By 1982 the Porsche 935 was at the end of its competitive life in Europe, but the Americans kept finding ways to make it ever faster. JLP-4 became its apotheosis. (writer Mauro Borella)
When Porshe decide to stop production of the legendary 935 at the end of the 1970s, it was private teams who took on the job of racing and modifying them, or even building new ones. In later years, non-factory cars won some of the most prestigious races - the Porsche 935 Kremer K3 triumphing in the 1979 Le Mans 24 Hours, for instance. In America the Porsche 935 was the car to have and some US teams built and raced such specials with great results, especially JLP Racing. This is the story of the last and wildest of its 935s, the JLP-4 - the machine that brought ground-effect to GT racing. During the 1981 season IMSA wanted to cap the 935's supremacy by allowing purpose-built GTP Prototypes - such as Lola's T600 - to race against them. Although the 935's top-level race career was already almost dead in Europe, it was still in full swing in the US.