1989 Porsche 962 IMSA GTP Racecar

Registration No: N/A
Chassis No: C-06
Mot Expiry: N/A

The Porsche 956/962 dominated international sports car racing not only during the 1980s, but also well into the 1990s - the Stuttgart marque's most successful racing product winning the Le Mans 24 Hours classic on seven occasions, the Daytona 24 Hours six times and the Sebring 12 Hours four
times.
Cars were built to comply either with FIA Group C or IMSA Camel GTP rules. Cars complying to Group C regulations, as at Le Mans, controlled maximum fuel consumption, limiting fuel used to 60 litres per 100 kilometres with a minimum weight of 800kilgrams and a maximum fuel cell of 100 litres capacity.
IMSA cars, by contrast, had to be of a minimum weight for the engine capacity and were permitted a 120 litres capacity fuel cell.
It was in 1987 that Porsche Stuttgart handed over 962 chassis manufacture to three approved contractors, one of whom was Chapman in the US, who made the 962-C-06 tub out of aluminium honeycomb with billet bulkheads and pick-up points in steel. Meanwhile, Alwin Springer of Andial, California, was the Porsche nominated engine builder, Andial-engined Porsches achieving 53 IMSA
race victories. His 3.2-litre engine for the 962 had 1.2 bar Motronic engine management system fitted to a single Garrett turbocharger; the single turbo allowing for a narrower engine and the bodywork incorporating high downforce venturi. Thus equipped, the Andial motor produced 700bhp at 8200rpm and 710n/m torque at 5400rpm, significantly more than the equivalent Group C spec engine.
Porsche chassis 962-C-06 - the sixth Type 962 Group C produced and therefore dated 1989 - was built specifically, we are told, to comply with the 1989 IMSA GTP Group 3 rules with a minimum weight of 924 kilograms and a 3.2-litre air-cooled engine with single turbocharger and 57mm restrictor. The
equivalent Group C race car would have had to have had a minimum chassis weight of 953 kilograms and a water-cooled 3-litre engine with twin turbochargers and 38mm restrictors. Chassis 962-C-06 carried 1989/1990 developed bodywork with the single bracket rear wing and longer front bodywork to increase downforce.
Owner/driver Rene Herzog, albeit with the assistance of leading endurance race entrants Brumos Porsche, fielded 962-C-06 in its sponsored by Alucraft livery in the February 1990 Daytona 24 Hours race, the first outing for Herzog's car at international level. The driver line-up was pretty impressive, too, for apart from Herzog himself, twice Le Mans winning Porsche factory driver Hans-Joachim Stuck, five times Daytona winning Hurley Haywood and the immensely experience Harald Grohs were in the squad. Carrying race number 2, car and drivers finished fourth overall behind a brace of factory Jaguar XJR-12s and the Bob Wollek 962C.
Many authoritative commentators on the endurance racing scene consider the Daytona 24 Hours not only to be America's top endurance motor race, but the 1990 running of the event to be the high peak of the IMSA Camel GT competition, featuring as it did factory team participation not only from
Jaguar and Porsche, but also from Nissan and Toyota, all of whom were chasing overall honours.
Apart from Daytona 1990, 962-C-06 only took part in three other international races, March's Sebring 12 Hours, the Heartsland Park event in May and the Sebring 12 Hours in March 1991 before being retired from contemporary action. It was then fully recommissioned, including the engine, by Gunnar Racing in Florida in 2001, since when it is claimed only to have been run for some five hours.
As presented today - virtually in Daytona 1990 race trim with excellent red and white bodywork and with claimed to be historically and technically accurate spec 3.2 engine - 962-C-06 is claimed not only to be race-ready, but would be extremely competitive in the current Group C/GTP series which runs
at such prestige venues as Brands Hatch, Monza, the Nurburgring and Le Mans, where cars in this category were accepted for the support race of the main 24 Hours event. In addition, such Porsche 956/962 cars, especially in original trim like this one, have been invited to participate at Goodwood and other high profile restrospective events and exhibitions.
This historic Porsche has been featured in such definitive and period charting publications as Ulrich Upiety's `956-962 - The Legendary Race Winners' (pages 217, 278 and 307) as well as in `Daytona 24 Hours' by J J O'Malley (pages 222-225). Spare bodywork, including nose section, and an extra set of BBS wheels are included with the car. Whilst a new owner of 962-C-06 would also be able to take up the offer of some hands-on driver instruction from the team which, in 2004, finished third in the Le Mans support race and second at the Nurburgring.