Goodwood Festival of Speed 2017 is upon us and for us it will be our sixth appearance. For the second year running we will be showing their brand off to the general public, race and car enthusiasts, motor manufacturers and top competition organisations from an impressive 230 square metre stand. Throughout the events four days over 200,000 people will attend to see the world’s most iconic cars and bikes in action up the unique hill climb in the grounds of and right in front of Goodwood House.
For this year the event theme is ‘Peaks of Performance – Motorsport’s Game-Changers’ which is perfect for Wera as we have managed to secure as our central exhibit a piece of racing history that fits exactly to Goodwood’s title.
From 1980 to 1982 Wera owned and successfully ran a Porsche Kremer 935 K3 under the Wera Meißberg banner contesting the German DRM series, World Championship for Makes and Drivers and Le Mans 24 Hours.
The motorsport fans amongst you will know just how radical the Kremer brothers’ Group 5 935 was – a Real Game-Changer. The boundary stretching interpretation of the Group 5 rules by the Kremers resulted in one of the most striking designs of its era, if not of all time.
These outrageous 3.2 ltr, twin turbo cars with plumes of flames exiting their exhausts when racing around the top circuits in Europe have gradually disappeared, so to discover by chance the Wera car still in existence and fully race ready was a thrilling moment. Today, thirty-five years on, it’s with passion and enthusiasm that Wera welcome their old friend back in its full Le Mans car #61 glory punching a healthy 760BHP and looking and sounding as dramatic today as it was back then.
The king – Porsche 935 K3 Turbo a chronical of an icon that characterised an entire era by Carsten Krome.
It’s 1979 and Klaus Ludwig is sitting in the cockpit of a high-performance racing car that will become a motorsport Game Changer. The racing car, originates from the Cologne workshop of the ingenious brothers, Erwin and Manfred Kremer, and goes by the name of… Porsche 935 K3.
In it’s first appearance as a special production vehicle at Le Mans the Porsche 935 K3 wins comfortably. The competition is shocked and the level was set.
It was sold to Hermann Werner, co-founder of Wera Werk on February 21st 1980, sponsorship under the ‘Weralit’ banner ensued. The car took part in the German Championship in 1980, 1981 and 1982 principally driven by Edgar Dören and sometimes with Jurgen Lassig sharing the driving. The Wera 935 debuted March 23rd 1980 at Zolder in Belgium, finishing fifth.
The early success culminated in the first European race for the world championship at Monza in Italy: Edgar Dören and Jürgen Lassig beat everyone else in a dramatic rain-soaked event and celebrate winning a world championship race.
The car was sold to Willy Konig, the noted German tuner in 1986 and at the end of the 1990 season Willy was the winner of the “Epezial Tourenwagen Trophy”. Konig raced the car for many years at the Nurburgring before crashing heavily when he had fitted a 962 engine.
John Greasley bought the damaged car and rebuilt it as a right hand drive before using it to win the British GT Championship in 1993. By this time Greasley had re-installed the correct 935 twin turbo 3.2ltr engine.
After sheer luck in 2014 this car was discovered to still exist in the UK and after plenty of detective work the owner was tracked down and approached. Since then a sound relationship has formed between us leading to an agreement for the completely restored, race prepared monster of a car to be exhibited at this year’s Festival of Speed.
Chassis #009 0003 has now been filmed (it’s first outing in over two years) and the footage includes images from the past thanks to wise and careful archive storage over the years.
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