Slantnose. Twin-turbo. Factory-built. Eight years of dominance.
The Group 5 ruleset
The FIA introduced Group 5 in 1976 as a "Special Production" category that allowed manufacturers to race silhouette-spec versions of their road cars. The rules required the racing version to keep the production car's basic outline — the roof, the windshield, the doors, the basic body proportions — but allowed extensive modifications to aerodynamics, suspension, drivetrain, and bodywork below the windowline.
The ruleset was designed to encourage manufacturer participation. Mercedes, BMW, Lancia, and Porsche all developed Group 5 racers. The Porsche entry was based on the 911 Turbo — specifically on the homologation requirement that a manufacturer build at least 400 examples of the road version. Porsche met that requirement with the 930 Turbo.
The car
The 935 was developed at Porsche Motorsport, the racing department in Weissach. It used the 930 Turbo as a starting point but very little of the production car remained. The body was almost entirely fiberglass and Kevlar. The chassis was reinforced with a roll cage that became structural. The front bodywork was rebuilt entirely.
The slantnose front end was the 935's most recognizable feature. Pop-up headlights similar to the contemporary 928 replaced the production 911's round headlights. The hood sloped down to a low-mounted bumper line, completely changing the car's silhouette. The change was aerodynamic — the slantnose generated more front downforce and less drag than the production 911 face — but it also became a styling signature that would later appear on the factory-option Flachbau road cars.
The engine was a heavily-modified version of the 930 Turbo's flat-six. In the early 935 — the 935/76 — it was 2.85 liters with a single KKK turbocharger making approximately 590 horsepower. By the late 935 — the 935/78 "Moby Dick" — it was 3.2 liters with twin turbochargers and water-cooled cylinder heads, producing 845 horsepower in qualifying trim.
The race wins
Porsche entered the 935 factory effort from 1976. Private teams — particularly Kremer Racing, Joest Racing, and the American Brumos team — campaigned customer 935s through 1984. The car's competition record across that period is one of the most dominant in international sports car racing history.
- 1976: World Sportscar Championship. Sebring 12 Hours win.
- 1977: WSC again. Daytona 24 Hours win.
- 1978: WSC. The factory 935/78 "Moby Dick" runs a single race at Le Mans and finishes eighth.
- 1979: Le Mans 24 Hours win. Kremer Racing's 935 K3 beats the factory prototypes — the only Group 5 production-based car to win Le Mans outright.
- 1979-1980: Daytona 24 Hours wins.
- 1980-1983: Sebring 12 Hours wins.
- 1981-1982: Daytona wins.
In total, 935s won five Daytona 24 Hours races, four Sebring 12 Hours, one Le Mans, and dozens of shorter-form WSC and IMSA championship rounds. The car was effectively unbeatable for production-based racing through most of its eight-year run.
Moby Dick — the strangest 935
Porsche built one factory 935 that diverged from the rest: the 935/78, known as "Moby Dick" for its massive whale-shaped bodywork. The car was an aerodynamic experiment, with an extended rear deck and stretched bodywork that gave it the appearance of a 911 with a much longer wheelbase than it actually had. Power: 845 hp peak in qualifying. The 935/78 ran a single Le Mans in 1978 and finished eighth before being retired. It now sits in the Porsche Museum.
The name "Moby Dick" came from journalist Paul Frère, who wrote that the car "looks like a whale" after seeing it for the first time. The name stuck.
Why the 935 mattered
The 935 established the 911 as a credible racing platform at the highest level of international sports car competition. Before the 935, the 911 was a successful rally car and small-bore sports car racer. After eight years of 935 dominance, the 911 was the default reference for production-based sports car racing.
The factory continued the lineage with the 962 Group C prototype from 1984 — a different chassis architecture, but with the same Porsche Motorsport methodology and many of the same engineers. The 962 then dominated Group C through the late 1980s, winning Le Mans in 1986, 1987, and continuing the factory's dominance.
The 935 also created the slantnose road car. Porsche offered the Flachbau (M505 in the United States) as a factory option on the 930 Turbo from 1986, giving customers the option to commission a road car with the racing slantnose front end. The Flachbau examples are now collectible specifically because of the 935 lineage.