Porsche 962-108C-2. Photos by David Newhardt, courtesy Mecum Auctions.
Delivered to Porsche privateer Jim Busby in time for the opening of the 1985 season, the Porsche 962 carrying chassis tag 962-108 wasn’t destined to lead a charmed life. Its first outing, Daytona, would end in a crash that irreparably damaged the car’s aluminum tub. Like a phoenix, however, 962-108 would rise from the ashes to become 962-108B, 962-108C, and ultimately 962-108C-2, taking second at Daytona in 1988 and winning the legendary endurance race in 1989. On January 23, 2016, the car billed as the “fastest 962 in period” crosses the auction block in Kissimmee, Florida, wearing its Daytona-winning Miller High Life livery.
Introduced in time for the 1985 IMSA GTP racing season, Porsche’s 962 was an evolution of its popular 956 endurance prototype racing car, built to comply with IMSA safety and technical regulations. To protect the driver’s feet in a crash, the 962 featured a longer wheelbase, allowing the placement of the pedal box behind the front wheels. A steel roll cage was added to further improve the structural integrity of the aluminum tub, but many felt this still wasn’t enough to make the 962 both safe and durable enough for racing on these shores.
As initially delivered, the 962 came powered by a 2.8-liter flat-six engine, enhanced with a single turbocharger to comply with IMSA regulations instead of the twin-turbo arrangement used by Porsche 956 models in FIA Group C competition. Despite the power deficit to its European cousin, the 962 proved competitive out of the box, with privateer-owned models sweeping the first four spots in the car’s 1985 Daytona 24 Hours debut.
The race ended on lap 108 for chassis 962-108, when driver Pete Halsmer swerved to avoid a slow car and crashed the Porsche. Halsmer was uninjured, but the same couldn’t be said for his 962 as the shunt had damaged his front suspension and the car’s aluminum tub. With the rest of the car intact, Jim Busby (with approval from Porsche) opted to source a new and improved tub from builder Jim Chapman, a former engineer for Lola on its Can-Am program.
Instead of the 962’s folded, bonded and riveted aluminum, the Chapman tub used honeycomb aluminum attached to a rear bulkhead made from milled billet aluminum stock. The new design was quickly adopted by Al Holbert for his Holbert Racing Porsche 962, but Jim Busby also received the Chapman tub as ordered. A second upgrade came in the form of a revised Porsche flat-six engine, courtesy of Ed Pink. With modifications to the internals and a tweak of the Bosch Motronic fuel injection’s ECU, the Busby 962’s realized an 80-horsepower gain, achieving a reported 830 horsepower.
Now known as chassis 962-108B, the Porsche proved competitive for most of the 1987 season, delivering a pair of podium finishes for the Busby team. At Sears Point in August, however, the car would once again be involved in a tub-destroying (and season-ending) accident, prompting a call to Chapman for a second replacement tub.
As the cliché goes, the third time was the charm for the 962 now carrying chassis tag 962-108C. The car reemerged at Daytona in 1988, where it delivered a pole position and a second place finish, losing to a Jaguar XJR-9. Now four years old, the 962s had lost their competitive edge to newer GTP models from Jaguar and Nissan, but Busby continued the development work on 962-108C. Ed Pink’s engines (now twin-turbo, though with restrictor plates) grew stronger and aerodynamic improvements (such as the use of 956 front end bodywork) added additional gains. Despite the strengthened competition, 962-108C delivered three podium finishes during the 1988 IMSA GTP season.
The car’s crowning achievement came at Daytona in 1989, when drivers John Andretti, Derek Bell and Bob Wollek delivered a win for the Busby Racing team with 962-108C. Further aerodynamic improvements were made and the car was raced as 962-108C-2 for the remainder of the 1989 season, delivering one more win at Palm Beach for Porsche and Busby Racing.
Despite the development work poured into the car, the 962 was no longer in the running against the Electramotive Engineering Nissans and the Castrol Jaguars, and 962-108C-2 managed to place no higher than sixth place for the remainder of the 1989 season. Though other teams (like Joest Racing) would race 962 variants as late as 1991, the storied Porsche endurance racing car’s time in the spotlight had come to an end.
Since retirement, 962-108C-2 has spent the bulk of its time in private collections, becoming part of the Historic Porsche Collection in the U.K. in 2005. Reunited with driver Derek Bell, the car (and driver) appeared at Goodwood in 2005, at Amelia Island in 2007, and at Brian Redman’s 2007 Rennsport 3 celebration. It remains in its popular 1989 Daytona-winning livery, and will be sold with a host of collectible items relating to the car.
As a Daytona winner driven by the likes of Derek Bell, John Andretti, Jim Busby, Mauro Baldi, Bob Wolleck, Jochen Mass, Brian Redman and Daron Brassfield, chassis 962-108C-2 has a well-established place in sports car racing history. Mecum predicts a selling price between $2.5 and $3.0 million when the Porsche crosses the block in Florida.
For more on the Kissimmee sale, visit Mecum.com.
See original article at" http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2015/12/21/sometimes-crashing-improves-the-breed-busby-racings-porsche-962-108/
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