Why did older 911s have the oil filler on the outside of the body?
That's only the 1972. Not sure WHY they put it there, but sure know why they stopped putting it there!
As mentioned, only 1972. Apparently, the 1967 911R had the external oil filler to speed up adding oil during pit stops and someone had the bright idea of moving that into the production cars to make them "just like the race cars". It lasted one year . Edit: Just found an alternative explanation in Karl Ludvigsen's tome. According to him, Ferdinand Piech was trying to get the mass overhanging the rear down and had the engineers move the oil tank from behind the rear axle to ahead of the rear axle. This required the filler cap to go outside since there was no other access. A year later, the engineers realized the oil tank position would prevent them from meeting US side-impact regulations, so they moved it back. Of course, the numerous people who filled the oil tank with gas didn't enter into that explanation .
^^^ Ha! At least Yin was helpful! You'd think it was a 2 stroke if you had to add a bunch of oil at every pit stop!
Yes. It's actually the dead giveaway technique for spotting '72 cars, which are my favorites on the 911 series.
