The Porsche 935 is one of the most iconic racing
cars ever created by the German marque. Of them all, the following example may
be the most desirable.
What you’re looking at is the one-off Porsche 935
Kremer K3, the only street-legal example ever built. Currently for sale in
Germany via Mechatronik, the supercar is expected to sell for more than Us$ 2
million.
The 935 Kremer K3 came to life after Formula 1 team
owner Walter Wolf decided he’d like something special for his garage. Wolf was
a huge fan of the 935, especially after it claimed victory at the 24 Hours of
Le Mans. Unable to get Porsche to sell him one of its vehicles, let alone a
street-legal version, Wolf turned to Kremer Racing.
As development of the 935 Evolution racing cars came
to an end, various racing teams built their own 935-based vehicles to continue
racing. Among these were Kremer Racing, who created the 935 K1 in 1976, the 935
K2 in 1977, and 935 K3 for the 1979 racing series. The latter claimed victory at
Le Mans, beating out a works 935 driven by Rolf Stommelen.
Wolf made a request to acquire one of Kremer’s 935.
The racing outfit ended up building him a genuine Kremer K3 that shares 98 per
cent of its parts with the Le Mans-winning car but was adapted to use on the
street. As such, the car is powered by a 2.85-liter twin-turbo, six-cylinder
boxer engine pumping out 740 hp at 8000 rpm and mated to a racing-spec
four-speed transmission. Visually, the car looks virtually identical to the K3
racing cars albeit for the inclusion of turn signals and reflectors.
To meet the requests of Wolf, Kremer also developed
a bespoke exhaust system, modified the Bilstein dampers and increased the ride
height by 10 mm, and outfitted the cabin with Recaro seats and parts from the
930 Turbo. The result was a vehicle that set Kremer back roughly US$ 800,000 in
1980, approximately US$ 2.57 million in today’s money.
