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The Porsche 961
With all-wheel drive in Le Mans:
the Porsche 961.
The successes of the Paris-Dakar Rally in 1986
motivated the Porsche engineers to develop a new
super sports car. For the first time ever, an
all-wheel drive Porsche was to enter the high-calibre
Le Mans race.
Zuffenhausen in the spring of 1986: after the
Porsche 959 had already come in first, second
and sixth in January at the Paris-Dakar Rally, the
Weissach engineers worked under high pressure
on another version of the super sports car. Beside
the series versions of the 959 introduced in 1985,
Porsche also wanted to prove the versatility of the
technological showpiece fitted with all-wheel drive
and bi-turbo progressive supercharging on the race
circuit. The name of the race car project realised
from February to May 1986 under the direction of
Roland Ku maul: Porsche type 961. With this car,
t Group photo of the Porsche types 959 Paris-Dakar, 959 Coupe and Porsche 961 (1986)
Porsche wanted to have an all-wheel drive race car
at the starting line for the first time in the history of
the 24-hour Le Mans Race.
At the starting line with over 600 hp.
The race car was prepared according to the rules
of the IMSA-GTX category, since up until the start
of the race on 31 May 1986 the 200 series vehicles
of the 959 required for the homologation in
Group B had not yet been completed. All the same,
only relatively few interventions were necessary to
turn the road-approved Porsche 959 into a true-blue
Le Mans race car. For example, the transmission
and brake callipers corresponded to that of the
standard version of the 959. Special attention was
paid to the aerodynamics of the weight-optimised
plastic body, which was completely designed for
Porsche type 961 in Le Mans 1987
maximum downforce. The engine performance was
optimised with a focus on reliability to a steady 640
hp with 7800/min – almost 200 hp more than the
standard version.
Success in white.
The Porsche 961 was piloted by the race car
drivers Ren Metge and Claude Ballot-Lena for the
24 hours of the 1986 Le Mans. Since no sponsor
could be acquired at such short notice, the 961
went to the starting line in the traditional German
racing colour “white”. After a nearly error-free
race, the unusual Porsche placed seventh in the
overall ranking among the technically superior
Group C race cars and won in the IMSA-GTX class
category. After being raced again at a sprint in
Daytona in October of 1986, the Porsche 961
also completed the Stuttgart factory team in 1987
at the 24-hour Le Mans race. However, this was
less fortunate than before. Now painted in
the colours of the sponsor Rothman, the 961
prematurely left the race after 17 hours due to a
driver error. Nonetheless, this race was a success
for Porsche. In addition to the overall victory by
the Porsche 962, the 961 – used as a “rolling
development laboratory” – delivered numerous
findings for serial construction. n