How Porsche's Le Mans legend changed the game

There were deep problems in the Porsche hierarchy in Stuttgart in the late 1970s, and these threatened the company’s interest in endurance racing, especially at the Le Mans 24 Hours.

Professor Ernst Fuhrmann, the CEO, believed that the rear-engined, air-cooled 911 had a limited lifeline. It could not meet new regulations regarding emissions and noise output that would dominate the 1980s, he thought, and Porsche would depend on a new generation of water-cooled sportscars: the 924, 944 and 928. On a chart in Fuhrmann’s office the 911 would stop production in 1984, and development work on the six-cylinder model virtually ceased in 1978. 

For Le Mans in 1980, the factory ran a trio of 924 Carrera GTRs, one of them sponsored by Porsche Cars Great Britain for Tony Dron and Andy Rouse.  No, they would not win, but they would point to the future. None of this pleased Professor Ferdinand ‘Butzi’ Porsche, the company’s chairman and grandson of the company founder, also called Ferdinand. He was barely on speaking terms with Fuhrmann and put out feelers for a replacement.

Peter W Schutz, a brash American recruited from the Deutz engine company, took office on the first day of January 1981, and a gale force wind of change blew through the company in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen and at the research centre in Weissach. For Schutz, everything seemed to be doable. Development of the 911 was resumed at top speed, first with four-wheel drive and convertible bodywork options. “What do we have for Le Mans?” he questioned.

The tube-frame 936, winner in 1976 and 1977, was wheeled out, uprated with a more powerful engine, the 917 gearbox and brakes, and was straight away the runaway winner for Jacky Ickx and Derek Bell, setting a new distance record. It was Porsche’s sixth outright Le Mans victory, and hunger for more big successes was stronger than ever.

There would be new regulations for 1982, named Group C, which set fresh targets for manufacturers. Engine performance would be measured by fuel consumption, set initially at 600 litres of petrol for a distance of 1000 kilometres, or 2500 litres for Le Mans. This opened up the challenge to any number of manufacturers who could meet a target of efficiency rather than a power race.

A figure of around 600 horsepower would be sufficient to start with and Porsche, BMW and Lancia were interested straight away. Mercedes, Jaguar, Toyota, Nissan and Mazda all later entered the world sportscar championship – known under several monikers – and from that point of view Group C was a highly successful series through the 1980s.

Porsche's engine packed a punch, but also had to be frugal with its fuel consumption

Photo by: Porsche

Porsche’s new Group C car, designated type 956, was a clean-sheet design, with an aluminium monocoque and, a ‘first’ in sportscars, under-floor venturi that provided ground-effects, allowing higher cornering speeds. A small team of engineers started work on the design in July 1981, comprising Horst Reitter, responsible for the chassis design, Norbert Singer for the body layout, and Eugen Kolb for the design.

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The new regulations were not finalised until October 1981 and by then the new design was well advanced. In fact, the first roll-out test was conducted by Jurgen Barth at Weissach in March 1982, immediately followed by a lengthy test at the Paul Ricard circuit.

“All the suspension of the 956 was new, but the really big jump was ground-effect,” Singer recalls. “We were looking for the high downforce numbers we achieved with the Can-Am cars, which only relied on conventional aids such as body shapes and wings.”

The 956 was powered by the same 2.65-litre six-cylinder engine prepared for the ultimate 936, with water-cooled cylinder heads and four valves per cylinder. A pair of KKK type K2 turbochargers boosted the power to 620bhp

In 1977 the Lotus 78 had started the ground-effects movement, and by 1981 the entire Formula 1 grid had the benefit of such high downforce.

“At first we put skirts on the windtunnel model because they had them in F1 cars and we understood that when they worked properly you get a big benefit,” says Singer. “We got bad results, though. We had to learn that to get the benefit on a sports-racing car you need to have air coming in from the sides.”  

