550Spyder Posted 13June, 2014 Report Share Posted 13June, 2014 Not sure if this has been discussed here in the past but given it is Le Mans time again, a good time to re-tell what I think is one of the best ( and most interesting) Le Mans stories ever. Spoiler alert : those weened on the Porsche purity and sticklers for factory originality should look away now as this will make your heads pop. In hindsight one of the most successful Le Mans manufacturers the last quarter century was probably Tom Walkenshaw Racing (best known in Australia for the TWR XJS jaguars that won Bathurst in 85, for taking over HSV, and as the team boss at Bennaton F1 and owner of Arrows F1). For most of the eighties Walkenshaw via Tom Walkenshaw Racing (TWR) were Jaguars racing arm, winning Le Mans in the TWR Silk Cut Jaguars in 1988 & 1990. In 1991 Jaguar pulled out of Le Mans and Group C racing. Like most race shops TWR just pushed their XJ14 cars into the corner and put a dust blanket on them and went in search of their next paying gig. Fast forward to late 1994, TWR land the gig from Porsche to build a Le Mans racer, no time to do anything, hey what's that in the corner, remove the dust cover, get out the angle grinder, chop the roof, quick Respray, wheel down to Porsche and present as a Ross Brawn designed masterpiece, badge up as Porsche and give to Rienhold Joest to run at Le Mans as a factory supported Porsche. 1996 Rienhold Joest wins Le Mans in Porsche (hey why are those stone chips revealing Jaguar purple underneath?). 1997 Rienhold Joest returns to give Porsche two in a row. wow those Porsche engineers are pretty clever. A great story. Best told in Motorsport magazine. Jaguar chassis XJR-14 #791 won the world sports car championship and taking victory at the Nurbergring. Designed by Ross Brawn and ran the 3.5 litre F1 engine. Later converted to the TWR WSC95 Porsche that wins the 96 and 97 Le Mans. Amazing. Stay tuned for next week when we reveal that the 1973 martini 'targa florio' winning car that has been in the Porsche Museum since 1974 is not actually the winning car........look away now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tazzieman Posted 14June, 2014 Report Share Posted 14June, 2014 Sacrilege! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ByronBayChris Posted 14June, 2014 Report Share Posted 14June, 2014 Stay tuned for next week when we reveal that the 1973 martini 'targa florio' winning car that has been in the Porsche Museum since 1974 is not actually the winning car........look away now. So they rebadged a Morris Marina? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tazzieman Posted 14June, 2014 Report Share Posted 14June, 2014 More sacrilege at the museum , I've posted this before http://k45-286.blogspot.com.au/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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