Broad Arrow Auctions, a Hagerty (NYSE: HGTY) firm, is thrilled to supply an thrilling group of over 155 collectible automobiles at its Monterey Public sale this 14-15 August on the Monterey Jet Heart. Highlights embody this 1997 Porsche 911 GT1 Rennversion estimated at $8,500,000 – $10,500,000.
In sport it’s well-known that prime rivals increase one another’s performances to new heights. The Nineties introduced us Agassi v. Sampras, Holyfield v. Tyson, and in endurance motorsport McLaren v. Porsche. Within the run-up to this epic rivalry, Porsche had it largely their very own method. When Porsche started to enter the highest prototype courses within the early Nineteen Seventies, Ferrari deserted sports activities racing completely and whereas different producers had spurts of success, they had been short-lived. Actually, such was the dominance of Porsche’s Group C 956/962s within the Eighties and early Nineties that Norbert Singer and Porsche’s Weissach engineers almost precipitated the entire collapse of a number of worldwide race sequence. From the ashes of those endurance racing championships rose the BPR World GT Sequence in 1994.
BPR guidelines required manufacturing sportscars which had been modified into racing automobiles, initially attracting a slew of privateer entries working 911-based Turbo S and RSRs, Venturi LMs, Ferrari F40s, and even Callaway Corvettes, creating an expert but club-like environment. The favored new sequence’ debut 12 months was the spark for Gordon Murray and McLaren to get entangled with their F1, finally, with a lot prodding, producing 9 F1 GTRs for 1995. Whereas Porsche had been busy with their new GT2 and GT2 Evo the F1s took the primary six races on the trot, 10 of the 12, and the BPR season championship. For good measure they received the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans as properly. Porsche started the season believing that they had an ace up their sleeve in different race sequence with the TWR-Porsche WSC95 open-cockpit Spyder, but this was successfully banned by IMSA earlier than turning a wheel at Daytona and Sebring. Porsche’s prospects, used to working on the entrance and successful, made positive that Weissach bought the message. Herbert Ampferer, Porsche’s Competitors Director knew change was wanted; “Hardly a soul felt we may go on like this for an additional 12 months.” In the summertime of 1995 Porsche elected to create a mid-engined GT1 class automobile based mostly on the 993-generation 911. Ampferer mentioned, “there have been no doubts that we must always design the GT1… It was harder in engineering phrases, however we’ve managed it, and we consider we’ve a automobile which is able to beat the McLarens.”
What his workforce had designed and engineered was in contrast to something that Porsche had created earlier than. The Porsche 911’s middle monocoque part was retained, together with the metal flooring, bulkhead, dashboard, and entrance trunk part with the 911’s inventory suspension mounting factors. Upon undertaking approval it was deemed that the brand new automobile “should be identifiable as a 911” and due to cohesive styling from Tony Hatter – additionally the designer of 993-generation highway automobiles – it appeared very 911-like, albeit longer, wider, and decrease with its raked Speedster windshield. The wheelbase elevated 230 mm to accommodate the mid-engine design with chassis engineer Horst Reitter given relative freedom to design a five-link rear suspension with broad decrease wishbones. The brand new GT1/96 was fitted with a direct improvement of the just about new engine that powered Dauer Porsche 962 LM GT to Le Mans victory in 1994, now utterly water-cooled. This Sort M96/80 engine was 3.2-liters in displacement and twin-turbocharged, that includes four-valve heads, and chain-driven camshafts, producing 600 horsepower fed by way of a six-speed gearbox to the rear wheels.
Weissach race division workers hunkered down for the winter to arrange not solely a racing prototype however the homologated Strassenversion (highway model) as properly, which acquired sort approval on the 24 April 1996. After all, preparation of the manufacturing facility workforce’s two-car entry at Le Mans was the true goal and to that impact Porsche spent all spring testing the GT1/96, racking up 1000’s of shake down miles. Briefly, Porsche’s 1996 24 of Le Mans was a victorious affair following 1995’s utter disappointment. The manufacturing facility’s GT1s completed first and second general within the GT1 class with the Joest-Porsche WSC95 taking general honors – a whole Porsche podium sweep. After ending the BPR season successful all three races they entered, Porsche started producing buyer GT1s for the privateers that so yearned to affix the Porsche manufacturing facility workforce in defeating the armada of McLaren F1s in 1997. After an inspection and FIA approval of the primary buyer GT1/96s on 18 February 1997, Porsche Motorsport organized a two-day handover of the primary buyer GT1s at Mugello Circuit in mid-March. Amongst these groups on-hand was Leverkusen, Germany-based Roock Racing.
