Now Your High School Poster Porsche 935-001 Can Be Yours
What started as a parallel project to the Group 6 936 quickly became the car to race. Now the very first Porsche 935-001 is up for auction.
What was your schoolboy poster racecar? Odds are that this was one of them. The ultimate GT racer of the later 1970s, the Porsche 935 is arguably the wildest ever racing 911. What started as a parallel Group 5 project to the Group 6 936 prototype quickly became the car to race. Now the very first 935-001 is up for auction.
That status means it won’t come cheap. So expect to pay a pretty penny to finally park your favourite poster Porsche in your garage. Set to go under the Gooding & Company gavel at Pebble Beach in a couple of weeks, this one certainly has the racing pedigree to go with that iconic paintwork.
Brutal Technology, Incredible Speed Won Races
Its technology was brutal. Enough to eventually even beat the sportscars at the Le Mans 24 Hour. In incredible style, too. So the 935 story has it all. Having dominated Le Mans in the earlier ‘70s, racing rules changes forced Zuffenhausen to rethink its sportscar plans. Its winners had been written out of the equation.
It started with the 1973 Porsche 911 Carrera RSR gaining a turbocharger and 150 more horsepower. Enough to propel it to second behind a Matra prototype at Le Mans. Then in the mid-seventies, the FIA decided to split the World Championship into two Prototype and GT series. With separate rules and calendars. Group 5 and Group 6 were born.
Jacky Ickx & Jochen Mass Debuted 935-001
Porsche wanted to win both titles. No problem, it built separate cars to race in each. The 936 Prototype that went on to instant Le Mans success. And the 935 immediately dominated GT racing. And later won at Le Mans too. Famous for its flat nose and headlights only in the grille, the 935 was without doubt the Group 5 car to beat.
This chassis 935-001 mase its debut in Jacky Ickx and Jochen Mass’ hands in Mugello. Rolf Stommelen and Manfred Schurti later drove it to clinch the ’75 world title over the BMW 3.5 CSLs. Mass and Ickx won the season finale in Dijon before Czech-American Vasek Polak brought the car to sunny California.
935-001 Expected to Make Over $4-Million on Auction
Porsche 935s went on to be the world championship and US IMSA series staple for many years to come. A 935 even won Le Mans four years on. With a couple of still off the hook US drug smugglers and a German Porsche pro at the wheel!
Klaus Ludwig and brothers Don and Bill Whittington drove Kremer Racing’s 935 K3 to 24 Hour victory in 1979. And just in case that wasn’t enough, Hollywood superstar Paul Newman was second driving with Dick Barbour and Rolf Stommelen. No less than six 935s filled that year’s top ten.
After Polak passed in 1997, 935-001 changed hands several times before the current owner acquired it in 2012. Now fully restored, 935-001 is one of many headlines at the 16-17 August Pebble Beach Auctions. Gooding & Company expects its hammer to fall on it somewhere between 4.5 and 5.5 million dollars.
Images: Gooding & Company