A New 935 is Coming and Will Be Available in All the Best Colors
The 935 is a car that has a lot of racing heritage. Many teams and drivers have piloted the car known as 'Moby Dick' to victory. Its only fitting that Porsche pay tribute to those teams and drivers and offer their new insane 935 recreations in those classic liveries.
The NEW 935 Moby Dick
The very idea that Porsche would make a modern recreation of the classic 935/78 “Moby Dick” racecar is already mind-blowing. The fact that they are offering it in seven different classic liveries is absolutely insane. Some of them are instantly recognizable, others you may not know about. So let's take a look at all of them and give a little background on each.
Images courtesy of Porsche
Gulf
First up is one that needs little introduction, the Gulf livery. Gulf Racing has been around since the ’30s, making it quite possibly one of the earliest race corporate race teams. The classic blue and orange livery didn’t make its first appearance until 1966 with the Ford GT-40 race cars. After that, it graced the Porsche 917’s, both in the real world and in Steve McQueen’s film ‘Le Mans’. Gulf liveries have lived on many racing Porsches since and now if your one of the lucky 77 that gets a chance to buy one of these new 935’s you can have one too.
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Sachs
You may not instantly recognize the Sachs livery, or even know who Sachs are, but they have been around since even before Gulf Racing. Sachs is a German company that started in 1895 producing bearings and bicycle hubs. The bearing production was sold to SKF in 1923 and soon after in 1929 Sach began producing clutches and shock absorbers. These days most German cars and many other manufacturers use Sachs parts as O.E. Porsche has used Sachs parts forever which is why it made perfect sense for Sachs to sponsor Porsche in its Le Mans racing. The number 70 Sachs car never did see a win at Le Mans but did find victory at the 1980 12 Hours of Sebring.
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Salzburg
Porsche Salzburg is a livery that any fan of the old 917 race cars recognizes, but their history is a little more complicated. See, World War 2 had just a smidge of impact on car manufacturing in Germany, just a smidge. Ferdinand Porsche found himself in prison, yet there were still people that wanted Porsche sports cars. So in 1947 Ferdinand's son and daughter started Porsche Konstruktionen GesmbH and began producing the 356 Porsches. Eventually, Ferdinand was released from prison and took back complete control of Porsche. Porsche Konstruktionen GesmbH became, through a super convoluted series of events we don’t have time for here, Porsche Salzburg. Salzburg became the largest Porsche/Volkswagen dealership chain in Germany and also became the second factory-backed Porsche racing team before that title was taken over by Martini Racing.
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John Player Special
The John Player Special livery is one that is more closely associated with Lotus F1 racing that with Porsche, but here it is anyway, and for good reason, it's gorgeous. As far as I can tell there was never a 935 or any other Porsche race car that donned this livery.
The John Player Special livery has always been a personal favorite of mine, but truth be told, before writing this story I had no idea where it came from. Apparently John Player Special is a brand of cigarettes from the once dominate John Player and Sons tobacco company. By the time I was old enough to truly appreciate racing, tobacco, and alcohol advertising had been banned. Now it has been replaced with energy drink companies and not much else. No wonder it's so hard to get funding for racing these days.
Images courtesy of Porsche
MOMO
Another livery more associated with another brand besides Porsche is MOMO. Known more in the Ferrari world, MOMO livery also graced quite a few Porsche race cars including the 935 of Gianpiero Moretti. Gianpiero was the founder of MOMO and a gentleman racer that saw quite a bit of success in his racing career. While he never found victory with the 935, he did hold his own throughout the whole 1978 IMSA championship finishing third overall for the season. Gianpiero, unfortunately, passed away in 2012, thus giving this livery tribute a little more weight.
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Vaillant
Vaillant isn’t a company you see sponsoring many race cars. The HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning) manufacturer from Germany is a big name OEM Automotive and Home supplier, but not really one for racing. That is beside the one time they sponsored the 935 race team for the 1979 1000km Nürburgring. It's bright colors helped set it apart, and have now become the perfect colors for the new retro-themed 935 recreations.
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Interscope
The Interscope racing livery is very similar to the Vaillant livery but with much darker colors. More interesting than the livery itself is the continuing history of Interscope. Started as a racing team in 1975, founder Ted Field campaigned many cars including the 935 and even entries into the Indianapolis 500. After racing at Indy led to no results Interscope went on to become a movie studio, producing such hits as Revenge of the Nerds and Jumanji. Somewhere in the midst of making movies Ted also started Interscope Records, a music label that dominated the 90s with artists like Eminem, Dr. Dre, Eve, Nine Inch Nails, Enrique Iglesias, Limp Bizkit, Smash Mouth and tons more. And it all started with racing.
Each of the livery offerings on the new 935 ‘Moby Dick’ are a great choice, and each one has more history behind it than most people think. If you had the chance to buy your own 935 what livery would you go with? Or would you be a rebel and go with one that is not on this list?
Images courtesy of Porsche
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