911 GT3

Make
Porsche
Segment
Coupe

While Porsche is preparing to embrace electrification in the future, the German automaker has been celebrating its illustrious past with the Porsche Classic Restoration Challenge, a dealer contest to find the best classic Porsche restoration project in America. The competition culminated last month with a beautifully restored Porsche 911 Targa declared as the winner. Now, another iconic car from Porsche's past has been given the restoration treatment. This time, a Porsche 962 C endurance racer provided by the Porsche Heritage and Museum department has been restored to its original 1987 condition with no detail overlooked.

The painstaking restoration process took around a year and a half at the Weissach Development Center, where the legendary Porsche 962 C was originally built.

Nearly 35 years later, the 962 C was reunited with its original driver, Hans-Joachim Stuck, as well as race engineer Norbert Singer and Rob Powell, who designed the car's striking black, yellow and red livery. Coincidentally, another Porsche 962 racer was recently made road legal, but this example was restored to its original racing specification.

With Hans-Joachim Stuck behind the wheel, the Porsche 962 C won Germany's ADAC Wurth Supercup in 1987. At the time, the 962 C was used to test Porsche's now-ubiquitous dual-clutch transmission offered in road cars like the new Porsche 911 GT3. After its racing victory, the 962 C was used as a test car for aerodynamics at Weissach. Restoring the 962 C back to its former glory proved challenging as many parts needed to be rebuilt.g

Luckily, Armin Burger and Traugott Brecht from Historic Motorsport were able to track down everything needed to complete the rebuild "within a radius of just 30 meters" (98.4 feet).

As well as being presented with the car at a surprise presentation, Hans-Joachim Stuck was reunited with his original red racing suit from the 1980s, which still fits him. The 962 C was shown to the public a few weeks ago at the Porsche Museum's digital Sound Night. Over the next year, the 962 C will make appearances at driving and presentation events as part of the upcoming '40 years of Group C' anniversary#. "The 962 C was one of the few cars I was allowed to drive on my own, without team-mates and with exactly the setup I wanted. You never forget a car like that," Stuck reminisced." "In 2022, we'll celebrate the 40th in style!"