Porsche 935 Kremer K3 Le Mans 1984 for sale

The only factory road version of the 935 Kremer K3. Commissioned and driven by the legendary F1 owner and motorsport icon Walter Wolf. Extensive technical restoration for over €150,000 by Kremer Racing. Original condition of the interior and exterior. Maximum speed reached of 338 km/h. Fully functional. A unique piece of Porsche history. A unique opportunity for royal class collections. Kremer Racing is one of the most significant private racing teams in the history of German motorsport and has had a lasting impact on the golden era of endurance racing in the 1970s and 1980s. The team, founded by brothers Erwin and Manfred Kremer, evolved from a small Porsche workshop in Cologne to a globally recognized motorsport address, whose name is still closely associated with innovation, passion, and extraordinary successes. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that Kremer Racing, as a private team, has always faced large official teams and established itself internationally. The foundation of success has been the close connection with Porsche. Already in the early stages, Kremer Racing specialized in the development, preparation, and use of powerful Porsche racing cars. The team did not just use the vehicles but developed many concepts independently. Kremer consistently managed to optimize existing Porsche platforms and adapt them to the needs of international motorsport. It is this combination of technical understanding, innovative spirit, and racing experience that has made the team a benchmark in endurance motorsport. In the 1970s, Kremer Racing increasingly established itself in renowned racing events such as the German Sports Prototype Championship, the Interserie, and especially the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Here, the team faced the biggest manufacturers and the best drivers in the world. Despite limited resources, Kremer Racing repeatedly managed to bring competitive cars to the track and surprise with clever technical solutions. The absolute pinnacle of the team's history came in 1979 with the overall victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. This success is still considered one of the greatest triumphs of a private team in the history of endurance racing. The legendary 935 K3 was used, a vehicle independently developed by Kremer Racing based on the Porsche 935. The suffix "K3" represented the third evolutionary stage of Kremer's development and symbolized the high technical standard of the team. The 935 K3 differed in many aspects from factory vehicles. Kremer Racing optimized aerodynamics, weight, cooling, and handling, thus creating a vehicle perfectly adapted to the demands of Le Mans. In particular, the distinctive body design and sophisticated aerodynamics made the K3 one of the most iconic racing vehicles of its time. At the same time, the vehicle convinced with high reliability and enormous speed over long distances. In the 1979 race, drivers Klaus Ludwig and Bill and Don Whittington managed to bring the K3 to overall victory against strong competition. This success was exceptional for several reasons. On the one hand, it was a triumph of a private team against established official teams; on the other hand, the Kremer K3 remains to this day the only overall winner with a rear engine of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The victory made Kremer Racing famous worldwide and solidified the team's reputation as one of the most innovative and successful among private teams of its time. Even in the following years, Kremer Racing remained active in international motorsport and continued to develop its own racing cars and evolutionary stages. Vehicles like the CK5 or the subsequent Le Mans prototypes demonstrated that the team was always ready to embark on new technical paths. Additionally, Kremer Racing committed to various international racing series and collaborated with numerous well-known drivers. Today, Kremer Racing occupies a special place in motorsport history. The team exemplifies an era when private teams conquered the biggest stages of motorsport with creativity, technical skill, and passion. In particular, the Le Mans victory of the K3 remains to this day a symbol of Kremer Racing's extraordinary pioneering spirit and competitiveness. It is, along with the twelve racing vehicles, the only road version K3 built by Kremer and the most extraordinary interpretation of the legendary Porsche 935 that combines uncompromising racing technology with road suitability. The vehicle was completed in 1984 based on the famous 935 K3, just like the one with which Kremer Racing won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1979. Walter Wolf, an entrepreneur, Formula 1 team principal, and motorsport icon, commissioned the Kremer brothers to build a custom road vehicle that would keep the technology and appearance of the Le Mans winner almost unchanged. Walter Wolf was already a well-known figure in international motorsport in the 1970s. With his Formula 1 team, he celebrated victories in Grand Prix races. At the same time, Wolf developed a great passion for high-performance vehicles, particularly for the 935 K3 from Kremer Racing. After the legendary overall victory at Le Mans, he decided to have his own K3 built for road use. The result was one of the most radical road vehicles of all time. The so-called Kremer K3 Le Mans retained the extreme Group 5 bodywork with the pronounced fender flares, large air intakes, and the enormous rear wing almost unchanged. The vehicle was painted in a characteristic midnight blue with red-gold accents and Walter Wolf's personal W emblem. Technically, the vehicle was based on the 935 K3 with an air-cooled six-cylinder boxer engine and a KKK twin-turbocharger. This engine delivered 740 hp with a vehicle weight of only 1,175 kilograms. The transmission was via a 4-speed gearbox to the rear wheels. Technologically identical to the racing car. With a top speed of 338 km/h, the car was among the fastest road vehicles in the world in the mid-1980s, even surpassing the Ferrari F40. Particularly fascinating was the combination of uncompromising racing technology and luxurious details. While the chassis, aerodynamics, and engine were practically entirely taken from motorsport, the vehicle received leather upholstery, a high-quality audio system, and numerous custom adaptations according to Walter Wolf's ideas, such as electric windows. However, the character of the K3 remained extremely raw and motorsport-oriented. Contemporary reports described the driving experience as brutal, loud, and unfiltered. "Like a Le Mans race car with a license plate instead of a classic road sports car," said a journalist who in 1986 wrote the famous article "The Blue Miracle" for Auto-Motor-und-Sport, which is available. Walter Wolf drove the K3 Le Mans for over 9,000 kilometers across Europe, until he sold the vehicle in 1987 in Switzerland to collector and former driver Angelo Pallavicini. The latter kept the Kremer for many decades, until, in the mid-2010s, it passed into the hands of Mechatronik, where it remained for another decade as part of the internal collection. In the summer of 2024, we decided to bring the vehicle back to a functional state. For this purpose, the K3 Le Mans was delivered to its creator Kremer Racing, which successfully carried out a complex mechanical restoration for €150,000 over the course of two years. Particular attention was paid to maintaining the original condition of the vehicle. In honor and full respect of the first owner Walter Wolf, the Mechatronik team conducted a trouble-free endurance test, completing a three-day road trip from Pleidelsheim in Germany through the Dolomites to Lake Como in Italy, where the Kremer K3 Le Mans was presented to the public for the first time in a decade at the Fuori Concorso with a mileage of 10,250 kilometers. To this day, Walter Wolf's Kremer K3 Le Mans is considered an icon of the turbo era and one of the most spectacular unique pieces in Porsche history, like the 917K of Count Rossi, the road version 911 GT1 of '98, and the 963 RSP. The vehicle embodies an era when almost unlimited performance, uncompromising aerodynamics, and an individual motorsport lifestyle uniquely fused together. At the same time, the car recalls Kremer Racing's exceptional innovative capacity and the legendary Le Mans triumph of the 935 K3, which is still considered one of the greatest successes of a private racing team of all time.