The 907 was introduced late in the 1967 World Sportscar Championship at the 1967 24 Hours of Le Mans. Following a suggestion by Ferdinand Piëch, the position of the driver was moved from the traditional left (as in German road cars) to the right, as this gives advantages on the predominant clockwise race tracks.
With a new longtail body, the 907s reached 302 km/h (190 mph) on the straight, even though all used the reliable 220 hp Porsche 910 2000cc 6-cyl rather than the more powerful but complicated 8-cyl Type 771. Vented brake disks were used as standard from that point on. The best Porsche 907 finished 5th, beaten only by pairs of 7.0l V8-powered Ford GT40 Mk.IV and 4.0l V12 Ferrari 330P4 with much bigger engines.
As the record-breaking performances of the Ford GT40 Mk.IV prototypes — fastest Le Mans race lap at 238.01 km/h (147.89 mph) and Winner's Average Speed 218.04 km/h (135.48 mph) — had triggered rumours about a future rule change limiting engine sizes to 3 litres as in Formula 1 since 1966, Porsche began preparations in summer of 1967. The 907 was equipped with the enlarged 270 hp 2200cc Type 771/1 8-cyl which was then modified for the rules of the new 3 litre prototype category announced in late 1967, coming into effect for the 1968 World Sportscar Championship. A Porsche engine with the full 3000cc would have to be developed first, to be introduced in the future Porsche 908.
From 1968, the big V8 and V12 prototypes of Ford and Ferrari were banned. Porsche hoped to secure the World Sportscar Championship and perhaps an overall win at Le Mans as the competition from Ford, Matra and Alfa Romeo was not yet prepared with suitable 3000cc prototypes. Ferrari sat out the whole of 1968 as a protest against the rule change.
Apart from the former 2000cc-class rivals Alfa Romeo T33/2 and Renault-powered Alpine, 5000cc sportscars were also permitted to enter if at least 50 had been built. This loophole was intended to fill the grid with cars dating mainly from 1965, like the Ford GT40 and Lola T70.
Porsche entered four cars in the 1968 24 Hours of Daytona, supported by 20 mechanics and engineers. The drivers wore cooling vests developed by NASA, as the oil-cooler and the hot oil pipes caused heat in the closed cockpit. After the #53 car of Gerhard Mitter had a big crash caused by tyre failure in the banking, his teammate Rolf Stommelen supported the #54 driven by Vic Elford and Jochen Neerpasch. When the #52 car of the long-time leaders Jo Siffert and Hans Herrmann dropped to second due to a technical problem, those two also drove on the #54 car in case theirs broke down. Due to this, five pilots won the race and two of them scored second as well. The #51 Jo Schlesser and Joe Buzzetta car completed a 1-2-3 side-by-side parade finish at the banked finish line. The three Alfa Romeo T33/2's were even beaten by a Ford Mustang.
The 1968 12 Hours of Sebring saw a 1-2 finish for the Porsche 907, with the Jo Siffert/Hans Herrmann car winning and the Vic Elford/Jochen Neerpasch car finishing 2nd. The Gerhard Mitter/Rolf Stommelen and Ludovico Scarfiotti/Joe Buzzetta cars were victims of engine failures. Daytona and Sebring marked the first back-to-back major outright wins for the company, and French journalist Bernard Cahier wrote: "it's hard to imagine that anyone could beat Porsche to the championship this year."
The next race was the BOAC 500 at Brands Hatch, on April 7, 1968. Jo Siffert/Hans Herrmann were fastest in qualifying ahead of Bruce McLaren and Mike Spence in the new Ford 3L, but none finished. It was the updated John Wyer-entered Ford GT40 of Jacky Ickx and Brian Redman which won ahead of the remaining two Porsche 907's after being only 5th on the grid.
At the twisty Targa Florio, Vic Elford had lost 18 minutes in lap 1 due to a tyre failure. Supported by veteran Umberto Maglioli, he showed a fantastic race in the 907 — reminiscent of Juan Manuel Fangio's legendary 1957 German Grand Prix — beating the old lap record by one minute and winning by 3 minutes. Hans Herrmann and Jochen Neerpasch came in 4th among four Alfas. In the Porsche advertising poster celebrating the win, only an exhausted yet smiling Elford was shown, not the cars as usual.
The 1000km Nürburgring was won with the new Porsche 908 with its 3000cc engine, which remained unreliable. The underpowered 2200cc 907 with less than half the Ford's displacement continued as Porsche's best entry in the 1000km Spa, Watkins Glen 6 Hours and 500km Zeltweg, losing to the Ford GT40's.
Due to political unrest in France, the 1968 24 Hours of Le Mans had been postponed from its traditional mid-June date to the end of September. Porsche could not take advantage of the additional time to improve the 908, nor read the French rule book properly. Porsche were for the first time fastest in qualifying and the early stages of the race, but troubles with the 908's alternator caused delays and even disqualifications as the new Porsche staff had misinterpreted the repair rules. For the third time in a row, a V8-powered Ford won the 24-hour classic. A Porsche 907LH came in second in front of the sole surviving 908. Ford also took the World Sportscar Championship.
At that time, Porsche had already decided to make a risky investment: they committed themselves to develop a new 5-liter sportscar and build the required number of 25 in advance. That car was the Porsche 917.
During the following seasons, several 907s were entered by privateers, scoring occasional top-10 finishes, with a podium at Monza in 1969 and a 7th at the 1971 24 Hours of Le Mans being the more remarkable results.
This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.