Order and buy paperwork on file between Porsche Motorsport and Bernd Schiller/ CCEL Columbus representing Roock Racing supply a glimpse of the ordering course of. A Rennfahrzeug-Bestellung (Racing Automobile Order) was drafted on 17 December 1996 reveals that Roock Racing dedicated to buying a 911 GT1 Rennversion constructed to 1997 BPR specs in Glacier White for DM 1,759,000 or roughly $1,075,000 on the time. A letter from Porsche to Schiller stays on file requesting last cost after a DM 500,000 deposit with supply slated for five March 1997. The Porsche Motorsport Assortment Certificates reveals an amended supply date of 10 March 1997, and now full, it information the manufacturing quantity (993 108), chassis quantity (WP0ZZZ99ZVS396106), and engine and transmission serial numbers.
Roock wasted no time constructing a workforce across the automobile. The workforce enlisted common Roock 911 GT2 driver Ralf Kelleners and newcomer Yannick Dalmas. Dalmas not solely supplied expertise driving the manufacturing facility’s personal 911 GT1/96 all through the 1996 season however was additionally a part of the successful McLaren F1 workforce on the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans. All through the course of the primary half of the season (now often called the FIA GT Championship), quantity 108 wore begin quantity 16 and a silver and blue livery with sponsorship from Nikko and VOX. The Roock GT1 completed the primary race of the season, a four-hour affair at Hockenheim in a formidable fifth place, quickest of the 5 privateer 911 GT1s after an FIA mandated 10-mm consumption restrictor was fitted robbing all GT1s of 60 horsepower. After a efficiently dealt with Le Mans Prequalifying session held on 4 Could with Allan McNish and Stéphane Ortelli on the wheel, the automobile recorded a DNF as a consequence of an off within the heavy rain-shortened 4 Hours of Silverstone. Quantity 108 bounced again shortly on the 3 Hours of Helsinki, a brand new occasion on the race calendar. At this occasion the FIA lastly allowed the GT1 groups to take away their air restrictors and across the tight, bumpy avenue circuit and, in consequence, Ralf Kelleners and 1998 Le Mans winner Stéphane Ortelli completed on the rostrum in 2nd place – Porsche’s finest end result up to now that season!
After Helsinki all eyes turned in the direction of the world’s most vital endurance race, the sixty fifth working of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Solely the very best wanted to use for Le Mans in 1997 as 19 groups had been eradicated throughout Could’s prequalifying, and of the 52 that progressed by way of, solely 48 might be positioned on the grid. For the race Kelleners had been drafted into the manufacturing facility squad’s GT1 Evo, and Allan McNish and former F1 star Karl Wendlinger had been chosen to create the three-driver workforce together with Ortelli. After qualifying eleventh, the Roock workforce had excessive hopes for his or her GT1 entry, nonetheless on the eighth lap quantity 108 suffered an unlucky DNF with three-times Le Mans-winner McNish on the wheel as a consequence of a entrance shock absorber failure. After Le Mans, Roock would promote 108 to the U.S.-based Rohr Racing workforce.
Upon acquisition by Jochen Rohr’s eponymous workforce, 993 GT1 108 turned the primary 911 GT1 to race within the U.S. The West Chester, Ohio-based racing outfit was in ascendance by way of the mid-Nineties with championships in SCCA World Problem and IMSA, all with Porsche race automobiles. The 911 GT1 arrived on the proper time for Rohr who had contested the primary half of the season with Englishman Andy Pilgrim of their 911 GT2 Evo. What adopted over the ultimate races of the IMSA GT Championship was nothing in need of astonishing. Now completed within the unmistakable yellow Rohr livery (aided by some further colour courtesy of Rohr’s daughter) quantity 108 captured two pole positions and 4 victories in a row at Mosport, Las Vegas, Pikes Peak Worldwide, and Sebring. With McNish reunited with Le Mans entry and Andy Pilgrim graduating from GT2 the pair, together with Dorsey Schroeder, the Rohr Racing GT1 captured the GTS-1 class championship commemorated by Rohr Racing on a surprising championship poster.