So the skirts were binned, and when the prototype 956 was subjected to tests it was found that the monocoque was 80% stiffer than that of the 936. The downforce figures were not calculated, but on the Weissach skid pan the 956 was generating 10% more lateral g-force than the 917/10. The prototype was driven on pavé for 1000 kilometres to detect any weaknesses, 1000 kilometres at Ricard and 30 hours on the rolling road simulating the Le Mans cycle, before the first three production cars were built for Le Mans. 

They were down to the minimum weight and had ‘langheck’ bodywork, with longer tails for higher top speeds, and reduced downforce. In fact, says Singer, the cars were exactly the same length, 4800mm, according to the regulations, but the tail/wing section was lower. The top speed at Le Mans was 355km/h (220 mph), about the same as the 1981 936 but with much higher cornering speeds.

“We knew we could race for 24 hours but we could not be sure about the car’s durability at Le Mans until we actually went there, because testing and racing are different,” says Singer. “There was no time to make any changes before the first race, at Silverstone, but fortunately no significant weaknesses showed up.”

Bell and Ickx gave the 956 a somewhat low-key debut at Silverstone in 1982 due to the race length exceeding the fuel capacity it was designed for

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The 956 was powered by the same 2.65-litre six-cylinder engine prepared for the ultimate 936, with water-cooled cylinder heads and four valves per cylinder. A pair of KKK type K2 turbochargers boosted the power to 620bhp, and drive went through a five-speed synchromesh gearbox, an item that was heavier than a dog-ring box but was designed to be customer-friendly. Porsche planned to build a lot of cars!

The first outing was at Silverstone in May, a world championship race that also featured the Group 6 Lancia LC1 that could race for victory, but would earn no manufacturer points. The Porsche was seen for the first time in the blue-and-white colours of Rothmans cigarettes, but Porsche’s team manager Peter Falk realised straight away that it wouldn’t be a straight contest.

For historic reasons the event was billed as the ‘Silverstone 6 Hours’ at a likely average of 190 km/h, so the 956 would have to race more than 1100 kilometres on 600 litres of fuel. No more than five stops were allowed, so the cars had to be driven near the bottom of the tank each time.

A protest was rejected, and (as press and PR manager for PCGB) your writer was asked to intervene, but clerk of the course and British Racing Drivers’ Club secretary Pierre Aumonier was adamant: “Our race is advertised as the Silverstone 6 Hours and that’s what it must be. Porsche can still earn the Group C world championship points.”

Jacky Ickx comfortably secured pole position and led the early laps, but it was soon apparent that he was well outside the fuel target, and he and Derek Bell had to reduce speed and see Michele Alboreto and Riccardo Patrese disappear into the distance in their Lancia. In fact, the 956 was driven mostly in fifth gear for half the race just to reach the chequered flag.

Ickx and Bell claimed second place, and full points, three laps behind the Lancia, feeling thoroughly disappointed. They had covered 1118 kilometres, which Porsche counted as experience. Reinhold Joest’s modified 936C claimed third place, and points, with Bob Wollek and the Belgian Martin brothers driving.

Next stop Le Mans. Three new Porsches – 956-002, 003 and 004 – were prepared, completing only a shakedown at Weissach, and the plan was to run to a strict schedule and check where they were after 12 and 18 hours. Fuel consumption was not a major concern, and Ickx and Bell enjoyed another copybook run to complete 359 laps, four more than the previous year. It was the sixth Le Mans success for Ickx, leading the sister cars of Jochen Mass/Vern Schuppan, and Al Holbert/Hurley Haywood/Barth. It was a real tour de force by Porsche, demonstrating clearly that a new era in endurance racing had just opened.

After triumphing first-time out at Le Mans, Ickx and Bell clinched the 1982 world title against Patrese's Lancia at a sodden Brands Hatch

Photo by: Sutton Images

After that the 956 was almost unbeatable in the 1982 season. Mass and Ickx won the Spa 1000Km ahead of Bell and Schuppan. They won again at Fuji, and that might have ended the factory programme save for the Brands Hatch 1000Km in October, counting only for the drivers’ championship. Porsche had comfortably secured the World Endurance Championship manufacturers’ title, but Ickx needed to beat Patrese to claim the drivers’ crown.

