1989 Dauer 962 Le Mans
For Sale at Taylor & Crawley | London, England
The 1990s were a crazy time for supercars. Little (and large) companies were coming out with more and more over-the-top race cars for the road. This is about right at the top of the list, as it is literally a race car for the road.
Jochen Dauer drove Porsches in various racing series’ before concentrating full-time on team ownership in 1987. This car was once his team’s Porsche 962 and it was raced by Bob Wolleck, Hans-Joachim Stuck, Derek Bell, Henri Pescarolo and one of the Unsers. In 1992, the World Sportscar Championship altered its rules, essentially barring the 962 from competition. Porsche, being the clever motorsports company it is, found a loophole that would allow them to keep the 962s on the track.
Basically, the GT rules said that the race cars had to be based on a road-going car – with no minimum production number. Dauer had converted one of their 962s to a road-going car and, because of it, Porsche was back in business on the track. A Dauer 962 won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1994, beating all comers in classes with cars that were supposed to be higher-performing. The ACO (who sets the rules for Le Mans) quickly closed that loophole and the 962 was set out to pasture for historic racing.
But Dauer wasn’t done. They received a few orders here and there for road-car conversions of the 962. About 13 in total were built between 1993 and around 1997. The cars were amazing – using a twin-turbocharged 3.0-liter flat-6 making an insane 730 horsepower. Because they were essentially built on the back of a race car (a new, wider body made of carbon-kevlar was fit so a passenger could ride along in terror), the cars were sleek and capable of about 251 mph!
It has leather interior, air conditioning and hydraulic suspension so you don’t scrape the chin on any curbs. It also has what appears to be a DVD player, because if you can afford this car, it is likely you don’t also own some large theater in which to watch your movies, so a cramped cabin of a two-seat race car is the next logical option. It’s listed as a 1989, but that is likely the date on the racing chassis, as the conversion was performed sometime after 1993.
The price is, not surprisingly, withheld. I’ve never seen another come up for sale (this is one of those cars that is so rare that no one is exactly sure how few were actually built), so I don’t know what it’ll cost you. But you can check out more pictures and get some more information from the dealer’s website here.