In 1998 the automobile was offered to Reiser Callas Rennsport. With Reiser behind the wheel it contested the latter half of the Canada GT Problem Cup season starting with spherical 7 of 11. Over the season’s last 5 races, Reiser, teamed with Tony Callas as Reiser Callas Rennsport, completed fifth twice as their finest outcomes. It’s famous that whereas Reiser entered a 1999 GT Problem Cup race he didn’t attend and that by January 2001 the automobile was now within the fingers of Larry Schumacher and Schumacher Racing. That 12 months Schumacher, Martin Snow, and Gunnar Jeanette piloted quantity 108 over 4 Grand-Am races as begin quantity 99 in a white and blue livery. A finest end of second general and first in GTS class at Lime Rock was a vibrant spot for Schumacher Racing, and with a ninth place end on the 350-mile race at Mid-Ohio in 2001, the end result of its aggressive racing profession. It should be mentioned that after quite a few races fielded by succesful racing groups, quantity 108 was by no means severely broken or dismantled because it adopted a brand new path towards turning into a cherished and extremely collectible racing Porsche.
It’s believed that the automobile was bought straight from Schumacher Racing by Matt Drendel of Hickory, North Carolina. On the time, Drendel was within the strategy of buying the best turbocharged Porsche racing automobiles for a extremely curated assortment. At its top it included a 1973 917/30 004, 1976 935 001, 1974 911 Carrera RSR 2.1 Turbo, a McLaren MP4/2 TAG Turbo System One automobile, and naturally 993 GT1 108 amongst others. Whereas with Drendel, picture proof on file reveals that the automobile had been returned to Rohr yellow however with out the colourful racing graphics and sponsor logos simply because it was for a short while in 1997. Earlier than his premature passing in 2010, it’s believed the automobile was offered by way of Kerry Morse, the extremely educated Porsche race automobile aficionado who assisted Drendel in changing 108 with a factory-run 911 GT1 Evo. In 2012, the consignor acquired 993 108, simply its second personal proprietor because it left Porsche’s Weissach workshops in 1997.
Whereas below the care of the consignor, the automobile as soon as once more acquired its unmistakable Rohr Racing livery with graphical touches, sponsor logos, and IMSA begin quantity 01. It made appearances at Porsche Rennsport Reunion V and VI at Laguna Seca in these colours and right now seems simply as McNish and Pilgram raced it within the second half of the 1997 IMSA season, probably the most profitable interval of its race profession. In Could of 2016 Jochen Rohr, Andy Pilgrim, and Tony Callas had been reunited with quantity 108 at a PCA TechEd session the place the three swapped tales about their time spent racing within the GT1 positioned in entrance a captive crowd. Most lately, quantity 993 108 has been below the care of Joey Seely at E-Movement Engineering. The GT1 has not been sitting idle as a static show piece; in truth, it’s a common customer to Auto Membership Speedway and often exercised at the same time as its standing as a collectible Porsche stays at an all-time excessive.
The 993-generation 911 GT1 marks an inflection level between automobiles that may be run by a educated privateer and the later mid-2000s LMP2 class RS Spyder that requires additional sources and assist. Supplied for public sale for the primary time, this distinctive 911 GT1 – by no means upgraded to 996-style Evo specification – is provided with a complete digital historical past file of buy documentation, historic race pictures, information, a spare rear wing factor, and 4 spare BBS wheels. Moreover, the automobile is eligible for historic racing occasions similar to Le Mans Basic, HSR’s Basic 12 Hour at Sebring and Basic Daytona 24 Hour together with Porsche Rennsport Reunion 8 and all method of prestigious concours occasions. Effectively-maintained and provided from a world-class Porsche assortment, unusual is the chance to amass a particular race-winning 993 GT1, particularly one in a well-known livery raced in interval by the very best.
To view extra thrilling automobiles on supply at Broad Arrows Monterey Jet Heart Public sale, please go to their web site at broadarrowauctions.com and you’ll want to register to bid for this thrilling occasion.
