Page 1 of 2 Next >> Established in the early 1960s by brothers Manfred and Erwin, Kremer Racing quickly emerged as one of the leading Porsche privateers. The team not only successfully raced Porsche products but also became famous for improving the existing designs, often with backdoor support. What started with fitting more aggressive camshafts on the 911 Carrera RSR, quickly evolved in building complete cars around bare shells supplied by Porsche. Among these was the Porsche 935 K3, which dominated GT racing in the late 1970s and even scored an outright victory at Le Mans in 1979.
By the early 1980s, sports car racing regulations were reshuffled and from 1982, the World Championship would be run for all-new Group C prototypes. With no customer version of the Porsche 956 Group C racer available yet at the start of the 1982 season, Kremer Racing went about building their own based on the earlier 936 design. Dubbed the CK5, the latest Kremer was, for a change, no match for Porsche's own car and as soon as the all-conquering 956 became available, Kremer Racing bought the first example. In 1985, the German team were also among the first to acquire the brand new 962C.
A subtle evolution of the 956, the 962C was a relatively straightforward machine. It used Porsche's very first monocoque chassis, which was constructed from a single layer of sheet aluminium. When Jo Gartner and Joachim Winkelhock fatally crashed two of Kremer's 962Cs, the team used this sad opportunity to improve on the Porsche design. To replace the destroyed chassis, they tasked John Thompson in the United Kingdom to build a new tub. As a favoured privateer team, Kremer Racing had the drawings of the 962 to outsource the work. This also relieved some pressure off Porsche, who could not keep up with the 962 demand.
The fundamental difference between the Porsche and Thompson chassis, was the use of the aluminium honeycomb sandwich used to construct the latter. This substantially increased the rigidity of the tub, making it better at coping with the high downforce loads and also a bit safer in case of an accident. The rest of the cars followed Porsche lines, including the suspension, which consisted of double wishbones at the front and lower wishbones with top rockers at the rear. The turbocharged flat-6 engine and five-speed gearbox were also carried over from the hugely reliable 962C. Page 1 of 2 Next >>