Would they compete or wouldn’t they? Strings were pulled, Rothmans chipped in, and 003 was prepared at short notice to take on the Lancia LC1 of Patrese and Teo Fabi. Two ‘works’ Ford C100 DFL-engined cars were on the grid, as was Hans Stuck in Peter Sauber’s BMW turbo-powered C6.

Kentish weather was at its worst. It pelted with rain at the outset, and after nine laps the two Fords collided and went off the track, damaging the barriers and forcing a stoppage. Stuck was ahead; Ickx was third, 10.4 seconds adrift; and Fabi was eighth, 6.4s behind the Porsche. This was significant.

Porsche filled the grids and giving opportunities to not only crack privateer squads but also amateurs wanting to play on bigger stages. True aces could master it, but the less-experienced or talented could also feel comfortable

Stuck led the restart (and marked his card for later recruitment to the Rothmans Porsche team) until his engine failed, and Fabi went scuttling into the lead in the Lancia, on a drying track, untroubled by fuel consumption. Bell was told to stay out, on worn tyres, to save a pitstop, and when Ickx took the wheel for the last hour he had a deficit of more than a minute. But he had plenty of fuel, and set off on an epic chase, passing backmarkers at an astonishing rate. When the chequered flag came out he was just two seconds behind Patrese, and faces were downcast in the Porsche camp.

“Wait a moment,” your writer said to Falk. “Ickx was six seconds ahead when the race was stopped so on aggregate he has won!” So he had, by 4.7s, and bagged the World Endurance Championship for drivers into the bargain!

Teams were clamouring for the 956 and Porsche initially made nine customer cars for the 1983 season, sold to Reinhold Joest (who bought two), the Kremer brothers, John Fitzpatrick, Hans Obermaier, Richard Lloyd, Nova Engineering in Japan and Preston Henn in the States. Three more were built, and two sold, before the end of the season. It was the start of perhaps the finest customer programme in motorsport history, Porsche filling the grids and giving opportunities to not only crack privateer squads but also amateurs wanting to play on bigger stages. True aces could master it, but the less-experienced or talented could also feel comfortable in it.

Porsche dominated the 1983 season, and how! Wollek and Thierry Boutsen won the opener, the Monza 1000Km, in Joest’s new 956, narrowly ahead of Mass and Ickx in their works car, by dint of stretching their fuel an extra lap while ‘MIX’ had to conserve fuel in the closing stages. But after that it was business as usual for the factory team, followed by the customers. They claimed the top five positions at Silverstone and, incredibly, nine of the top 10 places at Le Mans, interrupted only by the Sauber-BMW C7 in ninth place. “Nobody’s perfect,” Porsche advertised.

Archive: The greatest forgotten Le Mans finish

Holbert, Haywood and Schuppan triumphed at Le Mans in 1983 - just. The 956 expiring just a few yards after taking the finish

Photo by: Motorsport Images

A similar pattern followed in 1984, Porsche winning 10 of the world championship’s 11 rounds – the only one missing was Kyalami, which the 956s didn’t attend, and was won by the Lancia Martini team’s Ferrari-powered LC2. The Rothmans squad also missed Le Mans, thanks to a spat with the FIA over fuel consumption, and this was famously won by Klaus Ludwig and Henri Pescarolo in Joest’s customer 956-117, which even more famously would also win the 24 Hours in 1985. 

In the US, the IMSA organisation had its own rules that barred the 956 on at least two counts. The foot pedals were in line with the front wheels, which was a safety concern, and the advanced twin-turbo engine was not allowed. So Singer revised the Group C car by extending the wheelbase forward by 120mm, so that the driver’s feet were behind the front axle line, integrating the steel safety rollcage, and increasing the wheel diameter to 19 inches in order to increase the tyre’s footprint without increasing the rim width.

