The last two decades have been the busiest ever for Porsche's racing department. Unprecedented success in sports cars and other venues kept the factory's name in lights most of the time.

Beginning in 1982, the FIA revised the rules for top line sports car racing, replacing the Group 5 & 6 cars with Group "C" (consumption). Cars had to meet new fuel economy and safety standards. Porsche was up to the task with the 956 model.

Examples are seen here by Maisto (shown in white with red or blue accents), Novacar, and Tomica (this is one of the best, with very correct colors and removable engine cover. Many were manufactured so they are not too hard to find.)

The 956 won LeMans from '82 through '85 and the World Endurance Championship '82 through '84. Revised safety regulations meant that 956's were replaced with 962 models after '85. The 962 carried on until the end of the decade, winning LeMans in '86 and '87 for the factory, '94 for the Dauer racing team, and finally in '96 and '97 for TWR Racing. Many 962's were sold to customer racing teams all over the world, winning national championships in Europe, Japan and here in America.

Small-scale 962's are not so plentiful; the Guisval and Majorette models shown here are about the only ones I have seen.

While big-time racing is a large part of Porsche's efforts, the company can never forget its core business of road cars, especially the type 911. As a "technical exercise" they built the model 959, shown here by Hot Wheels. This "ultimate 911" featured a kevlar body, 4-wd, 6-speed semi-automatic transmission and a top speed of over 200mph. It is one of the most popular small-scale Porsches, with examples by most major toymakers. This model did race at LeMans (as a type 961) in the GT class. Since only 224 of the real thing were built, most people have to satisfy themselves with the small-scale versions!

As the 962 models became less competitive Porsche withdrew from racing as a factory, preferring to lend technical support to private racing teams wishing to pour their own sponsor's money into top level racing. In the late '80s and early '90s, these privateers faced the factory teams of Jaguar, Mercedes, Mazda, Toyota and Peugeot. Porsche no doubt felt that it was time to let the other guys have a chance. If it's brand won for a private team, so much the better; if not, no big loss!

As if Porsche weren't busy enough with it's own racing efforts, they undertook one of the most ambitious engineering contracts ever when they designed and built a turbo F1 engine for the TAG group. This engine propelled McLaren cars to World Driver's Championships in '84 (Niki Lauda) and '85-'86 (Alain Prost). It is unfortunate that we cannot find any small-scale versions of these famous cars.

Finally Porsche was lured back in to sports car racing after watching McLaren F1 GT cars win overall at LeMans in '95. Porsche was already involved in the lower-level GT3 class (models are shown here in various racing colors by Real Toy and another great job by Hot Wheels) but it was a giant step up to the GT1 class. Another huge factory effort brought the overall LeMans for the 911-GT1 LM in '95.

Both the Matchbox and Hot Wheels versions shown here are very nice and very available. The MB in shown in both white and silver; both are correct. The HW paint schemes are pretty wild (shown in white and blue) but the model itself is very true to life.

While at this point in time Porsche leaves the racing to its other German competitors, (BMW at LeMans in '99, F1 with Team Williams this season; Audi at LeMans this June) I have no doubt that we will see the factory back into racing in the near future. As Prof. Porsche has stated, "Life is a race.."

Editor's note: For David's previous Porsche Racing stories, visit the June and July issues of Tales of Toy Cars.