{"id":2036123,"date":"2026-07-10T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2036123"},"modified":"2026-07-10T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T21:00:00","slug":"moby-was-a-monster-time-to-meet-the-mighty-porsche-935-78","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2036123","title":{"rendered":"“Moby was a monster”: time to meet the mighty Porsche 935\/78"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This is it, the event horizon in my car world. Once I\u2019d clapped eyes on it, the Porsche 935\/78 tractor beamed me in to a motorsport black hole I\u2019ve never escaped from. What a stupendous looking car. I can\u2019t remember the first time I saw it. Possibly in a tatty magazine in a dentist\u2019s waiting room or maybe in a Le Mans snippet during a break from Rallycross on ITV\u2019s World of Sport<\/em>.<\/p>\n

F1 cars were super cool in the late \u201970s, but there was something about the closed cockpit Group 5 racers that really spoke to me. Probably that there was a semblance of recognisable car to the Capris, 3.0CSLs and 935s I saw two-wheeling over kerbs. They were wild, steroidal racers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But amongst them, a stand out star. A car called Moby Dick. It was a deliberately unkind nickname, a reference to Hermann Melville\u2019s great white whale and, we must assume, given to it by frustrated rivals, desperate to belittle a car that was running rings around them.<\/p>\n

Photography: Rowan Horncastle<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Literally. Its first ever race was the Silverstone six hour. It won by seven laps. The fear for Le Mans was that it might not only win its class, but win overall. After all, the regular 935 had won its class at every single Le Mans it started. And compared to a regular 935, Moby was a monster.<\/p>\n

The floor was raised, dropping the body by 75mm, the gearbox was mounted upside down and the 3.2-litre flat six was totally overhauled (by Hans Mezger, naturally), with water-cooled cylinder heads and all sorts of trickery, including an additional KKK turbo. At a time when the road-going 911 Turbo had 260bhp, Moby had 845bhp.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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At Le Mans in 1978 it qualified third overall and was the fastest thing down the Mulsanne Straight, pulling 227mph. But not reliably. Minor mechanical issues and a towering appetite for fuel meant the single car Porsche entered only finished eighth. It went on to race a few more times, but other than Silverstone, essentially achieved nothing.<\/p>\n

Apart from acting as a complete racing inspiration to me \u2013 and probably many, many others. Even so, I never dreamt that one day I\u2019d\u00a0get to drive a \u2013 no, the<\/em> \u2013 935\/78. And discover it\u2019s about as challenging to drive as cars get. The most concerning is the locked differential which means Moby doesn\u2019t exactly like going round corners. I steer, the front wheels turn, but the back wheels would far rather continue straight on. Eventually some kind of enforced agreement between the axles sees me get round the corner, but in a state of considerable alarm.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s a catapult for the straights, a compressor of distance<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Which makes me nervous about pressing the throttle in any of the four forward gears. Don\u2019t worry, nothing will happen, well, today. A sloth would find the turbo lag rather lackadaisical.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Just not the events that eventually follow. At some point the turbos are roused from their slumber and having pressed snooze a few times, decide to emerge from under their duvets and get to work. There\u2019s plenty of warning, plenty of opportunity to lift, but something about the whole prodding a bear process doesn\u2019t allow me to lift the throttle.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve still never encountered a car that inserts quite as much force, quite as viciously, into my spine as this one. Nor accompanies it with a wider variety of hoots, whistles, chirrups, roars and barks. It\u2019s a catapult for the straights, a compressor of distance, one of the very few cars I\u2019ve driven that appears to not accelerate, but leap forward.<\/p>\n

Moby doesn\u2019t want to be your friend. Moby is vicious. Moby is unforgiving. Moby is plain brilliant. The most memorable and exciting driving experience money can\u2019t buy. It competed almost 50 years ago now. And yet it remains the most powerful Porsche 911 there\u2019s ever been. If Group 5 ever made a comeback, Moby\u2019s descendant would need 2,300bhp to repeat the power advantage it had over the original 911 Turbo road car. Just imagine.<\/p>\n

Hero:<\/strong> Possibly the leanest, meanest, boostiest Porsche there\u2019s ever been<\/h4>\n

Zero:<\/strong> An utter pig to drive<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is it, the event horizon in my car world. Once I\u2019d clapped eyes on it, the Porsche 935\/78 tractor beamed me in to a motorsport black hole I\u2019ve never escaped from. What a stupendous looking car. I can\u2019t remember the first time I saw it. Possibly in a tatty magazine in a dentist\u2019s waiting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,237],"class_list":["post-2036123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-topgear-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2036123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2036123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2036123\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2036123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2036123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2036123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}