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Porsche 917/20 TC #3 H. Kelleners Felder Racing Team Interserie 1973 Minichamps 1:18

Porsche 917/20 TC #3 H. Kelleners Felder Racing Team Interserie 1973 Minichamps 1:18
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Specifications
Brand
Porsche
Manufacturer
Minichamps
Scale
1:18
Material
Diecast
Model Condition
Used Model
SKU
100736103
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About the Porsche 917/20 TC #3 H. Kelleners Felder Racing Team Interserie 1973 Minichamps 1:18

TL;DR: Minichamps' 1:18 diecast reproduces the number 3 Porsche 917/20 TC campaigned by Helmut Kelleners for Felder Racing Team in the 1973 Interserie championship, Europe's privateer continuation of the turbocharged Can-Am prototype era. It suits collectors following the 917 beyond its factory-run Le Mans and Can-Am history.

By 1973 the works Porsche 917 program had already ended, its Le Mans and Can-Am dominance secured, and the cars that remained went where most retired race winners eventually go: into private hands, still competitive, still worth racing.

Minichamps' 1:18 Privateer Record: the Porsche 917/20 TC

From Le Mans and Can-Am Dominance to Privateer Hands

The 917 won Le Mans outright in 1970 and 1971 and then, fitted with turbocharged flat-12 engines, went on to dominate the North American Can-Am series so thoroughly that the championship's rules changed specifically to end its run. Once Porsche's factory involvement wound down, a number of 917 chassis found their way to European privateer teams who kept racing them in whatever series would still accept a car this fast, extending the model's competitive life well past its factory retirement. That afterlife is less documented than the works years, but it's arguably where the 917's raw performance advantage mattered most, since privateer teams facing lesser factory-backed opposition could genuinely compete rather than simply survive.

Interserie and Europe's Own Turbo Prototype Series

Interserie ran through the 1970s as Europe's answer to Can-Am, a series built around exactly the kind of big-engined, minimally regulated sports prototypes the American series had specialized in before Porsche's turbo cars ended it. That made it a natural home for 917 chassis no longer wanted for top-line factory competition but still capable of outrunning almost anything else on a European grid. Helmut Kelleners was among the drivers who campaigned this kind of privateer prototype through the era, part of a scene that gave the 917 a second competitive life running under independent team colors rather than Porsche's own.

Minichamps' 1:18 Build of the #3 Felder Entry

Wide-Body Proportions and Livery

The 917's wide-body variants carry flared rear arches and a broader tail than the original Le Mans coupe, proportions built for stability at the high speeds turbocharged power demanded, and Minichamps reproduces that width correctly rather than narrowing it toward the more commonly modeled factory shape. The Felder Racing Team's number 3 livery is applied with clean registration across the car's large, flat rear deck and nose, the kind of surface a privateer team's sponsor decals actually had room to use. Getting a lesser-known livery like this correct matters as much to a 917 specialist as getting a factory Gulf or Martini scheme right does.

Prototype Detail Under the Skin

Beneath the bodywork, the model represents the 917's tubular space-frame construction through its proportions and stance, sitting low and wide the way a genuine endurance prototype has to. The rear engine cover lifts to show the flat-12's scale representation, and the wheels carry the era-correct wide prototype fitment rather than a road car's narrower setup. None of this reaches the depth a dedicated resin specialist might apply to a factory works car, but for a privateer entry it's a level of detail few manufacturers bother producing at all, since most 917 diecast still focuses on the famous factory liveries instead.

Collecting a Privateer 917

A Different Kind of 917 Than the Factory Icons

Most 917 collectors chase the factory Gulf, Martini, or Salzburg liveries that carried the car to its Le Mans wins, which makes a privateer Interserie entry like this one a genuinely different kind of piece, one that tells the story of what happened to these cars after the factory moved on. At roughly 24 centimeters long, it shares a footprint with any 1:18 endurance prototype, easy to display alongside better-known 917s to show the model's full competitive range rather than just its most photographed year. For a collector specifically interested in privateer racing history rather than factory glory, this is a harder subject to find already modeled, which is part of its appeal.

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