Drivers

Heinz Schiller

Born in the village of Frauenfeld, not far from Zurich, in 1930, Schiller started out competing in speedboats in the 1950s and enjoyed success at national level before he turned his attention to car racing. With a couple of different Porsche sports cars he enjoyed some success, including second place in his class on the 1957 Mille Miglia. The following year he raced a Porsche RS in the Formula 2 race at Pau and finished sixth. He then switched to hillclimbing in Switzerland. Competitive racing was banned in Switzerland following the Le Mans disaster of 1955 but hillclimbing involves racing against the clock, as opposed to between two or more competitors, and is still allowed.

In 1962 Georges Filipinetti, a wealthy car dealer and landowner, decided to set up a Swiss racing team and Ecurie Nationale Suisse hired Jo Siffert to drive a Lotus 24 and Schiller to drive an older Porsche 718. For the German GP Siffert switched to a Lotus 21 and so Schiller was given the chance to drive the BRM V8- engined 24 although he retired from the race. The following year, back in the old Porsche 718, he finished third at Pau, albeit a number of laps behind the Lotuses of Jim Clark and Trevor Taylor. After that Schiller went back to his GT racing, still driving for Filipinetti, and enjoyed some good results including a class win on the Ollon-Villars hillclimb. In 1964 he acquired a Porsche 904 and got back together with Siffert for a number of long distance races, while also racing on occasion for the Porsche factory team, notably at Le Mans where he finished 10th overall and third in class with Gerd Koch.

After that he dropped from the international scene but remained a Porsche dealer in Geneva.