Take note of something here gents....
Look over the welding on all of the bars, struts and support structure for the rear bodywork...
Not very pretty is it?
If you were building a spot-on replica and someone were to have delivered to you a pile of work like this for your 917 show car, you'd likely sneer in disgust at the shoddy welding and just generally poor overall look.. You may even tell the weldor to take it back and do it "right"..
While reviewing some of the other pictures I've seen (as best I could tell under magnification) in the past - the other "original" cars appeared to have been welded by the same person..
What does this tell you?
It confirms for me that these cars, like most of the day, were not built for close-up scrutiny in purity of engineering execution. That purity was saved for the parts of the cars that really mattered..
These cars were built to win races and they were disposable..
Or Function over Form..
The same holds true for literally every other car I have examined closely..
Tom - had it not been for these pictures, my previous observations would have remained in question. Thank you again!