ORANGE Crush

Total 91] gets up close and personal with an iconically liveried 934 that has raced at Le Mans, Nurburgring, Daytona and Sebring

During the 1974 and 1975 seasons, Porsche’s 3.0-litre 911 Carrera RSR reigned supreme in international GT competitions, helping Weissach to win titles on both sides of the Atlantic. During each year of its tenure as the top racing 911, the 3.0 RSR secured both World Championship and European GT honours, while Stateside a similar feat was achieved in the Trans-Am and IMSA GT series. The naturally aspirated car was no slouch in the hands of seasoned professionals and the numerous privateers who campaigned them around the world. However, for the 1976 season, Porsche had a new ace up its sleeve: the 934.

In January, Weissach’s valued customers were invited to the Nürburgring to watch Porsche’s latest GT contender in action. At the helm of the prototype was test driver, Manfred Schurti, a man no stranger to success behind the wheel of 911s, having won the GT class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans just six months prior. When Schurti stopped the stopwatch, the order books opened with most of the established teams switching to the new car. Why? The Liechtensteiner had lapped the Nürburgring 15 seconds faster than the outgoing 3.0 RSR.

The CSI’s (Commission Sportive Internationale – part of the FIA) decision to delay the introduction of the revised Group 4, 5 and 6 regulations, originally planned for 1975, until the start of the following season had enabled Porsche to use the newly introduced 930 road car as the basis for its latest GT racer. The 911 Turbo’s production figures more than satisfied the Group 4 rule book’s stipulation that at least 400 examples needed to have been built in a two-year period. The 934 (so named because it was a Porsche 930 built to Group 4 specification) was more closely related to the road car than its silhouette-style brother, the 935. Led by Wolfgang Berger – the man who oversaw the 2.7 RS project – development of the 934 began in earnest in May 1975 and Porsche’s engineers soon found the restrictive rule book a problem.