24h Le Mans
The nostalgia surrounding mythical Porsches is alive and kicking. Kremer Racing have come up with a body kit that transforms the 997 GT3 Cup into a modern version of the 1979 Le Mans-winning 935 K3!
Take a Porsche 997 GT3 Cup, add a Kremer Racing body kit and, as if by magic, it turns into a Porsche 935 K3! The German outfit has had the great idea of creating a design inspired by the car that won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1979, that can be fitted to a Porsche 997 GT3 Cup. In a further nod to yesteryear, the body kit shell is produced by Zimspeed, owned by Holger Zimmermann, whose father Ekkehard worked closely with the Kremer brothers on the 935 K3! The modified Porsche will be lining up in the 2016 VLN championship, held exclusively on the Nordschleife, the “North Loop” of Nürburgring.
The racing version of the 911 road car, the Porsche 935 was produced from 1976 especially for endurance events. Privateers ran the car in the World Sportscar Championship, the World Championship for Makes, the Deutsche Rennsport Meisterschaft (DRM) in Germany, and in the IMSA GT Championship in North America until the early eighties. The 935 boasted a turbocharged flat-six engine producing 600 bhp but, surprisingly, only a four-speed gearbox. This did not prevent the car from pulling off fine successes in Sebring, Daytona or, the greatest of them all, overall victory in the 1979 Le Mans 24 Hours. The legendary French endurance race was in fact won by a Porsche 935 K3, a brawnier variant developed and ran by Cologne-based Kremer Racing.
The new retro bodywork kit of Kremer Racing for @vln_de #nordschleife makes a #911GT3Cup look like a 935 K3 of 1979 pic.twitter.com/P62p0g9aRt
— Porsche Motorsport (@PorscheRaces) February 29, 2016
The 935 K3 (Kremer Type 3) was driven to victory in the pouring rain by German Klaus Ludwig and American brothers Don and Bill Whittington, just ahead of the factory Porsche 935 entered by Dick Barbour Racing. The retro body kit designed today by Kremer Racing pays tribute to this legend built in part at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Geoffroy Barre
Translated from French by David Goward
Photo: with its special kit developed by Kremer Racing, the Porsche 997 GT3 Cup turns the clock back to 1979 with a stunning impression of a 935 K3!
