Page 1 of 1 After being reintroduced at Le Mans in 1993, GT racing returned to the fore in 1994 thanks to the all new BPR GT Endurance Series. The new championship was created by Porsche's Jürgen Barth, Tour Auto retrospective organiser Patrick Peter and Stéphane Ratel of Venturi Trophy fame. The BPR was aimed squarely at gentleman racers for whom the Group C era had proven too expensive to run in.
At Le Mans, all GT cars were thrown into a single class. The opening season of the BPR featured four classes, GT1 through to GT4 depending on the state of tune. Porsche's readily 911 Carrera RSR 3.8 was eligible for the GT2 class. Built ahead of the 1993 season, the German manufacturer had built a single car that could run in the top-level GT1 class but had no intention to produce more examples as the German manufacturer was about to introduce the all-new 993 generation 911 production car.
The one factory-built 911 Turbo S LM available was entrusted to the French Larbre team. The 1993 Porsche 911 Cup winning team Freisinger Motorsport were also keen to run a Porsche 911 in the GT1 class. While Porsche could not supply them a complete car, the German manufacturer took a page out of their own book and decided to supply privateer teams, like Freisinger, with the right parts to build up an existing 911 to a similar specification as the unique Turbo S LM. These parts included a full body-kit and some very trick engine parts.
Whereas the Turbo S LM was equipped with an earlier 3.2-litre twin turbo, the kit provided to Freisinger included the components to convert the 3.6-litre engine in a twin-turbo 'flat-fan' unit. Without the mandatory restrictors fitted, it reportedly produced as much as 1,000 bhp at full boost. The engine was mounted in an existing 964 generation 911 Carrera RS N/GT production car. The body parts included in the upgrade kit were a revised front bumper, flared wheel arches to allow for wider tyres to be fitted and a massive rear wing.
Freisinger had their first car ready in time for the season opening Paul Ricard 4 Hours. Entered for Edgar Dören and Michael Irmgratz, the 911 Bi-Turbo finished second to the factory-built Turbo S LM. Along with a second at Suzuka, this would be the best result of the season with Larbre continuing to lead the way for Porsche, while Venturis and a Ferrari F40 also won a race. A solid run throughout the year did mean that Freisinger ended the year third in the standings.
For 1995, Porsche introduced the GT2 and subsequently GT1 version of the 993-generation 911 but Freisinger did continue to race their two Bi-Turbos. One was also raced at Daytona at the start of the year. The best results for the Bi-Turbo in 1995 were a pair of fourth place finishes in the BPR. In addition to Freisinger, Konrad Motorsport and Obermaier also fielded twin-turbo engined 911s in the inaugural BPR series. Page 1 of 1
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After being reintroduced at Le Mans in 1993, GT racing returned to the fore in 1994 thanks to the all new BPR GT Endurance Series. The new championship was created by Porsche's Jürgen Barth, Tour Auto retrospective organiser Patrick Peter and Stéphane Ratel of Venturi Trophy fame. The BPR was aimed squarely at gentleman racers for whom the Group C era had proven too expensive to run in.