Feature: Porsche 962 GTP

The Porsche 962 is arguably the most iconic and most successful sports prototype car of all time. Its successes, which stretched years beyond what anyone would have ever expected, are numerous and likely never to be equaled. Perhaps what's most impressive is that the 962, like the 956 before it, was not just successful in the hands of the factory. After all it's one thing for a factory, with their seemingly bottomless pockets, to bring a car into the winner's circle time after time. It's an entirely different thing for a private team to take a turn-key race car and do the same thing. With the 962, this was possible.

There's obviously been quite a bit written about the 962 over the years, and there is not honestly that much that I have to offer on the subject. I have some inside connections to be sure, but there are those much more well connected and in the know than I. Still, when I was at Watkins Glen for the U.S. Vintage Grand Prix this past weekend I couldn't help but be taken with the lone Porsche supercar on hand. I had to take pics, I had to inspect it up close, and naturally, had to talk about it.

Although the car was stated to be a 1985 962, I had a bit of a hard time figuring out exactly which car this was. Clad in the legendary orange Jagermeister colours, it would appear to be one of the ex-Brun team cars. The bodywork however is late-model 962C spec, with a short tail and separate rear wing, and it was running a single turbo GTP spec motor. I did some internet sleuthing and managed to track down the beast's origins. First I stumbled upon a mention of the car having no racing history on URY914's Flickr account. (which has an AMAZING cache of vintage GTP pictures by the way) A few more google searches, based on the name B. Hawe residing on the side of the car, turned up the chassis designation 962 AR-1, which is not on any of the official 962 chassis lists out there, and finally brought me to yet another Flickr page, which finally had the full story.

Apparently this car was built from a spare tub back in 1996 by Kevin Jeannette from Gunnar Racing. The car was to be put on the street but was ultimately sold as a vintage racer, wrecked, purchased by Bill Hawe, and finally rebuilt once again with a 3.0 flat six made to IMSA GTP spec.

So maybe the car doesn't have any racing provenance, but that's really neither here nor there when it comes down to it. To have a proper 962 being used as it was intended, on a track, at speed, rather than sitting in some dark, grim warehouse somewhere, hidden away from the world. Clearly I'm not the only person who feels this way. I bet this vintage Camel GT banner has been proudly displayed every year since the lucky owner decided to rip it down off of some fence back in the 1980s....

More to come from The Glen, including many more Porsches, a historic Jaguar GTP car (which did not take to the track) and a smattering of old VW's. If anyone out there thought pristine condition Scirocco 1's were hard to fine, you clearly haven't been to a vintage race in the northeast.

Check out the full selection of 962 pictures over at the Wolfsburg RS Flickr page. On a side note, I've updated my copyright license so now you can actually see the full sized larger images. Took me a while, but I finally figured that one out.

_WRS

Wolfsburg RS Flickr page