Paul Singer's #79 GTR

[ideola]

This is the car that was formerly owned by Steve Wellings in the UK. It was purchased by Mr. Singer some time in 2012 (as far as I can tell), transported to the US, and prepared for entry into IMSA historic races here in the US.

After running the GTR at a few events here in the US, the most recent of which was the 2013 Monterey Motorsports Reunion at Laguna Seca, Mr. Singer now has the car on consignment for the tidy sum of USD$250,000. From what I gleaned while at Canepa on Monday, Mr. Singer has acquired a 935 which he will be campaigning closer to his home in Europe, so the GTR is for sale.

One of the more interesting tidbits I picked up in speaking with Peter, who runs Canepa's Motorsports activities, was that the chassis was converted to partial tube frame from a full chassis, probably at its inception. We were not able to find a chassis tag on the car, so I still don't know which of the GTR chassis this one is; however, we did find a body tag in the passenger compartment with a tag and serial number from Karmann. So the theory is that Karmann was likely involved in the construction of this particular example, either from the get go, or if/when it was converted to partial tube frame in the front end.

I am awaiting more details on the car from Canepa, but in the meantime, here are a series of photos from the short time I was able to be up close and personal. They had to move about a dozen cars and pull this one down from three levels up on their stacker. I didn't have the luxury of ideal lighting conditions, and didn't want to wear out my welcome, so the shooting was a bit rushed, and I only had a super-wide angle lens. But I did try to focus in on a few of the more interesting details, like the dry sump setup, the mechanical fuel injection system, intake manifold, dual water pumps, front-of-engine brackets, cooling circuit, etc. I have snagged a collection of more artistic photos available from the Canepa website, which you can peruse here as well, which show the car before and after Mr. Singer's purchase:
https://picasaweb.google.com/111470514161382354517/SteveWellingsGTR#

Enjoy!

[ideola]

[ideola]

[ideola]

[guru944]

Nice!

Thanx for sharing, Brother.

Later...l

[emoore924]

Top o the food chain. Nice pics

[MB968]

Thanks, fun to look at pics.

[Lapkritis]

Curious to know more about the history of the car to raise the value to that level. I don't see $250000 of car there... maybe more like $60g max if it comes with an enclosed trailer but there must be some historical value I haven't learned about yet. School me up!

[ditch68]

ideola,

Thank you VERY MUCH for posting all those awesome pictures. One of my favorite GTR cars, and several elements have been the inspiration for how I have done my car over time.

Here it is in action in 1984!

Jeff

[ideola]

Originally Posted by Lapkritis

Curious to know more about the history of the car to raise the value to that level. I don't see $250000 of car there... maybe more like $60g max if it comes with an enclosed trailer but there must be some historical value I haven't learned about yet. School me up!

Two words: Historical Provenance.

The car is one of the uber-rare factory GTR cars, one of only 17 ever built. What's even more amazing is that it retains its 2.0L heritage. Most of the GTR cars were converted over time to GT3 or other similar specs, and to remain competitive, were chopped up to full tube frame, and loaded up with 2.5L-variant engines. The fact that this car remains true to its heritage is pretty remarkable, and according to Canepa, it comes with a full complement of spares.

Personally, I think the $250K asking price is a little on the high side...I have an idea of what the car was purchased for in 2012, and it wasn't near that amount. But I'm sure the current seller is mindful of the $385K world auction record that the 1980 924 GTP fetched from the Drendel Family Collection in March 2012.

[Lapkritis]

Thanks for sharing the knowledge. Appears to be a speculators market. I agree with you that the price is still off. Good luck to any investors. . Great car but more as a historic racer than a collector classic in my humble opinion.

[PHillary]

Funny how Porsche didn't use their own spoiler.

[JoshB]

Wow - great pics of an incredible car!

[333pg333]

Interesting how long the intake runners are and still quite a small plenum. Also fitted KW shocks which are definitely not period.