Roger Penske has led Porsche’s sports car efforts on the racetrack for the past three years, and now he’s taken it to the street – literally.
Penske is the owner of this one-off road-legal version of the German firm’s Le Mans Hypercar, known as the 963 RSP; Roger Searle Penske’s initials. Remarkably, though, while Porsche admits Penske was always the ideal customer, the project began with no specific owner in mind. Instead, it was inspired by Porsche’s decision 50 years ago to create a road-legal version of its iconic 917 Le Mans racer for Count Rossi, heir to the Martini fortune.
“I think it’s fair to say that we started this without having one specific person in mind,” explained Timo Resch, President and CEO of Porsche Cars North America. “But at the very, very early stage, as I described before, 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 realized that the customer can only be Roger. So that was kind of very early on where we realized 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.”
The 963 RSP is a literal racing car for the road, having begun life as a brand-new Multimatic chassis that was then converted by a small “submarine” team of experts at Porsche Motorsport headquarters in Germany and then finished at the Porsche Classic Factory Restoration in the USA; not far from where the Porsche Penske Motorsport North American operation is based.
Jonathan Diuguid, Managing Director of Porsche Penske Motorsport played a key role in the development of the car and explained how the project came together. He said Penske, who was a successful driver early in his career, has been pushing to drive one of the team’s race cars since they hit the track.
“Roger’s been excited from the start,” Diuguid said. “He’s been asking to drive the 963 basically since we got the first one on the road in late 2022. And this unique opportunity came to put those two things together and, you know, soften the edges of the race car a little bit to a point where it’s more tame and something he can drive. And he has been really excited about it from the start of the project.”
Diuguid explained the key changes to the 963 race car and the RSP centre around the bodywork, with the large openings over the wheel arches closed off, and then the powertrain – which combines a twin-turbo V8 engine with a hybrid system – has been retuned for better on-road performance. The car is also raised to its highest ride-height, the suspension softened and Michelin wet weather tyres are fitted (complete with 1970s era Michelin stickers in honour of the Rossi 917).
“ So obviously the bones of this car are a race car and the goals of a race car are quite different,” he said during the presentation. “There’s regulatory restrictions that require us to have certain things and circled here in this picture are the large wheel arch openings. These are necessary for blow over criteria that we have to meet for high speed accidents that often happen in, in racing. And, knock on wood, we don’t plan for the 963 RSP to be in any high speed accidents. And so it gives us the opportunity to change some of the styling and some of the appearance of the car to make it look more like a road car and close these things in and offer a few small design changes and design cues, which really make it unique.”
He added: “ The biggest change is that instead of running on racing fuel the car and the engine can now run on pump gas that you can buy at a normal gas station. And then also some of the engine tuning and driving characteristics we’re also tuned down slightly to have more of a compliant car that it can be at 60 kays or 100km/h and not be surging around. So those are two big things.
“And then outside of that, I think the systems on the car also have been tuned to try to help non-racing drivers drive the car, whether it’s traction control systems or how the hybrid system is deployed to smooth out the power curves and those kinds of things. So when, when it, it drops from absolute optimization of, of power output to have a better driving experience. All those things have been done as part of this project.”
Inside, the cabin has been modified to make it more comfortable for Penske, or whoever gets to drive it. Taking inspiration from Count Rossi’s 917, the interior is finished in brown leather and suede, but there’s still only space for one seat, so the 963 RSP is not for taking trips with friends or family. One surprising addition is a horn, so the car can ‘honk’ other road users, but it’s still a highly complex racing prototype so it requires a laptop to start it, not a key.
The 963 RSP is finished in the same silver hue as the Rossi 917, as a way of connecting the two projects despite their 50 year gap. Another nice detail is the Porsche emblem on the front of the car is a proper badge and not a sticker, like it is on the race car.
The Rossi 917 and the 963 RSP hit the road together in France ahead of the official reveal, driving down the French motorway and country roads. Officially the 963 RSP is able to be driven on French and US roads “under certain conditions” – so Penske won’t be able to use it as his daily commuter car.
Once the car is done with its official duties at Le Mans this week, it will be returned to the US and handed over to Penske in a formal ceremony at the Monterey Car Week in August.
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