Seven Le Mans wins. Two cars. Twelve years.
How they came to exist
By the late 1970s, international sports car racing was in transition. The Group 5 rules that had supported the 935's dominance were being phased out. The FIA introduced Group C in 1982 — a fuel-efficiency-focused prototype class with a fixed fuel allowance per race. Cars had to complete the race within a specific quantity of fuel; speed was constrained by how efficiently a team could use that fuel.
Porsche developed the 956 specifically for Group C. The car launched at the 1982 Silverstone WEC round and was an immediate success. The factory effort with Bell, Ickx, and Mass dominated the 1982 World Sportscar Championship and won Le Mans in their first attempt — the first 1-2-3 finish for Porsche at Le Mans since 1971.
The 956 — 1982 to 1985
The 956 used an aluminum monocoque chassis (Porsche's first composite-construction race car) with a twin-turbocharged 2.65 liter flat-six derived from the 935 program. Output: approximately 620 horsepower in race trim, with peak qualifying output reaching 800 horsepower.
The 956 was offered to private teams as a customer car — the first major sports prototype that Porsche had made available outside the factory effort. Approximately 28 956s were built. Teams included Joest Racing, Brun Motorsport, Kremer Racing, Richard Lloyd Racing, and Obermaier Racing. The 956 won Le Mans in 1982, 1983, 1984, and 1985 — four consecutive overall victories.
The 956 also set the all-time Nürburgring lap record on May 28, 1983 — Stefan Bellof recorded a 6:11.13 in qualifying for the 1000km of Nürburgring. The record stood for thirty-five years until Timo Bernhard broke it in the 919 Hybrid Evo in 2018, on a track that had been substantially modified in the intervening time.
The 962 — 1984 to 1994
The 962 was developed specifically to comply with IMSA regulations in the United States, which required the driver's feet to be behind the front axle. The 956's pedal box was forward of the front axle, which the FIA accepted but IMSA did not. The 962 lengthened the wheelbase to relocate the pedals.
The 962 was offered both as a factory race car and as a customer racer. Customer teams modified the cars extensively over the production run. Andial — a California-based Porsche specialist — built engines for many of the customer cars. Holbert Racing's 962 won Le Mans in 1986 and 1987. Joest Racing's 962 won Le Mans in 1994 (the final 962 Le Mans win, by which point the car was twelve years old).
Approximately 91 962s were built. The model became the dominant force in WEC, IMSA, and the German DRM/DTM through the late 1980s and into the 1990s.
Total Le Mans wins
- 1982: 956 (Ickx / Bell — Rothmans Porsche factory)
- 1983: 956 (Schuppan / Haywood / Holbert — factory)
- 1984: 956 (Pescarolo / Ludwig — Joest customer)
- 1985: 956 (Ludwig / Winter / Barilla — Joest customer)
- 1986: 962 (Stuck / Bell / Holbert — Rothmans factory)
- 1987: 962 (Stuck / Bell / Holbert — Rothmans factory)
- 1994: 962 LM (Mass / Sullivan / Dalmas — Joest)
Seven Le Mans wins across thirteen years of competition. No prototype racer before or since has approached that record.
The drivers
The 956 and 962 era was defined by a specific group of drivers: Derek Bell, Jacky Ickx, Hans Stuck, Stefan Bellof, Bob Wollek, Vern Schuppan, Klaus Ludwig, Al Holbert, Mauro Baldi, Manuel Reuter. These drivers built reputations and careers on the success of these cars. Bell and Ickx in particular became identified with the 956/962 era in the same way Stirling Moss had been identified with the 300 SLR era.
Stefan Bellof, the German driver who set the Nürburgring lap record, died in a crash at Spa-Francorchamps in 1985, three months after setting the record. He was 27.
Why the era ended
Group C was phased out at the end of 1992 in favor of new prototype rules that favored production-based cars and naturally-aspirated engines. The 962 continued competing in customer hands through 1994 in the WSC, but the factory had moved on. The next Porsche prototype — the 911 GT1 of 1996-1998 — was a different car designed for different rules.
The cars themselves continue to race. Vintage Group C series in Europe still field 956s and 962s alongside other prototype cars of the era. The Le Mans Classic — a vintage race held every two years at the actual Le Mans circuit — typically includes a Group C class with 15 to 25 956s and 962s on track simultaneously.