PORSCHE’S CLASS ACT

1982

Not as easy as 1-2-3

Porsche laid down a marker with the 956 on its Le Mans 24 Hours debut in 1982. The in-house factory team’s trio of Rothmans-sponsored cars notched up a 1-2-3 in a portent of what was to come for the new Group C design. Yet it wasn’t as easy as it looked.

The 956 project had only been given the go-ahead at the beginning of the previous July – the start of the financial year at Porsche – and the design arrived at Le Mans with only one race and no endurance simulation under its belt. That was significant for a car that broke new ground for Porsche. It was the manufacturer’s first design built around a monocoque chassis and the prototype incorporated another first in ground-effect aerodynamics, yet it didn’t turn a wheel for the first time until the end of March.

“There just wasn’t time for endurance testing, ” recalls Norbert Singer, who headed up the design of the car. “We did our first test at Paul Ricard, raced at Silverstone, and then had to build up our three cars for