Porsche 962/88 – The Autobiography of 962 011
The Group C era in sportscar racing, which started in 1982, led to Porsche’s most celebrated — and most successful — thoroughbred race car ever: the Typ 956. More successful than the mythical 917, it won almost every World Endurance Championship race it entered, including four consecutive Le Mans 24 Hours, and notched up every world, European and national championship or title possible, multiple times over. Its successor, the Typ 962 and later Typ 962C, initially developed for the American IMSA series, continued where the 956 left off, scoring victories twice more at Le Mans and over 50 times in IMSA races, plus yet more wins and titles in Germany and Japan.
Of the 19 works Porsche 962s built to various specifications, it was chassis 962 011 — the car featured in this book — that turned out to be the most successful. This authoritative account (the 19th in the Great Cars series) tells this very special car’s entire story, embracing 46 races and nine victories during a five-year active career that saw it compete in the highest echelons of sportscar racing in Europe, America and Japan.
- Genesis of chassis 962 011 ahead of the 1989 season, developed by the Porsche factory in conjunction with the Joest Racing team.
- A great first season for 962 011: Bob Wollek won the ADAC Supercup, Germany’s high-quality national sportscar championship, and with Frank Jelinski scored the Porsche 956/962’s final and 39th world championship victory, vanquishing the dominant Sauber-Mercedes at Dijon.
- Four more seasons criss-crossing the Atlantic, 1990–93, to race mainly in the IMSA Championship in America and the Interserie in Europe, all explained in detail.
- The car’s top drivers receive in-depth profiles: Bob Wollek, Frank Jelinski, John Winter, Oscar Larrauri, Henri Pescarolo, Hurley Haywood, Jean-Louis Ricci, Danny Sullivan, Gianpiero Moretti, Manuel Reuter, Bernd Schneider, John Paul Jr and Chip Robinson.
- Day-to-day history of chassis 962 011 outlined in exhaustive technical detail, recording every test and every race with all available data, from fuel consumption figures to pitstop times.
- Artwork: exclusive artwork depicts chassis 962 011 as it evolved over its five active seasons.
- The car today: chassis 962 011 is shown in a special studio photoshoot and in action photos of its outings with various owner-drivers in recent years.
The Author
Since the late 1980s Serge Vanbockryck has been studying, documenting and gathering all possible racing and test data on the 200+ Porsche 956s and 962s, their derivatives and their immediate successors. One of the world’s foremost historians on the subject, he has conducted dozens of interviews with Porsche decision-makers, engineers, managers and drivers, and spent many hours researching every conceivable period document at Porsche’s corporate archives in Stuttgart. This long-time endeavour has led to two internationally acclaimed publications from Porter Press International: Ultimate Works Porsche 956 – The Definitive History (2019, two volumes) and Ultimate Works Porsche 962 – The Definitive History (2022, three volumes); for the latter, he received the Motorworld Buchpreis 2023 in Germany. Also for Porter Press International, he wrote a previous ‘Great Cars’ book, TWR-Porsche WSC95 – The Autobiography of WSC001, and this was awarded the Ehrenpreis of the Motorworld Buchpreis in 2024.
Specification
285mm x 235mm | Jacketed Hardback | 320 pages | Over 530 images | Price: £69 | ISBN: 978-1-913089-89-4 | Publisher: Porter Press International | Publication date: December 2024 | Author: Serge Vanbockryck
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