20 February 2012

Porsche 962 Derek Bell Signature Edition


One of the true petrolhead dreams: a road-legal race car. There was a time where you could buy a sports racer off the peg, drive it to the track, thrash the yambags off it and then drive it home, but as cars became more dedicated to the track, the 'road' part became an untenable dream. Well, the car you see here wouldn't have a hope of winning a proper FIA GT race, but boy you'd be the toast of any trackday you frequented. Not to be confused with the Schuppan 962CR or Dauer 962, nor a home-brew conversion; this is chassis no. 00 of a planned (but aborted) run of road-legal Porsche 962's. It was built at a cost of about $2 million and based around an aluminium Fabcar engineering  monocoque originally destined for the Dyson Racing IMSA team in the USA, an outfit that raced Porsche-powered racing cars. The standard 2.8 litre flat-6 race engine is totally unsuited for road use (and no doubt a bugger to start on a cold morning), so a more mundane twin turbo 993 GT2 engine with 'only' 580bhp and 547lb/ft of torque is fitted. The legendary LeMans racer Derek Bell gave his name to the car, but alas only the one was built. It's for sale too; POA. But hey, if you have to ask...