1:12 Porsche 934 – Porsche Kremer Racing – 1976 24H Le Mans

Description

About the Car

The Porsche 934 is the racing version of the Porsche 911 turbo.  It was built for the FIA Group 4 rules.  Only 31 cars were manufactured from 1976 and 1977.  The car has a 3.0L, flat-six turbocharged engine, 4-speed manual transmission.  Even though it had a 3.0L turbocharged engine it was positioned into the class of 4.5-5.0L cars.  Since it was underweight, the Porsche engineers were able to redistribute the weight up front, creating a better-balanced race car.  One of these cars sold at auction for a record $1.32 million in 2018.

Kremer Racing founded by racing driver Erwin Kremer and his brother Manfred is a motorsports team based in Cologne, Germany, competing with Porsches for the nearly the entire time.  For many years, they were also one of the factory-backed squads.  They won the 1979 24 Hours of Le Mans and 1995 24 Hours of Daytona. Erwin passed away in 2006.

The 24 Hours of Le Mans is the oldest active endurance racing event.  It is held annually near the town of Le Mans, France.  It is one leg of the Triple Crown of Motorsport with the Indianapolis 500 and Monaco Grand Prix as the other two legs.  In 1976, the 44^th Grand Prix Endurance was held in June with FIA introducing a new Group 5 and Group 6 regulations, and open to nine distinct classes.  However, it was still not part of the World Championship seasons.  The Porsche Kremer Racing Team came in 19^th.

About the Brand

Porsche, specializing in high-performance sport cars, SUVs, and sedans, is a German automobile manufacturer headquartered in Stuttgart.  The company is owned by Volkswagen AG.  The company was founded by Ferdinand Porsche along with Adolf Rosenberger and Anton Piech in 1931.  They started out being a vehicle development and consulting company. One of its first assignments was from the German government to design the Volkswagen Beetle, a car for the people.  Using many of the components from the Beetle, the Porsche 64 was developed in 1939.  The Porsche logo is fashioned after the coat of arms of the Free People’s State of Wurttemberg Germany of 1918-1933.

About the Manufacturer

Minichamps was founded in 1990 as a die-cast car producer in Aachen, Germany under the name of Paul’s Model Art GmbH.   The original company was the Danhausen, a trade company that made 1:43 scale models and sold them over the counter and mail order.  From 1971 to 1993 the company published the famous Danhausen World Model Car Book.  Danhausen was owned by the grandsons of Emma Danhausen – Hans Peter and Paul Gunter Lang.  There was a dispute between the brothers in the late 1980’s.  That is when Paul formed the Paul’s Model Art.  Diecast models were made more for the adult clientele and holding their value was a big question that needed to be answered.  Minichamps’ excellent quality has been noticed by Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Porsche, Volkswagen, Opel, and BMW.