We’ve all had that fantasy of driving a race car on the street, right? Although a sliding Lexan window sounds like a pain in the McDonald’s drive thru, the overall experience would be simply out of this world, until the thought crosses our minds that driving a track-only car on the street is usually wildly illegal. Well, while the 991-based Porsche 935 isn’t a dedicated race car, it was built exclusively for the track, and British outfit Lanzante has made some substantial modifications to give it street-legal status. How about that?
If the reborn Porsche 935 slipped under your radar, don’t worry — it was an incredibly limited-production track-only special. To create it, Porsche took a 911 GT2 RS and went nuts, stripping the interior, fitting a full roll cage and fire suppression system, adding air jacks, a Cosworth ICD instrument cluster, an FIA-approved roof hatch and fuel cell, and some wild aerodynamic bodywork reminiscent of the classic 935 race car. The result was a 700-horsepower track-only weapon for 77 lucky customers. However, it wasn’t homologated for racing, so its usability is limited to say the least.
Enter Lanzante, a British specialist that won the 24h of Le Mans in 1995 under the title sponsor Kokusai Kaihatsu Racing. The winning car? A McLaren F1 GTR, which led to Lanzante becoming a servicing center for the ultimate supercar of the 1990s. If anyone’s up for a challenge, it’s them. Lanzante decided it was a shame that most 935 examples would spend their lives cooped up, so a plan was hatched — what if this bonkers Porsche was homologated for road use?
Engineered over a period of 18 months, Lanzante’s road-legal 935 project underwent some rather substantial changes. We’re talking a new suspension setup so your spine doesn’t turn into mush, new road-certified wheels, braking system revisions to incorporate a handbrake, new tires, revised electronics, and perhaps most importantly, headlights.
The result is that for a few lucky Porsche 935 owners, the fantasy of driving a track car on the street can be absolutely, 100 percent real. Now that’s what I call solving problems using money. Oh, and to cap it all off, one of the road-legal examples shown off at the Goodwood Festival of Speed features a livery inspired by Marlboro Racing — arguably one of the best liveries of all time.
However, there is an asterisk to all of this — just because the Lanzante Porsche 935 is legal for road use in Britain doesn’t mean it’s legal for road use in America. I guess we’ll just have to wait for Walter Wolf’s road-legal original 935 to come up for sale again, right?
(Photo credits: Lanzante)
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