Porsche 962
prototype racing car
The Porsche 962 is a sports prototype racing car designed and built by Porsche. Created to replace the Porsche 956, the 962 was introduced at the end of 1984 and replaced the 956 in the IMSA's GTP class in 1985 due to regulation changes obsoleting the 956. It was also introduced in the World Sportscar Championship's Group C category in 1984. Over its decade-long career, the car in its Group C form won the 24 Hours of Le Mans twice, with a derivative of the car, the Dauer 962 Le Mans, winning a further title in 1994. In total, the 962 scored nineteen total constructor's championships across various series. The 962's successor was the Porsche WSC-95, introduced for the 1996 24 Hours of Le Mans, but did not receive factory backing or support.
Development
When the Porsche 956 was developed in late 1981, the intention of Porsche was to run the car in both the World Sportscar Championship and the North American IMSA GTP Championship. However IMSA GTP regulations differed from Group C and subsequently the 956 chassis was banned in the US series on safety grounds as the driver's feet were ahead of the front axle center line. In addition, when running under IMSA rules, the water-cooled twin-turbo of the 956 had to be replaced with the older and simpler air-cooled single turbo engines until a compromise was found.
To make the 956 eligible under the new IMSA regulations, Porsche extended the 956's wheelbase to move the front wheels ahead of the pedal box.
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This entry incorporates text from “Porsche 962” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.