The 962 was born, and for the American market it was sold with the 935’s 3.8-litre, single-turbo engine. Crucially, engine power was limited by air restrictors, not by fuel consumption, and since air is not rationed the drivers could race harder and faster.

Singer managed the 962’s debut in the States, Porsche entering the ‘prototype’ for Mario and Michael Andretti in the 1984 Daytona 24 Hours. It showed well but retired after five hours with a gearbox failure. A build series then began at Weissach, first the 962 for IMSA and later the 962C for the world championship, in 1985. Bruce Leven, Bob Akin, Preston Henn and Al Holbert were the first Americans to take delivery of the 962, along with US-based John Fitzpatrick, and clearly Holbert was Porsche’s prime customer, as was Joest on the world stage. 

Ironically it was Fitzpatrick and Henn who gave the 962 its European and Le Mans debut in the absence of the Rothmans factory team. Henn’s car, chassis 962-104, raced with the IMSA single-turbo engine in the GTP category, Fitzpatrick with a 956 engine in chassis 962-105, a ‘hybrid’ forerunner of the 962C series. Neither finished the race.

Holbert invited Bell to partner him in the IMSA series and they chalked up the first of many successes at Mid-Ohio in June 1984, soon followed by victories at Watkins Glen, Road America, Pocono and the Daytona 3 Hours, to finish equal third in the drivers’ championship. 

Holbert then won nine of the 17 rounds in 1985, six of them with Bell, to finish first and second in the drivers’ championship, and six more in 1986, again champion driver. Holbert was appointed Porsche’s North American motorsport manager in 1986, and oversaw the company’s ill-fated Indycar efforts.

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In all, Porsche manufactured 17 956s in 1982-84 and 91 962s until the run ended in 1991, and then a GT transformation entered for Le Mans in 1994, which chalked up Porsche’s 13th event victory. But that was only part of the story. 

The 962 achieved considerable success Stateside in IMSA GTP, with Al Holbert its greatest proponent

Photo by: William Murenbeeld / Motorsport Images

A number of Porsches were modified with bespoke chassis, in honeycomb aluminium or carbonfibre, to increase stiffness and crash safety. Richard Lloyd commissioned Nigel Stroud to design a honeycomb chassis for GTi Engineering, which was raced by Jonathan Palmer and Jan Lammers. John Thompson made a series of eight in carbon, Fabcar in the States made a honeycomb series that were dispatched to Weissach for finishing, and Al Holbert Racing made a honeycomb series with HR added to the chassis plate.

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Porsches won the 24 Hours of Le Mans seven times in succession, between 1981 and 1987. Bell and Holbert won the Daytona and Le Mans (along with Stuck) 24-hour races twice in succession, in 1986-87, to accomplish 96 hours of round-the-clock excellence. Bell was Porsche’s most successful driver in that era, with 32 wins in 956 and 962 models in the world championship and in IMSA.

“We thought we would make maybe 10 cars, we never imagined we would make more than 100,” reflects Singer. The Porsche 956 won 25 world championship races between 1982 and 1986, 11 in the All-Japan championship, plus a hatful in series such as Germany’s Deutsche Rennsport Meisterschaft and Interserie. 

"We thought we would make maybe 10 cars, we never imagined we would make more than 100" Norbert Singer

The 962 and 962C did even better, winning over 100 major events in Europe, the US and Japan, and it took the best efforts of Tom Walkinshaw and his Silk Cut/Castrol-backed Jaguar XJRs to break Porsche’s dominance with Daytona and Le Mans victories in 1988.

These ground-effects Porsches set staggering records, formed the mainstay of grids on both sides of the Atlantic, gave many drivers the chance to experience new levels of performance, and truly changed endurance racing across the globe.

