Why is this Kremer K3 nothing like and exactly like a 911?

Special production is an altogether different breed of bleeding-edge sportscar to the 3.0-litre wedges and monstrous 5-litre machines that preceded it. Generic sporty production cars stuffed and clad with big horsepower and aero. Hence the uncanny resemblance the 935 bears to the humble 911. It’s a sort of predecessor to GT1 in that the cars are ordinary of origin, modified and transformed into the extraordinary.

Look this 935 K3 dead in the snout and you won’t find a familiar curvaceous facia. That didn’t last long after the original’s debut in 1976. The chiselled ground-hugging chin and slanted nose owe the 911 very little, though from the waist up the cockpit gives something of its heritage away. 

That the 935 is some be-winged fire-spitting chirping mutation of Porsche’s staple sportscar becomes obvious from the side, as that quintessential 911 window line sits unashamed above the bulbous Kremer bodywork addenda. Monstrous arches evacuate air from the front while both harbour the kind of tyre meat you’d think ordinarily the preserve of the 250mph Mulsanne-munching monsters of 1970.

Forcing those giant slabs of rubber into the ground is one of the most significant of the K3’s many signatures: that ridiculous wing. Move around to the back and take a knee and its enormity really hits home. Then the exposed turbos and the sheer width of that contact patch confiscate the awe that the wing had not long snatched. The K3  is just a chocolate box of extremes. No derivative Porsche sportscar of the era has power, presence and purpose on this level. God bless “silhouette rules”.

If you’re wondering what denotes this car as a K3, the simple but effective answer is everything. All of the above: the arches, the ridiculous wing sweeping out from the roof – it’s all signature Kremer madness operating within the glorious ambiguity of the special production rules. This car (chassis 930 0907) was a customer single-turbo car originally supplied in 1977 before being converted to K3 specification under the stewardship of Joest racing in 1980.

In its 25 years of active racing history it had over 30 race entries, of which it won four times. Weirdly, every one of those victories was at the Nürburgring. First in 1977 with none other than Jochen Mass captaining and the last being as late as 2001 before its retirement from what an ad’ for its sale describes as its “active racing career”.

The 935’s era of dominance between 1977 and 1982 is a curious one. If not for the sheer numbers in which these cars were produced and the lack of really serious competition, it might not have made itself the staple Porsche motorsport legend that it is today. It is very much self-made, however, with Porsche tactically distributing a veritable swarm of customer chassis, monopolising grids at a time when manufacturer interest was at an inexplicable low. Surely, they will be joined at Goodwood in March, as they were in period, by the BMW CSLs, Lancia Beta Monte Carlos and more but the 935 is the definitive Group 5 special production monster.

It’s one of a few machines that represent high points of extremes in the history of the 911 and as such, are high points in the history of what is arguably one of the finest sportscars in the history of the automobile.

Photography by Ethan Jupp