Enticing offers for Porsche Club members thanks to Historic Group C. It’s surely time to treat yourself.?
The most complete story ever of the world’s most successful single purpose racing car. The Porsche 956 and it’s progeny, the Porsche 962.
Works 956 - A Definitive History - 2 Volumes, 800 pages and 850 images
Ultimate Works 962 – A Definitive History - 3 Volumes, 1,400 pages and 1,800 images
Forming an extraordinary body of work written by Serge Vanbokryck for over 30 years.
Using the exclusive PCGB codes and for a limited time, whilst stocks last, these fabulous multi volume books are on special offer to Porsche Club GB members, which also includes free UK delivery.
Thanks to our friends at
Historic Group C and Porter Press, the sumptuous, painstakingly detailed and strictly limited edition volumes - a guaranteed future collector’s item – are surely a must for any serious Porsche enthusiast and are available to Members at a very special substantially discounted price.
We’re grateful for their generosity, which allows more members to learn everything about the fascinating background, all the period races and also the people in relation to the Rothmans liveried Group C cars that so profoundly cemented Porsche’s reputation in Endurance Racing. All the books uniquely benefit from both contemporary and continued access to Porsche’s archives, all the team members and the period drivers across almost 35 years of research.
In addition, a third companion book, John Fitzpatrick Group C Porsches, A Definitive History (by Mark Cole) is equally packed with fascinating detail and insights as to how the team beat the factory pairing of Derek Bell and Stefan Bellof to win the Brands Hatch 1,000km, as well as securing Derek his 1986 world title. This book is available separately or at an extra special price if bought with either of the 956/962 books.
Across the three sets of books, the entire background and Group C story is spectacularly captured and covers both the cars and the people. Every race, every test, every technical change, chassis by chassis, engineer by engineer, driver by driver, literally every aspect is covered.
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Works Porsche 956 - The Definitive History
Unleashed in May 1982 after months of covert development, the 956 was an immediate phenomenon. The first Porsche to utilise a monocoque (rather than a spaceframe) chassis as well as being the first Porsche to harness the power of ground effect, with three times more downforce than its 917 forebear.
The model dominated the results across 5 consecutive seasons, including an unprecedented 1, 2 & 3 podium lock out at Le Mans on its debut there in 1982. It captured six consecutive – and very nearly seven – outright Le Mans wins across the 956 and 962 and with yet another win, as a GT entry, in the final sign off at Le Mans in 1994, all of which is fully covered in scientific detail.
Driving the new 956 for the first time in winter 1982, Derek Bell remarked - “It was fantastic. The car was perfect. Incredibly fast and stable in the corners”. Jochen Mass was similarly impressed “it was so different to all other racing cars before it. Many corners just weren’t there anymore”.
Learn why and how engineering, innovation and teamwork made the 956 the most successful purpose-built race car in history
Over the following decade, the 956 and it’s later long-wheelbase sibling, the 962, would win five consecutive world championships, as well as every single classic sportscar and endurance race in the world a record number of times.
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Ultimate Works Porsche 962 - The Definitive History
The Porsche 962, debuted in 1984 as an evolution of the 956, was conceived to adapt to the regulations of the hugely popular US-based IMSA GTP Championship. Amongst a host of changes, the 962 had a longer wheelbase to keep the drivers feet behind the front axle centre line, a mandatory steel roll cage and for IMSA use, the different and 935 based aircooled flat six engine was restricted to a single turbo.
In Porsche tradition, it quickly evolved and the 962 and its twin turbo, semi and then fully water cooled 962C Group C brother, proceeded to obliterate the competition on both sides of the Atlantic, continuing the trend set by its predecessor.
Learn why those extra few inches of wheelbase were tremendously difficult to accommodate and how, almost as a footnote, the 962 was the first Porsche, or indeed any car, to race and win with a PDK double clutch gearbox. Learn also how the works support continued with Joest after the factory shockingly retired the full works team after Le Mans in 1987 from the World Championship, with then just a single full works team outing at Le Mans in 1988 as a factory works entry.
Volume 1 moves on to cover the 1984–88 period (the works years): race-by-race chapters explain in exhaustive detail the activities of the Porsches works team, starting with the one-off IMSA race in 1984 that gave the 962 its baptism of fire.
The 1985–87 world championship campaigns with the famous Rothmans Porsches brought victory at Le Mans in 1986 and 1987 and championship titles for Derek Bell and Hans-Joachim Stuck in 1985 and 1986. Every event is covered in great detail, including all the technical developments that were tried and tested between races, the strategies used, the successes savoured, the odd defeat explained.
