After a few weeks to recoupe and recharge my Mojo tanks, it's time to start my next build. And when it comes to sport car/Tin Top racing in the many world wide series, I'm by far a Porsche fan above any and all other makes. So when the Nunu 1/24 scale Kremer Porsche 935 K3 became available, I jumped at the opportunity to review it, and instantly decided to make it my next build, pushing the planned Ebbro Lotus 49 once again off my workbench. And since I recently built the Beemax 1/24 scale Kremer Porsche 935 K2, I just couldn't wait to have these two side by side on my model display.
After Porsche's Overall wins at the 1970 & 1971 LeMans 24 hrs race which was run on the Circuit de la Sarthe using their iconic factory 917k cars. They refocused their goals to only race cars that looked like their current model street cars. So their new generation of race cars would resemble at least to a layman, their 911 series.
1st up was their Carrera RSR cars with normally aspirated engines. By the 1976 season they replaced the Carreras with new Group 4 & 5 turbo engined cars based on the 911. The group 4 cars became known as the 934 series, while the Group 5 cars became the 935 series. With the new rule changes, the Group 5 cars would once again contest for the overall FIA Endurance Championship, so that's what Porsche focused on as their #1 and only factory priority.
Interestingly, the Group 4 934s were very similar spec wise to their street 911 Turbo, and were sold to any privateer since there was no factory team effort. The Group 5 rules allowed vastly more modifications. A totally different suspension with coil springs, adjustable ABS bars, vented disc brakes, a fully designed racing chassis, and the list just goes on. Both car series featured their massive single KKK turbo charger system.
Porsche sold off the previous year's factory team cars to privateers as well as new customer cars using the same last year's specifications. The new team cars naturally were always one step ahead. One such team was The Kremer Brother's Racing Team based in Germany, who had extremely close ties to Porsche. The Kremer Brothers wanted a car equal to the factory cars, so they decided to do some modifications on their own to achieve that goal.
For the 1976 season they raced their modified 935 K1. For 1977 they took their customer 935 and modified it into the 935 K2, which was truly on equal footing with the factory cars. BeeMax has produced a 1/24 scale model of it.
For the 1979 season Kremer modified their customer car in to the 935 K3 which competed against the Porsche factory's 935-79 (more commonly referred to as just 935's), and were once again the equal to Porsche, and even bettered Porsche by winning the overall Group 5 title at LeMans in the pouring rain.
THE BUILD:
There's been quite a lot of discussion about Spot Models having both Nunu and Beemax issuing 1/24 scale 935 K3s. And honestly, it was driving me some what crazy too. The answer to that question is yes and no. They're both releasing 1979 935's, and both are using common parts from the Beemax 935 K2 molds. The NuNu kit is indeed the modified Kremer 935 K3 that won at LemMans, while the Beemax kit looks to be a factory 935-79 fromm that year's LeMans race as well.
Nunu has also produced a Detail Up kit that seems to be the latest rage out of the Orient. So naturally I had to have one.
The black looking ribbon is actually dark blue, the proper color used for the seat harness.
The two decal sheets for the winning LeMans car looks perfectly in register as well as being just thin enough to conform to the many compound curves.
But for this build I wanted to do a very special car, the 935 K3 that Bobby Rahal & Bob Garretson drove which was sponsored by Apple Computers. This was the only time that Apple ever sponsored a race car. Indy Cals actually has this sheet coming out any day, so I ordered one.
Joel
