Petrolicious, the creator of high quality, unique movies and articles for traditional automotive lovers, has launched its newest video, that includes Gen Shibayama’s Koenig 962, a road automotive straight associated to Porsche’s legendary Group C racer.
After a few years away, the Petrolicious web site and YouTube Channel has been just lately rebooted by duPont REGISTRY Group, and new movies are actually dropping each Friday. Petrolicious celebrates the innovations, the personalities, and the aesthetics that ignite a collective lust for excellent automotive machines, and it seeks to tell, entertain, and encourage its neighborhood of aficionados and pique the curiosity of those that have been lacking out.
Right now, Petrolicious takes up Gen’s story…
The 962 wasn’t constructed to observe the chief, and it didn’t actually match inside the confines of the principles. However Porsche discovered methods to make it match, barely. They didn’t meet the rules, they labored round them. Group C might not have wished the 962 and in the event that they noticed it coming, it was too late to rewrite the rule e-book. And by the point anybody discovered how harmful it was, the factor had already gained all the pieces.
Born from necessity after the 956 was banned in IMSA for its pedal field being forward of the entrance axle, the 962 took form as Porsche’s workaround to maintain competing on either side of the Atlantic. It was by no means about innovation for innovation’s sake. It was survival. An extended wheelbase and new security compliance bought it via the door in America, whereas it continued to dominate throughout the pond.
It was one automotive following (barely) two units of guidelines. Nevertheless it was nonetheless a prototype. Nonetheless a blunt-force win supply system. Nonetheless one of many final actually harmful race automobiles we’d ever see. Group B died in 1986, buried underneath its personal violence. Group A got here subsequent, safer (boringish), slower (kinda boring), extra civilized (fairly boring). The automobiles have been undeniably cool, born from actual road automobiles, however it simply… wasn’t… Group B.
Group C outlived all of it briefly, however it was the final time producers have been allowed to construct lethal weapons disguised as race automobiles. And when all of it got here crashing down within the early 90s, there have been leftovers.
Retired automobiles, wrecked tubs, race-worn spares. Some went to collectors. Some vanished. One among them, extensively believed to be chassis CK6 02, ended up in Munich. Whereas no definitive supply ties the Japanese Koenig 962 road automotive on to CK6 02, it’s the strongest candidate based mostly on race historical past, building particulars, and its timeline. The automotive raced at Spa, Silverstone, Monza, and the Nurburgring earlier than disappearing from the paddock and reappearing, improbably, with plates.
Koenig was identified for doing issues that in all probability shouldn’t have been executed. Twin-turbo Testarossas. Widebody SECs. Something extreme and aggressive, they have been into it. However turning a Porsche 962 right into a highway automotive? That was one thing else completely.
Koenig added simply sufficient to get a plate on it. A unique nostril with pop-up headlights. A primary inside with seats and vents. A customized immobilizer, an influence swap, and a gasoline pump prime that needed to run for thirty seconds earlier than the automotive would even take into consideration beginning. It nonetheless had a 650 horsepower twin-turbo flat six. It nonetheless had its unique race {hardware} beneath. It nonetheless wished to assault you.
Finally, the chassis ended up in Japan. Within the palms of Gen Shibayama. A person who understood precisely what the automotive was, and what it demanded.
“This automotive will kill you should you make a mistake,” he says. “However should you drive it the way in which it must be, it handles corners tremendous properly.”
Gen had already tangled with the Porsche turbo fantasy. He wrecked a 930 in Tokyo years earlier, caught out by traditional lift-off oversteer. It turned private. A mission. He labored his means via the air-cooled Porsche catalog till he landed on probably the most excessive of all of them.
“The Porsche 962 is the final word turbo Porsche. Due to this fact, I needed to have it.”
The automotive is barely a highway automotive. You must take away the steering wheel to climb inside. You begin it in levels. Kill swap. Battery. Gas pump. Ignition. The turbo lag is big. The enhance is violent.
Koenig solely made three. Two survive. One lives with Gen in Japan, the opposite is hidden in a European assortment. The third is misplaced to time, or the intense secrecy of an unknown collector.
The Koenig 962 was not a one-off fever dream. It was inevitable. It was the logical conclusion of what the 962 already was. A automotive that by no means ought to have been allowed to exist, discovering a second life it by no means ought to have been allowed to reside. A race automotive that beat the race rulebook as soon as, after which beat the federal government’s rulebook the second time round. Not as insurrection however virtually as behavior. It’s what the automotive was at all times constructed for.
