s winning #176 Porsche 911 Carrera 3.2 4×4 in the Porsche Museum Workshop in 2010. Roland Kussmaul was deeply involved in the whole Type 953 project Kussmaul goes on to relate how Waldegård would accelerate hard before a wide river crossing so that the 911 would bounce literally like a pebble skimmed across a lake. But despite running away from other competitors, suspension problems again dogged the 911s which finished second and fourth. www.porscheroadandrace.com Testing the 911 Carrera 3.2 4×4 Paris-Dakar (Type 953) in Algeria in 1983 for the 1984 Paris-Dakar rally. During these tests, the crew found this Jeep which had broken down in the desert between Djanet and Tamarasset in the Hoggar Mountains, saving the life of the Jeep’s driver The arrival of new CEO Peter Schutz in 1981 started a new chapter in the 911 story and opened the prospect of high profile motor racing. The Paris Dakar, begun in 1978 and now well established, offered perhaps the African prize which had eluded Zuffenhausen in the previous decade. Porsche decided to enter the 1984 event with a specially prepared 911 notable in particular for its huge ground clearance. “The Porsche entry was much derided,” says Roland. “The conventional approach to Dakar was a 4×4 vehicle which was believed to be the only way to cope with the sand. But cars like Range Rovers or Mercedes G Wagons were heavy and slow; we knew a lot about off road driving and African terrain and how to traverse sand and water.” www.porscheroadandrace.com Rallye Paris-Dakar 1983: Roland Kussmaul in a 911 Carrera 3.2 4×4 Paris-Dakar The Type 953 Safari 911, sported four-wheel drive, a slightly detuned 3.2 engine and weighed barely 1100kg; there was no question of service vans at every stage as in the Monte, so besides two works cars, a third, the so called ‘Feuerwagen’ carried spares and could be cannibalised if necessary to keep the other two in contention. This time Porsche pulled it off. Previous Dakar winner René Metge’s 953 was the first competitor to arrive in Dakar. Kussmaul piloted the ‘Feuerwagen’ and no mean driver himself, even won two of the stages though ultimately did not finish. www.porscheroadandrace.com The new Porsche 959 Paris-Dakar for 1985 (photographed in 1984) – Roland Kussmaul standing on the far side of the car with Peter Falk (to the rear of the car) “We lost our way at crucial stage,” he recalls. “It taught me the importance of navigation and local knowledge. That’s why René was so good. I co-drove with him too. He had no German and I can’t speak French so we devised a kind of sign language and I learned to shout ‘frein’ when he needed to brake! He was a natural: he’d lived in Africa and had a nose for it. I remember, he surprised me when he really braked massively from 200kph in the middle of the desert though I hadn’t said anything. He had seen subtle change in the colour of the sand ahead. It was a shade darker which meant it was wet and we would never have got out of it if we’d continued. He would get out of the car and check the ground on foot before deciding whether it was driveable. He could smell the damp before we got to it.” www.porscheroadandrace.com Paris-Dakar testing, October 1985: (from L-R) Roland Kussmaul and Reinhold Lechner during testing of the 959 Paris-Dakar on the Canjuers military proving grounds near Le Castellet, France The 1980s were the great days of Group B, an extravagant almost unregulated rally class which appealed strongly to Peter Schutz who saw an ideal launch pad for the über-Porsche, the 959.