In this article we feature the history and development of the Porsche 935 and its variants.
Impressive as the 935 was thinking about it's presence, size, power and sound it was even more impressive that this beast originally was based on a standard Porsche 911 road car.
However taking a closer look the position of the driver was extraordinary, as well as the size of the steering wheel, gear shift and the boost controller to adjust the turbo pressure.
The car could only be compared with the legendary Porsche 917/10 or 917/30 as overtaking was easier than attacking a curve.
One of the early problems was the corner speed. The 935 was in comparison to sports cars extremely slow when entering curves. But when the driver positioned the beast in the right direction to exit the corner it launched like a rocket.
Norbert Singer, Porsche´s chief engineer was given the task of developing the highly succesful Porsche 911 road car for racing.
In doing so Singer created eventually what would be the most succesful customer race car that Porsche ever produced, the Porsche 935. Singer build the 935 around a 911 Carrera chassis but changed the position of the driver and steering column.
Singer used a 3 litre Carrera engine adjusted the displacement to 2.857 cc and by multiplying the 1.4 FIA turbo rate the engine displacement reached 3999,8 cc.
Furthermore Singer used titanium cam shafts, double ignition featuring two spark plugs per cylinder as well as fuel injection system from Bosch giving an initial power of 590 break horse power.
Their second consecutive victory scored during the second race in Vallelunga proved to be even more smashing.
Porsche's 935 crossed the finish line first no less than 15 laps earlier as the second placed BMW.
In the end Porsche decided to build a 2.0 litre car known as Porsche 935-2/Baby.
Besides from significant weight savings Porsche used a special designed 1.4 liter version derived from the well-known 911 cylinder boxer engine creating 370 bhp.
In the end it turned out that Porsche didn't intend to use the car for the rest of the season. The 935-2/Baby found a place in their own museum.
Before Porsche decided to withdraw from motor sport the company presented the ultimate expression of what started as the Porsche 911.
Porsche decided to part with their long tradition of air-cooled engines and introduced water-cooled cylinder heads in the 935/78 engine.
Singer used a brand new 3200 cc 6 cylinder boxer engine featuring four valves per cylinder including two small turbo's. Although the weight increased to 1030 kg, it wasn't a problem for Porsche as the car generated a high top speed on the long Le Mans straights.