In the lineup of 51 cars along pit row at Le Mans on June 13, 1970 were no less than 24 Porsches. Seven were examples of what is certainly one of the most remarkable Porsches ever built: the 917.

Dropping the starting flag that day was Ferry Porsche, a role accorded him by the race organizers in honor of Porsche's 20th consecutive year entering factory-backed cars - a commitment to Le Mans matched only by Ferrari.

Twenty-four hours later, one of the 917s crossed the finish line first, and another crossed in second, giving Porsche its first outright Le Mans win. Porsche cars also won every Category and Index trophy and recorded the fastest lap. Back in Stuttgart, the city threw Porsche a parade.


In June 1971, Porsche successfully defended its Le Mans victory, with Helmut Marko and Gijs Van Lennep driving a 917. After 1971, Porsche's big-engined prototypes were outlawed as the governing bodies lobbied in favor of production-based racers. The mantle fell to the race-prepared Porsche 911 Carrera RSR.


But the Le Mans organizers remained open to the sports prototype classes. And for the 1976 running, new regulations for "Group 6" prototype racing cars were announced. It was during one of the many Porsche management meetings that chairman Ernst Fuhrmann told his racing department to build a Porsche Group 6 racer. His actual words: "Just make it." After all, Porsche knew that its competitors were readying prototypes for the new class. And this was Le Mans ‹ still a special place for Porsche to test its engineering ideas.

Under a veil of secrecy that kept all but a handful of executives and racing department members from knowing the project even existed, Norbert Singer and his men began building the Porsche 936. A mere six months later, it was ready for the test track. Three months after the first test, two Type 936 racers were ready for Le Mans.

The open-cockpit 936 was made largely of components raided from the 917 parts bin, including much of the chassis and suspension. But the engine was developed straight from the 911 sold for the street, coming from the 2.1-liter turbocharged Carrera RSR. On the track, the production-based engine proved plenty powerful. After leading the entire race for all but for a handful of the opening minutes, the Porsche 936 emerged victorious. With Jacky Ickx and Gijs Van Lennep at the helm, Porsche's first prototype sports racing car in six years won by a full nine laps over its nearest competitor.


Porsche returned to Le Mans in 1977 with two 936s and another year of development at hand. After early problems dropped them back to 41st position, the driving team of Jacky Ickx, Jurgen Barth and American Hurley Haywood picked off one position after another until they had piloted their 936 back into the lead. Not even a burned piston in the closing laps could keep the 936 from victory.

In the next two years, the engineers of the Porsche 936 learned a few hard lessons about racing and a few new ways to win. In both '78 and '79, the increased power from the 936's now twin-turbocharged engine proved too much for the transmission.


Still, in the 1979 running, Bill and Don Whittington and Klaus Ludwig were poised to capture the spoils in the Group 5 Porsche 935, the only Porsche 911 production-based car to capture overall victory at Le Mans.