The 1970 Porsche 917’s variable-geometry fuel tank featured baffles that physically shifted during cornering to keep fuel pressed against the pickup tube, preventing fuel starvation in the engine during extreme lateral acceleration—yet this elegant mechanical solution was eventually abandoned when teams discovered that simply running lower fuel levels throughout the race achieved the same effect with less complexity, making an ingenious engineering solution obsolete through brutal simplification.
Car Fact #51 — August 6, 2026
