Porsche in his heart

The Porsche 908/2 LH of Rudi Lins (at the wheel) and Helmut Marko, on its way to third overall in the rain-sodden 1970 24 Hours of Le Mans (picture-above). The 908 looks particularly good with its Le Mans-designed long tail.

Rudi Lins, born 28 June 1944, is a former Austrian racing driver. Early on, Lins got in touch with cars as his father was running a Volkswagen dealership first and later becoming the first Porsche dealer in Austria.

After his studies to become a mechanic, Rudi Lins started a motorsport career in the mid-60s, with the financial help of his parents. Soon he became Austrian sportscar champion and also thrived in hillclimb, where he became European Hillclimb champion in a Porsche 906 Carrera, as a factory driver.

Very competent and reliable, Lins remained a Porsche factory driver in international endurance racing. He teamed up with the likes of Vic Elford and Richard Attwood, always in factory Porsches, but his greatest motorsport success was in 1970 when teaming up with Helmut Marko, Rudi Lins finished third overall in a Porsche 908/2 in Martini livery in the race that brought the very first Le Mans 24 Hours overall victory for Porsche.

Rudi Lins stopped racing quite unexpectedly after the 1971 Zeltweg 1000 km. The next few years he spent travelling, and in the mid 1970s Rudi Lins took over the parental Porsche dealership and developed a very successful enterprise (picture-below).