(By Eric Rood) – With the 100th edition of the Indy 500 looming, the owners of the never-raced Porsche-engined Indy 500 project have opted to put it back on the auction block. In 1979, Interscope Racing—along with Porsche—set out to adapt the 935K’s turbocharged engine (which had won multiple major endurance races) to run in a Parnelli chassis at the 1980 Indy 500.
The field-tested flat-six mill was modified a bit and fed liberal amounts of boost and, when tested by Danny Ongais at Ontario Motor Speedway, the new engine-chassis combination obliterated the track record. Ultimately, the Indy 500’s sanctioning body USAC capped the engine’s boost at level that Porsche (though not Interscope) found unacceptable and Stuttgart threw in the towel before Indy qualifying rolled around.
The car never ran and Interscope sold the race car, a backup, and a show car. After a couple decades in warehouse storage, the tested car got a complete restoration in 2002 and has been maintained since as part of the Matt Drendel Collection, also known as a flat-six pornographic fantasy for Porsche-philes.
Read more on this car over at FlatSixes:
http://flatsixes.com/porsche-motorsports/politics-prevent-porsche-participation-1980-indianapolis/