The 956/962 remembered

Achim Stroth

Mario and Michael Andretti finished third at Le Mans with Philippe Alliot in Kremer 956 in 1983

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Kremer team manager at the helm when the team finished third at Le Mans in 1983 and won Daytona in 1995

“Kremer wasn’t planning to run a 956 when the first customer cars were released for 1983. We’d decided to continue developing our own CK5 Group C design, but Porsche France approached us with a proposal to run the Andrettis, Mario and Michael. They had a sponsor and wanted something with the same look as the Rothmans cars that had won the year before. 

“They convinced us to run a 956, but the problem was that there were no cars available. The first run of customer cars were all sold out. Alain de Cadenet had an option on a car, but was running out of money, so I flew to London to see him. Let’s say I went equipped to buy the option off him there and then. 

“We got the very first customer 956, chassis #101, and ran it at the Silverstone 1000Km with the long tail because we didn’t have time to put it in short-tail configuration. From there we went to Le Mans with the Andrettis and Philippe Alliot and finished third. 

“Once we had the 956 it didn’t make sense to continue development of our CK5. The 956 was the better car and we had the support from Porsche. That was the beauty of a 956 or a 962 – Porsche had parts, equipment and technicians in the paddock to help you run it. That made it an easy car to run and explains why so many private teams, even some at a more amateur level, could run it with relative ease.” By Gary Watkins

Derek Bell

The hugely respected Bell was the most successful driver in 956/962 machines across all competitions

Photo by: Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images

The most successful driver across the world championship and IMSA in the 956/962 with 32 victories

“When I look at all the Porsche 956s and 962s that Porsche have brought together at various events this year, I think those are the cars that made my career. I got picked up by Porsche for Le Mans in 1981 to drive the 936 at a time when I was only doing a handful of races a year and was seriously considering stopping racing. I was staggered they put me with Jacky Ickx. I thought I’d be some kind of fourth driver in the second car, but Manfred Jantke told me after I signed, ‘Now I have the two best sportscar drivers in the world.’

“After Le Mans Professor Bott told me that he’d like to speak about the Group C car. The reality was I didn’t know what Group C was, but he asked me if I wanted to drive their new car, and my only thought was, ‘Where’s the contract!’ He told me that they were building a monocoque chassis for the first time and they were building a car with ground-effects aerodynamics from the first, but added, ‘We have never been wrong before.’ That’s pretty much what he said word for word.

“The 956 and the 962 were just cars that you got in and drove, and didn’t realise you were going so quickly. I’d get out during testing, and I’d be told I’d done such and such a time, and I’d think, really, I wasn’t even trying. The car did everything right: it didn’t roll, it was stable under braking and stable on the straights. It was just superior to everything I had driven before.” GW

Norbert Singer

Singer (right), pictured with Bell, was the lead engineer on the 956/962 family of cars

Photo by: Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images

Led development of the 956 and the 962 right through until 1994 and the Dauer 962 LM Porsche

“The GT era was coming after the end of Group C and it made sense for Porsche to be involved. We’d raced the 911 Turbo S LM at Le Mans in 1993 and had an improved version under development, but the rumour was that McLaren was coming with its F1 supercar. 

“The story was that they would come in 1994. We were wrong of course, because they wouldn’t arrive until 1995, but that was the rumour. Our research and development boss Horst Marchart asked me if we could beat the McLaren with what we had planned. I told him no. The reasons started with the McLaren architecture and continued with that big BMW V12. I said we had no chance of winning the GT class, so he gave me a week to come up with a new idea.

“Jochen Dauer had this idea to produce a road car out of his old 962s that he had sitting around, had shown a kind of concept at the Frankfurt motor show, and wanted Porsche to help him to homologate it for the road. I thought we could make a GT1 race car out of what he was planning. 

“We took the last two 962 chassis out of stock and produced a car that was very different to a regular 962. It weighed 1000kg, had different aerodynamics, including a flat floor, and narrower tyres. It was almost a new car and definitely a GT car. We went to Le Mans trying to win in GT, but we got lucky and won overall.” GW

Dalmas, Haywood and Baldi won Le Mans in 1994 with Dauer Porsche 962 GT LM, the result of a quirk in the rulebook

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