1981 IMSA 935 Porsche

 

1976 934/5

 

[h=2]The 935's Frankenstein era[/h] Thursday, 13 July 2017



RACER Staff / Image by LAT

Malleability isn't usually a benchmark by which race cars are measured. But if they were, the Porsche 935 would be right up there.

The Group 5 rulebook for which it was designed in the mid-1970s was already a fairly accommodating one in terms of the options available to make modifications, and Porsche continued to evolve the car through several iterations in the years that followed, including the famously long-tailed, low-slung 935/78 "Moby Dick".
Porsche stopped building 935s in 1979 – but that's when things got really interesting. The vacuum created by the factory's withdrawal was filled by a cottage industry for modding, led by the likes of Kremer in Europe and U.S. firm FABCAR.
You could do what John Paul's JLP team did and have a 935 special (dubbed JLP-3) built from a donor 1972 911T, and then use it to win both the 24 Hours of Daytona and 12 Hours of Sebring in 1982. Or, you could put a Lola T600 GTP nose on it and take it to Le Mans. That was Bob Akin's route.
His 935 L1 – designed, like the JLP-3, by GAACO – made its debut at Lime Rock in May, 1982 before being shipped off to France where its straightline speed was immediately apparent along the Mulsanne. Other parts of the car were less robust however, and Akin, along with co-drivers David Cowart and Kemper Miller, were out of the race after just two hours due to a problem with the reserve gas tank.
It returned to the U.S. to complete the remainder of the 1982 IMSA season, earning a best result of fourth at Road Atlanta in the hands of Akin and Hurley Haywood, before being parked for good after crashing out of the Camel GT 500 Grand Prix at Pocono. (John Paul and John Paul Jr took their JLP-3 to second on that day, albeit a lap down on the Lola T600 shared by Danny Ongais and Ted Field).
After returning to Akin's workshop though, the 935 L1 remained under a sheet for nearly two decades before being purchased and fully restored in 1999. It's now an alpha predator in vintage racing – and if you have deep enough pockets, it happens to be for sale through Canepa.

And Akin? His association with 935s didn't end there. Two years later, had had FABCAR build the iconic Cola Cola 935-84 – at the time, the fastest 935 ever.