You Can't M ak e a Race Horse of a Pi g...but You Can M ak e a V ery Fast Pi g FSR Member Todd Jenkins Owned and Raced Bob Akin's 935/84 As told to Bob Weber
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o back in time with us to 1976 and the FIA's dual World Endurance Championships for Group 5 production-based race cars alongside the Group 6 Sports Prototype Championship for 3.0L cars. Porsche elected to compete in both classes with the 936 open-cockpit sports racer in Group 6 and a variant of the 930 Turbo in Group 5. Essentially a 'silhouette' formula, Group 5 race cars must maintain the doors and windows in unchanged positions, maintaining the 'silhouette' of a production automobile. Everything else was open to free interpretation, especially in the power department. The 935/76 was Porsche's factory racer. Race engineer Norbert Singer discovered a loophole in the Group 5 regulations and exploiting that
ambiguity, the sloped front nose came into being providing both better aerodynamics and increased downforce. Development of the platform continued through the 935/77 and later, the 935/78 'Moby Dick' factory racer that took every possible
requiring that the transaxle be mounted upside down to reduce the angularity of the axle shafts to the wheels. Finally, the steering wheel moved to the right hand position for better weight distribution. Power came from a twin-turbo 3.2L, offering over 800 horsepower. Only one 935/78 was ever built. photo by Reflections Detailing
interpretation liberty with the regulations and created a racer with not only the sloped nose, but an extended long-tail and partial fairings over the mandated production doors. The body of the car was 'sectioned' or lowered over the chassis creating an impossibly low 911 variant and
Step-in the team at Andial in Southern California who built a tube-framed 'replica' of the Moby Dick Porsche. That car was later campaigned by Kevin Jeanette (see his story in this issue) and Preston Henn. At the same time, Dave Klym built another replica, 'the last 935' in Georgia's FABCAR shops for Bob Akin, a stalwart Porsche IMSA racer. The year prior, Bob had commissioned Chuck Gaa of GAACO to build 'the ultimate 935', the 935 L!. This car took the idea and spirit of silhouette race card to it 's ultimate permutation. The chassis was now a full bonded/riveted monocoque such as found in contemporary formula car and sports prototrype construction. While retaining the rules required windshield and roof structure, the remainder of the body was a combination of a Lola sports car nose and custom, downforce inducing bodywork. However, the car was deemed nearly undrivable, and Bob intentionally ran the car out of fuel at LeMans in 1982 at the furthest part of the track so as to ensure it could not return to competition because he
