What constitutes a ‘real’ 935, 956, 962 etc.?
 

I hope this is the correct place to ask this question. It seems to be the place where most discussion on old Racecars occurs rather than off topic or the racing and autocross forum.

Something has puzzled me ever since old 80’s Group ‘5’ and Group ‘C’ cars started to increase in value so much over the last 10-15 years. Back when new it wasn’t just Porsche who built vehicles that raced as 935’s or the later 956/962. Kremer, Jost and many others built cars badged and raced as ‘Porsche 935’s’ etc. Now, many of these were built from factory tubs (in the case of 956/962) or 911 Chassis in the case of 935’s. However, at what point is a 935 for instance no longer considered a 935 and becomes a ‘935 replica/reconstruction/Homage? To me it becomes most confusing when we are talking about cars that are so far removed from the original built by Porsche. The famous John Paul 935 for existence wasn’t built until three years after the last official Porsche car. With the 962’s there were a lot of cars built with Carbon tubs. How are these considered?

Thanks for any insight you can throw on this for me.

Silence!

OK, I'll pose the question differently.

Is the John Paul / Fabcar ground effect honeycomb 935 considered a real Porsche 935 or is it a genuinely interesting race car separate from 'real 935's'?

Is a Carbon tubbed Richard Loyd Racing 962 considered a 'real' Porsche 962 or is it a cool 'Richard Loyd Racing car instead?

Some say that a REAL version is either a car built by P AG, even without competition history, or those built by teams given permission to do so, as in case of 956/962. If built by permission, they are real even if they do not have P AG factory provenance.

Same goes for 935s. If they basically are copies of P AG cars, or were made from real 934s built by P AG, or known 'approved' teams such as Joest, Kremer, etc.

Builds as John Pauls (father & son) car were somewhat 'outlaw' versions, where teams, interpreting those loose rules were taking advantage of them. Surely not a 'real' 935, per se, but very interesting cars, with a lot of provenance, nevertheless.

There's a cool article in Pano regarding the Coca Cola 962 and serial numbers.

Ultimately I believe that with such small production of ''real'' and ''kit'' Porsche race cars they are to be valued case by case based on pedigree and quantity/quality of real Porsche racing parts used.

I'm certainly no expert, but this is ^^ the line of thinking I would have expected to see. The related thought I had is from the perspective of why it would be important. One way it would be important is around value of such a car in question - and I think the answer above satisfies the value question - a car with provenance and a racing pedigree will be valuable, regardless of the definition of real - and a car considered real would have value regardless of racing pedigree. At least that's how I thought about it.


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This month's Panorama has a great article about the Coca-cola 962. Worth reading. BTW, it became two real 962s.
https://www.pca.org/panorama/edition/panorama-september-2017

Its much more a "real" one if it wins ;) A backmarker? not so much!