JOHN STARKEY CARS :: CARS FOR SALE

935 K3. Replica built by Bavarian Motor Works/Clay Dopke on a 1979 930 Turbo bodyshell (As used in original 935 K3).

Wanna go 228 mph? Here’s the car for you. Street legal, too.

Clay Dopke is an ex-IMSA 935 racer who has been building 935s and their engines for several years now. He built a motor for a RUF turbo that recorded 219 mph. Then he built another motor, this time for Jose Conseco’s turbo road car. That was timed at 216 mph. Then Bavarian Coach Works, (Clay’s Company), built a yellow twin-turbo that recorded 223 mph. Clay Dopke had built ten such motors by 1999.

Price: $130,000

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This particular 935 has the 3.2 liter motor (now enlarged to 3.4 liters), from John Paul’s JLP-2 and, rebuilt by Clay, is good for 228 mph. All these speeds have, incidentally, been recorded at Ohio’s Transportation Research Center, so we’re talking real speeds here.

To get you to that speed in this yellow 935K3 lookalike would have cost you $228,000, a thousand dollars per mph. That’s how much it cost when first made to get real top speed out of one of Bavarian Coach Works’ creations.

Strip ‘em, dip ‘em and re-create ‘em. That’s Dopke’s secret and that’s how this 1979 930 became the animal you see in the pictures here. He was helped in the endeavour by Rich Howe, his chief mechanic who worked on the suspension and fabricating of special parts and Alan Partee, who carried out the interior work. The original 930 bodyshell went to American Metal Strippers in Toledo, who acid dipped the bodyshell. That removed 110 pounds. When the body/chassis unit returned to Bavarian Motor Works, it went on to the jig and received its first coat of Sikken’s primer. Then the aluminum rollcage was stiched in, this not only bracing the interior but being carried forward to brace the front suspension at three points on each side of the front compartment. Double-welded seams are used throughout and the shock towers reinforced. There is no chassis deflection at rest, so strong is the original structure.

Jeffrey C. Stone commissioned Bavarian Coach Works to build this fire-breather of a Turbo in 1996. He wanted a replica K3 and instructed Clay to use "all the stuff that a real racecar has, plus a leather interior and a stereo". In 1999 the job was done. Clay Dopke dubbed it the: "Saturday afternoon get-arrested car" With three pounds per horsepower, you can see that he’s not kidding! Other parts of this 935 K3’s specification, (let’s not kid ourselves; this is really what this car is), include an M16 tail conversion from Howard Meister’s days with 935s, SC/RS aluminum doors, center-lock 934 axles with BBS wheels, and a full rollcage. 700 pound rear springs support the load under the downforce produced by the rear wing. 450 pound front springs are in use. The windshield is from Kremer Racing, made by DP fabrications and brings the base of the windshield six inches further forward than that of a standard 911/930. 934 front struts are used with 935 dampers. For street use, it rolls on Michelin Pilot Sport Cup tires (245/45YR17 fronts and 335/35YR17 rears), mounted on 17 inch BBS wheels. Brakes are the huge finned caliper, drilled rotor type seen on regular, (is there such a thing?) 935s.

The engine: Bear in mind that Dopke says that this car: "Gets to 190 mph pretty quickly". Dyno figures showed 795 horsepower at 7,150 rpm and 630 plus foot pounds of torque at 6,425 rpm. The 935/78 motor got 100mm pistons and barrels instead of the 95.7mm ones previously used. To be more street drivable, it uses Group B 959 camshafts. Most importantly, Dopke discarded the original Bosch twin plug distributor and replaced it with an Electramotive crank fire unit, which allowed Dopke to plot an ignition curve specially for this engine. The crank trigger unit gives a 75,000 volt spark, which adds 10 horsepower at 7,000 rpm. The existing mechanical injection and magnesium horseshoe intake are still with the engine The Bosch fuel pump has been recalibrated to give a lower than normal 935 idle speed and to suit the increased engine capacity. KKK26 turbochargers, (modified) give up to 1.5 bar boost but spool up much faster than the original, larger KKK27s.

The gearbox is a RUF 5-speed unit with the limited slip set originally at 40%, which Dopke considered too low; so he sent it to Sol Snyderman, who brought the limited slip up to 80%. The original 935s used titanium axles to take the power that the twin turbo engine delivered but Dopke thought there must be a better, more modern way and so he enlisted SB Engineering of Phoenix, Arizona, to make him halfshafts and CVs to Indycar specification. They have proved to be eminently satisfactory, with no problems.

As a finisher, the whole interior was trimmed out in black leather. Yes, you can drive to work in this 935, stick on numbers and go to the track at the weekend and win an HSR race.