--- title: Hans Mezger · HICONIUM description: "Designer of the 911 flat-six, the 917 flat-twelve and the TAG-Porsche turbo. Porsche's engine architect — and the three files in the HICONIUM register that carry his engines." canonical_url: https://hiconium.dev/people/hans-mezger image: https://hiconium.dev/og/people/hans-mezger.png --- > HICONIUM · Index: https://hiconium.dev/llms.txt · Every page: append `.md` or send `Accept: text/markdown`. > Path: [Home](https://hiconium.dev/) › [People](https://hiconium.dev/people) › Hans Mezger > On this page: [Two banks, one crankshaft, cooled by air](#two-banks-one-crankshaft-cooled-by-air) · [Three files, one engine note](#three-files-one-engine-note) · [Porsche 906 Carrera 6](#porsche-906-carrera-6) · [Porsche 917](#porsche-917) · [911 Carrera RS 2.7](#911-carrera-rs-27) · [The cams, the fins, the boost](#the-cams-the-fins-the-boost) · [The cam formula](#the-cam-formula) · [The air-cooled six](#the-air-cooled-six) · [The race department](#the-race-department) · [The flat-twelve](#the-flat-twelve) · [The turbocharged 911](#the-turbocharged-911) · [The TAG turbo](#the-tag-turbo) · [Prints from the works](#prints-from-the-works) · [From the Type 753 to the Type 3512](#from-the-type-753-to-the-type-3512) · ['60–'65](#6065) · ['66–'70](#6670) # Hans Mezger · HICONIUM ![Hans Mezger in shirt and tie at the open engine bay of a Porsche 917 under a single spotlight](https://hiconium.dev/_derived/images/people/hans-mezger/hero.jpg.w1920.q75.webp) AI-generated People · Engineer · 1929–2020 Hans the engine architect | Label | Value | | --- | --- | | Born | Ottmarsheim, 1929 | | Died | 2020 | | House | Porsche, 1956–1993/94 | | In the register | Three files | The engine room Mezger joined Porsche’s calculation department on 1 October 1956 and never worked anywhere else. From that desk came the air-cooled 901/911 flat-six, the 917 and its flat-twelve, and the TAG-Porsche Formula One turbo — engineering first proven in competition, then handed to the road. His signature never sat on a body panel. It sat in cam profiles he calculated with his own formula, in cooling fins turned toward the airstream, in the symmetry of horizontally opposed banks. The three files below hold the cars in our register that carry his engines — which is to say, the ones you identify with your eyes closed. ## Two banks, one crankshaft, cooled by air The register ## Three files, one engine note [![Porsche 906 Carrera 6 staged in a darkened scene](https://hiconium.dev/_derived/images/cars/porsche-906-carrera-6/hero-wide-2560.jpg.w1920.q75.webp) 1966 ### Porsche 906 Carrera 6 Engine and project engineering · Porsche A tubular frame under glass-fibre bodywork, a two-litre flat-six behind the seats — the Carrera 6 programme ran under Ferdinand Piëch with Mezger named in its engine and project histories. Customers emptied the homologation run before the works could add injection and long-tail bodywork. Open the file](https://hiconium.dev/vehicles/porsche/906-carrera-6) [![Porsche 917 staged in a darkened scene](https://hiconium.dev/_derived/images/cars/porsche-917/hero-wide-2560.jpg.w1920.q75.webp) 1969 ### Porsche 917 Engine designer · Porsche Porsche gave him overall responsibility for the 917 — the whole car and its new air-cooled flat-twelve. The early cars were unstable at speed; once tamed, they took Le Mans outright and carried the World Sportscar Championship in 1970 and 1971. Open the file](https://hiconium.dev/vehicles/porsche/917) [![Porsche 911 Carrera RS 2.7 staged in a darkened scene](https://hiconium.dev/_derived/images/cars/porsche-carrera-rs-2-7/hero-wide-2560.jpg.w1920.q75.webp) 1972 ### 911 Carrera RS 2.7 Engine development · Porsche With Valentin Schäffer he developed the mechanically injected 2.7-litre flat-six from the ground up. Less mass, revised aerodynamics, and the 911 S became a road-legal Group 4 homologation car — premiered in Paris on 5 October 1972. Open the file](https://hiconium.dev/vehicles/porsche/carrera-rs-2-7) The drawing board ## The cams, the fins, the boost ### The cam formula After working on the Type 547 four-cam engine he wrote his own calculation method for cam profiles — mathematics first, hardware after. ### The air-cooled six The 901/911 flat-six: horizontally opposed, cooled by air. Every 911 for three decades carried its architecture. ### The race department From 1965 he led Porsche’s race-car-design department — the room where the competition programmes were drawn. ### The flat-twelve For the 917 he was given the whole car and answered with the air-cooled twelve — Le Mans and two world championships followed. ### The turbocharged 911 What the 917/10 and 917/30 learned in Can-Am he helped carry into the 1974 911 Turbo — race boost made road manners. ### The TAG turbo Design and project lead on the 1.5-litre, 80-degree TAG-Porsche V6: twenty-five Grand Prix wins and the constructors’ titles of 1984 and 1985. Drawn · H. Mezger, Zuffenhausen Dept · Calculation, then race design In service · 1956–1993/94 The archive ## Prints from the works Press photographs from six decades at Porsche — choose a print and it pushes the others aside. The first Type 753 Formula One engine, 1960. Porsche AG. Beyond the register ## From the Type 753 to the Type 3512 ### '60–'65 #### Type 753 & Porsche 804 The eight-cylinder Formula One engine and the car it raced in. #### Porsche 901/911 engine The air-cooled flat-six, drawn for the car that never left production. #### Ollon-Villars Spyder A hillclimb one-off in the years the race department formed. ### '66–'70 #### Porsche 910 The 906’s successor on the hills and in the championship. #### Porsche 907 / 908 The long-distance prototypes that led the line to the 917. #### Porsche 914 engine A two-litre four-cylinder for the mid-engined volume car. ### '71–'80 #### 917/10 & 917/30 The Can-Am turbocars — the boost programme that changed the road 911. #### Porsche 935 / 936 Six-cylinder turbo race engines for the silhouette and sports-car eras. #### Harley-Davidson four A four-cylinder engine drawn for Milwaukee, not Zuffenhausen. ### '81–'90 #### Group C engine, 956/962 The power unit behind Porsche’s longest-running prototype dynasty. #### TAG-Porsche V6 The Formula One turbo built to McLaren’s order and Mezger’s drawings. #### Type 3512 A twelve-cylinder Formula One engine to close the record. The house [![Porsche](https://hiconium.dev/images/marques/full/porsche.svg)](https://hiconium.dev/manufacturers/porsche) One employer for an entire working life. Hired into the calculation department in 1956, leading race-car design from 1965, retired in the mid-nineties — the Porsche records themselves disagree on whether 1993 or 1994 closed the file. Nearly forty years at one address, and an engine note that outlived the tenure. Calculation department to race design, 1956–1993/94 In his words “At Le Mans in 1969 we were a whole lot faster than the competition with the 917.” Hans Mezger · on the 917’s first Le Mans