Modified cars
Beyond Porsche’s own developments – engines of varying capacities, with different fuelling and turbo solutions, as well as the experimental double-clutch gearbox – a number of teams bought and modified these cars in the face of increasing competition. Lancia, Mercedes and Jaguar were extracting serious performance from their cars, albeit sans the reliability and consistency of the aging Porsches. Kremer, Joest, Richard Lloyd/GTi Engineering, Dauer and more all built outwards from the Porsche platform to combat newer cars and evolving regulations and it was all with encouragement, if not always support, from the Porsche factory.
Perhaps the most visually separate derivation of the 962 was the RLR GTi car, of which two are representing at 79MM. It’s not just the revised lights, wheel covers and re-specced aero that defines the GTi. It’s near enough an all-new car, with a Peter Stevens-redesigned alloy honeycomb chassis underpinning it, by comparison to the sheet tubs of the standard cars. These were built to oppose the growing might of Tom Walkinshaw’s Jaguars and the Sauber-Mercedes in the late 1980s, to no avail, at least at La Sarthe. Following Hans-Joachim Stuck, Derek Bell and Al Holbert’s win in 1987, in a factory 962C, Porsche’s domination at the 24 hours, if not on a championship level in series around the world, temporarily waned.
That was until Dauer’s GT loophole. Porsche realised Dauer’s road-prepared 962s could homologate a 962 for the GT class in 1993, that could pan out quicker than the now naturally-aspirated top-flight Group C machinery. With support from Joest racing, at the time Porsche’s factory team, Yannick Dalmas, Hurley Haywood and Mauro Baldi drove the GT-spec car to victory ahead of the late-era Toyota Group C racers. Other road conversions were produced by Schuppan, Koenig Specials, DP Motorsports and more.