Retro racing sims are great, but for me the era from mid-seventies onwards have me hooked. Prior to that the cars were glorious but to be honest I would rather fling a virtual Porsche 962 around a sim track than a 917, I prefer the 935 to the 911.
But as sim racer bred on Grand Prix Legends, the equivalent era in tintops is also fascinating, for me I was particularly keen on the 1974 Porsche Carrera RSR 3.0, the 1974 Ford Capri RS3100 and the 1975 BMW CSL 3.5 IMSA in AC Legends 3.0 released on Sunday by Bazza & Crew for FREE! Standing Ovation!
To start with, I took the Porsche to old Silverstone (no chicanes) where last they ran it in that configuration was 1974, and with reference to the 1974 Tourist Trophy at the venue featuring several of these cars to get a benchmark time.
After months of modern driving virtual GT3s on various sims, returning to the seventies with steel brakes and infinite braking distances, big power on tap and you have real beasts to tame without the TC and ABS etc that makes modern cars so good to drive.
If this era GT cars are checkers (or draughts) then relatively AC Legends is equivalent to chess
Did an 8 lap race with 20 AI set at 100% strength and 75% aggression and share my thoughts. Capri at Monza in next video followed by BMW at Kyalami! My best lap was 1: 37.331.
Release Notes:
The 1974 Porsche Carrera RSR 3.0
Two decades in the making, Porsche’s outright victories had come at a considerable monetary expense. So when the all-conquering 917 was banned at the end of 1971, the German manufacturer’s competition department set about creating a new 911-based racer.
Dubbed the Carrera RSR, the new machine was campaigned by the works team but was also raced and, perhaps more importantly, bought by privateers in large numbers. Continuous development saw the RSR emerge in its definitive 3-litre form at the start of the 1974 season.
As per the regulations, the Carrera RSR 3.0 was built around a production 911 shell. The racer did feature considerably wider wheel arches, a full-width front spoiler, which also housed the oil-cooler and the now legendary ‘whale-tail’ rear wing. For safety reasons and also adding to the structural rigidity was a full roll-cage constructed from aluminium tubing.
The most significant change was the adoption of coil springs for the RSR 3.0, instead of the torsion bars used on previous 911 versions. Mounted underneath the sizeable rear wing was the Type 911/75 flat-six. Equipped with twin-spark ignition, the 3-litre engine produced around 315 bhp.
By 1974, the Porsche works team was preoccupied with developing and racing a turbocharged version of the 911, which would ultimately develop into the 934 and 935, so campaigning the new Carrera RSR 3.0 was entrusted to privateers. Among the capable hands running the 911s were Kremer and Gelo in Europe and Brumos in the United States. The well-honed RSR swept all before and dominated the GT class on both sides of the Atlantic, scoring several outright victories on the way.
In addition to the 60-odd RSR 3.0s built in Weissach, numerous customers updated their earlier 911s up to RSR spec. Although production of the naturally aspirated 911 racer ceased in 1975, the RSRs were raced for many more years. Even when the more potent 934 and 935 came to the market, many privateers preferred to run the lightweight and much better handling Carrera RSR 3.0.
About AC Legends
Proudly presented the fully updated Assetto Corsa GT Classic mod for Assetto Corsa. The Assetto Legends mod is a modular platform, containing sports- and touring cars from the 60 ‘s and 70’s. This pack contains GT cars mostly from the ’70s.
In total there are three packs released:
- AC Legends GT Classic
- ACL GT-R pack
- ACL GT-C 60’s pack (upcoming release)
- AC Legends Prototypes
- AC Legends Trans Am
Thanks to lots of help from the AC modding community we were able to create another extensive update for the AC Legends GT mod. Although every car has completely different handling, balance and character, the power to weight ratios is pretty equal, resulting in close lap times and racing.
v3.0 Credits
Models: Conversions / updates/ add-ons:
- DrDoomslab (models, textures/ AO and all the little details)
- Special thanks to Pessio for permission to use his brilliant Pantera Gr4 model!
- Norms (Wiper animations, rebuilt LoD’s, 3d Colliders, all the little details)
- Physics & AI: Bazza
- Sounds: Kunos, AMA Fmod (Porsche 906), Legion (Pantera), various unknown sources.
- Skins: new 4k skins by Ben Nash + many skins from the RaceDepartment community:
Aad Gagesteijn, Andy-R, BDA, carmar, GPLGEM, GT3RSAss, hal4000, Guerilla Mods, LeSunTzu, Ned, Pasta2000, schUPpor, Smallblock Hero, susanthedeath, Xedrox (sorry if I forgot someone) - Driver suits & helmets: Xedrox, gergerger, various RD skinners
- Testers: 50ftElvis, Dirk Steffen, capt nasties, kondor999, Timo One, 2old4Forza comm.
Special Thanks: - Youtube Channels: Mike from Simracing604, Billy Strange Racing, Alex from ‘The Extra Mile’ and Michael from ‘SingleRacer’ for their contagious passion about (historic) simracing.
- Websites / Discord: The F1 Classic forum THR racing Vintage AC Discord
