This video is about a 1987 Porsche 962 (chassis 962-C04) which I recorded at Monza Circuit during the Monza Historic weekend by Peter Auto, racing in the Group C Racing championship.
The 962 was Porsche's replacement for the 956 and it was built and introduced in 1984 mainly to comply with IMSA's GTP regulations. In fact the intention of Porsche with their 956 was to run the car in both the World Sportscar Championship and the North American IMSA GTP Championship but IMSA GTP regulations differed from Group C and subsequently the 956 was banned in the US series on safety grounds as the driver's feet were ahead of the front axle center line. The 962 was born starting from a 956 to which the wheelbase was extended in order to move the front wheels ahead of the pedal box. A new steel roll cage was also installed to improve safety.
The 962 quickly became successful through private owners so that they started to modify 962s to suit their purposes and one of the most common practices was to build the cars using stronger tubs. The 962 in this video features the modification of former Lola engineer Jim Chapman who built fresh tubs using aluminum sheets sandwiching a honeycomb structure along with a billet-aluminum rear bulkhead. This dramatically increased the structure's stiffness, improving both safety and tunability.
Many other teams and privateers started to built their own modified 962 chassis, so much so that 962 began to be renamed and differentiated from the original Porsche ones (the 'C' in the 962-C04 chassis name it means it's a Chapman chassis).
Twin-turbo systems wern't allowed in IMSA's GTP class at the time and that's another reason which banned the 956 from the US series. On the 962 the Type-935 2.65-litre twin-turbo flat-6 was replaced by a single-turbo flat-6 with a capacity that varied according to the year and rules (from 2.8 to 3.2-litre). 962-C04 here features a freshly rebuilt air-cooled turbocharged 3.2-liter flat-six making 590hp (after the recent restoration) but that was able to produce up to 700-750hp back in the days.
In 1985, the Group C variant of the 962, called 962C, would debut in the World Sportscar Championship, but ironically the car lost to an older 956. Under pressure from new cars from Jaguar and Mercedes-Benz, in 1987 Porsche again brought in a new engine, a more durable and powerful 3.0 L unit which powered the car to an overall win at the 1987 24 Hours of Le Mans and to many subsequent successes
