Yahoo Autos Custom Martini Porsche 911 GT2 RS Honors 935/78 Moby Dick Racer
Porsche’s most famous race cars were funded, and its drivers fueled in celebration, by a bottle of 30-proof vermouth. As a result, many Martini & Rossi liveries have graced special-edition road cars from Zuffenhausen, but perhaps none so lovingly as this hand-painted 911 GT2 RS.
This tribute to the most powerful and fastest of all 911s, the 935/78 “Moby Dick,” was an international effort. It began as the dream of a Scotsman, became a computer rendering in Pennsylvania, and was realized in England. Fittingly, Porsche Cars Great Britain, through its factory-owned dealership in Reading, completed this custom GT2 RS just in time for the 40th anniversary of Moby Dick’s run in the 1978 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Whiz-kid designers Nick Szlavik, who’s barely 18, and Anthony DiGiovanni design liveries for exotic-car owners. They’ve been at their Philadelphia-area company, NS2 Media, since winning a car-wrap contest for Lamborghini owner Bryan Salamone in 2015. An unidentified Scottish owner hired the duo for this car, and Porsche Reading turned their template into reality, down to the gold rims and Scottish flags on the Gurney flaps. There is not one piece of vinyl or plastic covering the body.
This 700-hp machine-the most powerful and fastest production 911 ever-is right-hand drive, just like Moby Dick. But despite Moby’s elongated whale tail and staggering specs-845 horsepower (750 at Le Mans) and the ability to clock 227 mph down the Mulsanne straight-the 935/78 wasn’t a particularly successful Porsche race car. It won the Six Hours of Silverstone, finished eighth at Le Mans, and raced twice more before Porsche pulled it from the World Endurance Championship. Regardless, the 935/78 remains the most powerful 911 ever built.
For Porsche, Martini Racing’s blue and red stripes first appeared in 1970, on the 917 and 908. They later were used on the 911 RSR that won the 1973 24 Hours of Daytona and the Targa Florio; the World Championship of Makes–winning 935/77 and the 936 Spyder that Hurley Haywood piloted to a 1977 Le Mans victory; and the 911SC of 1978 East African Safari Rally fame. Porsche has painted Martini liveries on many occasions before, such as for the 1978 911 Turbo and the more recent 918 Spyder. Count on it to honor the triple stripes for as long as stiff cocktails and expensive 911s remain in existence.
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