Porsche 963 RSP will make millionaires beg

News.com.au

6 hours ago

Like toddlers all clamouring for the same toy, Porsche is expecting to be flooded with calls from billionaire car collectors from around the world after revealing its latest one-of-a-kind creation.
The Porsche 963 RSP is a road-legal (although, they use that term loosely) version of the brand's prototype racing sports car that will compete at next week's Le Mans 24 Hours.
It was built and named for Roger Searle Penske, the billionaire businessman and race team owner who oversees Porsche's on-track activities; as well as running successful NASCAR and IndyCar teams.
The 963 RSP project was inspired by a one-off road-legal version of Porsche's iconic 917 race car that it built in 1975 for Gregorio Rossi di Montelera, the heir to the Martini & Rossi company.
But whereas that car was built specifically for 'Count Rossi' this new race-car-for-the-road began as a top secret project and found its obvious owner once the multimillion-dollar project was underway.
Timo Resch, President and chief executive of Porsche Cars North America, oversaw the project with the car being built both in Germany and the USA, with influence from the factory racing department and Porsche Penske Motorsport personnel.
'I think it's fair to say that we started this without having one specific person in mind,' Resch admitted. 'But at the very, very early stage … when we started figuring out 'can this be done or are we taking too much on ourselves?' And in this conversation with Roger, at the very early stage, we realised that the customer can only be Roger. So that was kind of very early on where we realised he would be the perfect customer, number one, and also the only customer for such a car because it's a one-off.
'Who knows what the future brings. But this particular car is a one-off.'
That open-ended answer will no doubt have other car collectors from around the world calling Porsche asking for their own custom-made road-legal race car. No price was put on the 963 RSP, which required a lot of specialised work to make it suitable for the road, but Porsche reportedly sells the racing versions of the 963 to race teams for US$2.9 million (approx. $4.4m).
Angus Fitton, vice president of public relations for Porsche North America, said the company had already started receiving calls, as soon as a shadowy teaser image was revealed in April.
' We have received questions, yes, I can tell that I know that Urs [Kuratle, Director of Factor Racing Porsche Motorsport] and JD [Jonathan Diuguid, Managing Director Porsche Penske Motorsport] have had [questions too],' Fitton said. 'Whether that translates into anything more serious, that'll need to wait for another day,'
'But certainly people are asking the questions of us, because inevitably you look at the teaser and look at some of the speculation and press [and people say] 'Hey, you guys working on something?' and that conversation. It'll be interesting to see what comes out after June 6th, when this is revealed, what the feedback is.
'But no, there is no harm in asking. We'll always listen and as Urs said earlier, you know, never say never, but for now, this is a one-of-one this car.'
Key technical changes for the 963 RSP compared to the racing version include new bodywork that encloses the wheels (and is painted silver to match the Count Rossi 917), higher and softer suspension, wet weather tyres and a detuned twin-turbo V8 engine and hybrid system to make it more manageable at road speeds.
The 2025 24 Hours of Le Mans will be held in France on June 14-15. Australia's Matt Campbell will be competing for outright victory with Porsche Penske Motorsport in a racing version of the 963.