Much of what Porsche learns in motor racing benefits the production models and thus the customers. The story of the...
Porsche 936
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936 Beginnings The Porsche 936 was an odd car for Porsche. It was the result of an almost overnight decision...
In 1977, Porsche’s “improvised” Type 936/77 took on the full-court press of four Renaults at Le Mans. Retirements and technical...
Porsche & Le Mans Newly released “Racing with Giants” video features archival footage of Le Mans past and present, along...
Porsche 936 – Goodwood Festival of Speed Watch the Porsche 936 racing at the Festival of Speed 2013. The car...
Porsche 936 Martini Racing Amazing Sound! This 6 cylinder 540bhp (403Kw) Porsche 936 Martini Racing was introduced in 1977. It...
Jacky Ickx drives the Porsche 936 & 956 at Fuji Speedway For more than 30 years, Jacky Ickx raced over...
Same onboard video with Jurgen Barth as the one i’ve posted before but afterwards is the pre-race etc...
The Porsche 936 was a racing car introduced in 1976 by Porsche as a delayed successor to the Porsche 908,...
It all started back in early March of 2020. I had a trip planned to visit the Porsche Museum in...
This is Stéphane Coradi’s third publication, and the third of his books that I am reviewing. It must be said...
More than 4.75 million visitors have passed through the doors of Porsche’s Museum in Stuttgart since the company officially opened...
This edition of Quentin Spurring’s fabulous series covers the 1970s in his well-known and valuable decade-by-decade history of the Le...
Today, Porsche can boast a total of 19 overall victories together with countless class successes in the 24 Hours of...
In the week leading up to the Le Mans Test Day, Porsche announced their new liveries for the 24-hour race...
In Part 1, Stories from Le Mans – with a Porsche flavour, our intrepid scribbler who hails from that beautiful...
Porsche has been represented at the Le Mans 24 Hours every year since 1951, in both an official factory capacity...
A great many of Derek Bell’s racing achievements were achieved while behind the wheel of a Porsche racing car and...
Dick Barbour went to Le Mans as an entrant for the first time in 1978. He entered two Porsche 935s...
The 1972 season broke, ushering in with it a new era of racing. The Porsche 917 had reigned supreme for...
There can be few people better qualified to write about a race car than those who drove that car in...
The crowds attending the Masters Historic racing weekend at Zandvoort were treated to a festival of racing in brilliant weather....
In a 34-year career at Porsche, the influence of Peter Falk – Porsche’s enduring engineer, can be found throughout the...
Le Mans in 1980 was in kind of a transition. The Porsche 935 K3 had won the prior year. Kremer...
Because the traditional pre-test is cancelled in 1981, Porsche is forced to start at Le Mans without testing. None the less, the race ends successfully: Jacky Ickx and Derek Bell win almost an hour ahead of the second placed competitor – right in time for the 50th anniversary of Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG, and 30 years after Porsche’s first start at Le Mans.
For the 1978 Le Mans, Porsche created two new 936/78. The first one was built using chassis 936-001, which had already served for the 936/76 and 936/77. The second car was built on a new chassis and numbered 936-003. Because of the new water-cooled 24-valve engine, the 936/78 came with huge NACA ducts on the sides for the radiators and a new rear end with hanging spoiler.
In 1977, Porsche returned to Le Mans with the 936/77. Its body was smaller, lower, shorter and further refined aerodynamically. The engine now featured two turbochargers and delivered 20 more horsepower. At one of the most dramatic races in history, Jacky Ickx, Jürgen Barth and Hurley Haywood slayed the armada of four Renault works cars and two factory-supported “Mirage” with Renault motors. In the year 1981, the 936 celebrated a sensational comeback with another overall Le Mans victory.
The Group 6 Porsche 936 was the successor to the 908/03 and the turbocharged 917. While the 917 had a 5.4-litre flat-12 biturbo engine, the 936 got a 2.1-litre flat-6 single turbo engine. The reason for the 2.1-litre displacement was to fit inside the 3-litre class (turbocharged cars had a coefficient of 1.4). Despite the small capacity, the engine developed more than five hundred horsepower. Imagine such power in a ~700 kg/1540 lb car!
