The 10 Greatest Porsche Race Cars On BILSTEIN Suspension

BILSTEIN suspension has been used to great effect by dozens of different car manufacturers over the decades, with the likes of Subaru, Lancia, Mercedes, Audi, BMW and Ford being amongst the best known and most successful. That said, there’s one particular manufacturer that’s achieved more than most using BILSTEIN dampers, and that’s Porsche. The Stuttgart legend has chosen BILSTEIN for some of its most competitive and iconic race cars, including a huge number of Le Mans winners. With this in mind, here’s our rundown of the greatest BILSTEIN-shod Porsche race cars.

Porsche 917LH
Proof of how staggeringly effective and significant the Porsche 917 was can be seen in the fact that, despite now being almost half a century old, it really doesn’t look that outdated. The car that came to define Sports Car endurance racing at the tail end of the ‘60s, the 917 was powered by a howling flat 12 engine that was constantly developed over the course of its long and illustrious career, as was its bodywork. The latter became longer to aid stability at high speeds, and by the time Porsche came to develop the BILSTEIN-shod 917LH of 1971, it had sprouted a new rear wing and aero-orientated front end.

Porsche 911 GT1
The shift away from Group C as Sport Car racing’s premier category forced Porsche to develop a new racer, one based (in the most tenuous manner) on its production offerings and designed to compete in the new GT1 class. This required a small number of road legal cars to be built in order for homologation to be granted, and theseStraßenversions instantly became massively sought after museum pieces. The race cars were competitive right from the off, something of a Porsche trade mark, and in 1996 it won its class in that year’s Le Mans and placed 2nd overall. It was heavily updated for 1998 and re-christened the GT1-98, and in this form it was able to take overall victory ahead of offerings from Nissan, McLaren and Ferrari.

Porsche 935 K3/K4
Porsche was reluctant to sell its most advanced evolution models of the 935 to non-works teams, so some of the more enterprising outfits took matters into their own hands. Kremer Racing was undoubtedly the most well known and most successful, the German concern having been one of the Porsche’s best customers for a number of years previously, and therefore well placed to develop specialised versions of the already potent 935. The most powerful and successful of these were the Kremer K3 and K4, and the former even managed to defy all expectations by winning the 1979 Le Mans 24 Hours outright, soundly beating the works cars in the process!

Porsche 956
Ask a non car fan to draw a rough approximation of what a Le Mans or sports car should look like, and chances are they’ll sketch something with more than a passing resemblance to the 956. This was the car that allowed Porsche to pretty much claim the great French endurance classic as its birthright throughout the 1980s, and it would take until the turn of the century for any other car manufacturer to come close to matching its record. The Group C 956 was pushed along by a twin turbo, air-cooled variant of Porsche’s flat-six, with a power output of 650bhp and with as much as 100bhp more available if required for qualifying. BILSTEIN dampers and ground effect technology helped glue the 956 to the track and helped it scoop an amazing 5 outright Le Mans victories, dominating the race between 1982 and 1985.

Porsche 962
Hot on the heels of the still crushingly competitive 956 came the visually similar 962, proving just how seriously Porsche took its racing and how hard it had to work to ensure its continued dominance. The cars looked the same because a considerable amount of technology was shared between the two, but the 962 benefitted from a longer chassis, better safety measures and turbos positioned in such a way that they wouldn’t immediately render the cockpit fit only for tropical wildlife! The 962 picked up right where the 956 had left off, winning Le Mans in 1986, 1987 and, with significant revisions, once again (and quite unexpectedly) in 1994.

Porsche 936/77
The mid ‘70s saw Porsche really get to grips with turbocharging, a technology that was still seen as something of a ‘black art’ at the time. Its Group 6 offering was the 936/77, a tiny, ultra-lightweight racer designed to replace the rapidly aging 917. Power came from a 2142cc flat-six with a pair of turbos slung either side, while handling the tricky beast was made somewhat easier by the addition of BILSTEIN suspension and the massive rear wing. Cooling the engine, one buried right at the heart of the car, fell to the huge air scoop above the drivers head. It might not have looked that attractive but the 936 was a weapon, and it allowed Porsche to take Le Mans wins in 1976, 1977, second places in 1978 and 1980 and, after a comprehensive re-development, another win in 1981.

Porsche 924 GTP Le Mans
Porsche built 3 of these specially prepared 924s for the 1980 Le Mans 24 Hours in what was an attempt to to drum up publicity for a car that was, at the time, thought key to the marque’s survival. The ‘transaxle’ 924 was front engined, a massive departure for a firm that had built its reputation on the rear engined 911, and powered by a turbocharged straight-four good for a handy 320bhp. The BILSTEIN-Porsche relationship was called on once again, and the expertly damped cars were able to battle through a sodden race to finish the 1980 Le Mans an impressive 6th overall.

Porsche 935/78 ‘Moby Dik*’
The 935 ‘Moby Dik’ represented the sum total of Porsche’s hard-won knowledge of turbocharging and aerodynamics at the end of the ‘70s. The ‘Moby Dik’ moniker came about thanks to the 935’s elongated rear bodywork, an aerodynamic aid designed to make the twitchy beast more stable when hammering down the Muslanne Straight. It needed all the help it could, as the turbocharged 3.2 flat-six slung ‘out back’ was a real monster, capable of pushing an extraordinary 845bhp to the rear wheels! The gearbox was re-mounted upside down to achieve a better angle for the driveshafts, while the whole car tipped the scales at just 1030kg. It was crushingly fast at the 1978 Le Mans, able to lap an insane 15 seconds per lap faster than the works cars had managed a mere 2 years previously, and hitting 228mph on the straights. The downside to this raw pace was poor reliability, and an engine change midway through the race meant that it was only able to finish in 8th place overall.

• We realise that there should be a ‘c’ before the ‘k’ but Car Throttle’s overzealous swear filter refused to play ball.

Porsche 944 GTP
The relative success enjoyed by the 924 a year previously inspired Porsche to develop a similarly specialised 944 Le Mans racer for 1981. Power once again came from a turbocharged Type 949 four piston engine, with the boost wound right up to 15.5psi, a setup that allowed it to make a formidable 410bhp. Hugo Boss sponsorship resulted in an instantly recognisable livery, BILSTEIN dampers helped the nose-heavy beast handle La Sarthe’s many tricky corners, and driving duties fell to Jürgen Barth and future Audi WRC champ Walter Röhrl. It finished 3rd in class and 7th overall.

911 Carrera RSR Turbo 2.1
By some definitions this car is genesis, the first turbocharged competition Porsche 911 and a model that led directly the 935s covered elsewhere in this list. Inspired by Porsche’s stunning success in the brutal Can-Am category in the early ‘70s, the Carrera RSR Turbo 2.1 debuted in 1974, sporting iconic silver war paint with Martini decals, swooping, extra wide bodywork and BILSTEIN suspension at all four corners. The 480bhp machine was forced to compete within the prototype class as Porsche hadn’t had time to build enough cars to qualify for homologation, meaning the RSR Turbo would go up against some of the finest Group 5 machines around. This ensured that it was never able to topple purpose built racers like the Matra MS670, but it did score a smattering of excellent results, most notably 2nd place at Le Mans and Watkins Glen…just behind the big Matra!

Words: Jarkle
Photography: Various