A rather super cup: for the first time since the German national sportscar championship was created back in 1972, Porsche entered a works team in the 1986 ADAC Supercup. Hans-Joachim Stuck’s special lightweight 962C with its trick PDK transmission initially dominated the series but later met with fierce competition from the many privateer Porsche teams and also the works Mercedes team. Every race of the four-year existence of the Supercup is covered, including how in 1987 the creation of Porsche’s iconic asymmetric Shell/Dunlop livery came about.
Volume 2 examines the ‘Joest’ years (1989–94): following the works Rothmans Porsche team’s unexpected withdrawal from the World Sports-Prototype Championship after yet another Le Mans win in 1987, the world of sportscar racing was at a loss.
The works team made a one-off comeback to Le Mans in 1988 and almost won, then gave an ultimate encore performance at Fuji at the end of that same year before closing its doors seemingly for good to concentrate on IndyCar and F1. But a little back door was kept open and earlier developments of what should have been the 962/88 were passed on to Reinhold Joest, the most successful privateer Porsche team owner. Joest promptly beat the Mercedes at Dijon in 1989 – scoring the 956/962’s 39th and final world championship victory – and was in the running for the title for most of the year, prompting Porsche to relaunch its Group C programme the following season.
The second volume covers all activities with the works and works-supported 962Cs, in the ADAC Supercup of 1989 as well as in the WS-PC, where Joest became the de facto works team in 1990. With the demise of the ‘fuel formula’ at the end of 1990, Joest took his works cars to the IMSA and Interserie championships, again with much success.
Le Mans 1994 marked the final appearance of a works 962, as a road-homologated GT car. Once again technical director Norbert Singer showed that he could read the technical regulations better than those who had written them, instigating the peculiar ploy of converting the 962C to a road car and back to a race car, and promptly won Le Mans again.
Volume 3 covers the cars and the people. All 19 works chassis (16 Porsche 962s and three Dauer 962 LM GTs) are outlined in exhaustive technical detail, recording every test and every race with all available data, from gear ratios and fuel consumption figures to strategies and pitstop times.
All this information has been gathered by the author from sifting through thousands of pages of period documents in Porsche’s Stuttgart archives and conducting dozens of interviews with people significant to the 962 story. Also included is the ownership history of each of the cars after completion of their race careers, with photos of where they are now.
Artwork: exclusively commissioned artwork depicts every single chassis as it ran, as well as the aerodynamic evolution of the 962 throughout the years and some of the peculiar wind tunnel test models that never saw the light of day.
Restoration: the ground-up restoration of three of the works 962Cs is covered in detail through many pages of step-by-step photos.
Exclusive photography: eight of the cars are the subject of eye-catching multi-page photoshoots by some of the world’s finest automotive photographers.
The people: detailed biographies of the two key engineers behind the 962 and all those who raced the works cars: Peter Falk, Norbert Singer, Jacky Ickx, Derek Bell, Jochen Mass, Vern Schuppan, Al Holbert, Hurley Haywood, Hans-Joachim Stuck, John Watson, Bob Wollek, Henri Pescarolo, Drake Olson, Kees Nierop, Price Cobb, Klaus Ludwig, Mario Andretti, Michael Andretti, John Andretti, Sarel van der Merwe, Yannick Dalmas, Thierry Boutsen, Mauro Baldi and Danny Sullivan.
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John Fitzpatrick Group C Porsches - The Definitive History
During an extraordinary 22 years behind the wheel, John Fitzpatrick was the youngest-ever winner of the British Saloon Car Championship and became one of Porsche's most garlanded champions.
His team, John Fitzpatrick Racing was a highly successful privateer Porsche team in the glorious early years of Group C sportscar racing, famously beating the works pairing of Derek Bell and Stefan Bellof to win the Brands Hatch 1,000km with the JFR customer 956. From 1983 to 1986, Fitzpatrick’s operation made 66 Group C entries in 44 races in the World Endurance Championship, the German Deutsche Rennsport-Meisterschaft and the American Can-Am, winning three times and taking another 11 podium positions, The full background story is captured in incredible and captivating detail, including absorbing detail about how the team famously lost its title sponsor, yet continued for three more seasons and even captured the 1986 world championship title for Derek Bell This is all told so comprehensively by being ‘on the inside’ at all the races in period and utilising unique access to the team members and the period drivers, as is the case with all three series of these bespoke Group C sets.
Buy any two individual volumes of 956 or 962:
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