The Koenig C62 is a $1.5M, Street-Legal, Porsche LeMans Racer - One Take

Опубликовано 20 января 2020, 13:00

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When the FIA disbanded the Group C class of tubocharged LeMans prototypes for 1991, a lot of privateer teams were left with virtually new, race-ready Porsche 962 chassis and engines. Three enterprising lunatics, Dauer, Schuppan, and Konig, all separately, decided to do something about that: turn them into street cars.

Wily Konig and his company, Koenig Specials (yes, the spelling is different) had been tuning Ferraris, Mercedes and Porsche with extrovert flair for some time, and this was the perfect logical conclusion to that business model. The Koenig C62, *this* Koenig C62, was the very first one to hit the road of a reported three converted. Dauer and Schuppan's cars came later, with a bodywork and interiors that were quite a bit more refined than the C62, which is vurtually unchanged from the Jaegermeister race car, on hand when I picked it up at PEC.

The chassis and powertrain are full-on 962 race car, with a 3.4L, air-cooled and Carrera-based engine detuned to run on pump gas. In this trim, it makes 800 HP. The car weighs just under 2,200 lbs. It has a dogleg five-speed gearbox, geared for 235 mph. (The fastest production car in the world in 1991 was the Ferrari F40, which went 201). It has incredibly sketchy pneumatic doors, a very weak ventilation system, and pretty much no way to get out if you're in a crash. Because this car is so rare, so valuable, and because the miles are so low (just over 600 km) I was not able to take it all the way out into the canyons and double the mileage in order to open it up.
But only a grade-A moron would pass up the chance to see what it's like to actually drive a Porsche 962 LeMans race car around Los Angeles in normal daily traffic.

Driving notes:
- I was handed the keys to the C62 with ZERO further instruction. Everything I learned about this car I had to figure out on my own. There are no manuals and very little information online about "How to drive a Porsche 962."

- Unlike other air-cooled Porsche's, the C62 has some sort of hydraulic clutch system. The extremely irregular clutch feel and take-up, especially from a stop, I suspect is due to this system malfunctioning. Disabling the system via dashboard switch did not alleviate the issue.