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In the late nineties, bringing prototype racecars to urban roadways was an idea that several companies shared. Considering the contrast between sports car and race car engineering, embarking on such a project was a laborious task. Coupled with the limited production and tiny customer base, development costs were hard to recoup. Despite these hardships, several German companies still decided to create their own road-going Porsche 962, the most successful prototype race car of our time.

From 1983 forward, the Porsche 956 and its 962 IMSA spec version dominated for a decade. Porsche manufactured nearly 150 956/962s and sold many of the cars to private teams. During this period, Porsche manufactured and made available every component on the car. Due to this customer support, Porsche not only became the most successful marque at Le Mans, but also provided essential parts for companies, such as DP Motorsport, Schuppan, Koenig and Dauer, to make road-going specials.

Of the companies that have produced a 962 road car, the most successful has been Dauer. After displaying their first 962 at the 1993 Frankfurt Show, Dauer partnered with Porsche to manufacture a contender for the 1994 24 Hours of LeMans. At that time the prototype rules stipulated that a single road-going version of the car had to manufactured for homologation. As a result of these regulations, several homologation specials were born from the world's fastest racecars. These included the Porsche GT1, Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR and our feature car, the Dauer 962 LM. What good times.

At the 24 hour race, Dauer showed up with both a road version and race version of the Porsches 962, a design which had already won Le Mans six times. After winning the race, the FIA declared it would be creating rules to make sure the 962 wouldn't be back in 1995. However, with a Le Mans win under their belt, and with support from Porsche, Dauer continued to build their road-going 962.

Story by Richard Owen for Supercars.net