This one-off Porsche 935 'Street' is the embodiment of '80s excess
A key cultural byword for the 1970s and 1980s as a period in history has to be excess. A time when the post-war economic trot and jog of the 1950s and ‘60s tumbled into a frantic sprint as the world shrunk beneath our feet. Money was everything. Those that had it, had a lot of it and what it was spent on, or rather what you were seen to be spending it on, defined happiness and success. Excess, money in quantities more than can be spent at any one time – the dawn of the first world problem.
Nothing said moneyed at the dawn of the 1980s like a set of keys to a 911 Turbo but for one in a position like one Mansour Ojjeh, a Turbo like any other in the hands of a man with a statement to make, wasn’t a statement at all. His company, Techniques d'Avant Garde (TAG) were in bed with McLaren at the time, supplying engines to the British F1 squad, as developed with Porsche in their employ. In sportscar racing at the time, the Group 5 935 Porsche had been enjoying a significant monopoly. Itself a heavily modified version of the contemporary 911 Turbo, the 935 was a monstrous representation of the 911 shape to the ultimate extreme – the loose Group 5 special production regulations allowing for a swollen smoothed-over ground-hugging chin, broad shoulders and hips and a gloriously crude wedge wing. In truth, the 935 was what every self-respecting early ‘80s 911 Turbo owner wanted his car to look like. Ojjeh being in the privileged position that he was, took those desires straight to Porsche. Thus the 935 Street and, consequently, the Porsche Exclusive division, simultaneously came into being.
The resulting machine was, underneath, some ways removed from the 700bhp+ fire-breathing racer from which it drew its aesthetic inspiration. The big arches, wing, vents and slanted nose were all present and correct but dulled by measures to the end of roadworthiness. The neutered chin spoiler and jacked-up ride height made it more at home battling London speed-humps than sucking itself to the asphalt at 200mph down the Mulsanne. Nevertheless, this was the ‘80s. First impressions were all you needed. Image was everything. So, unless you parked it up next to Moby Dick itself – a luxury we were afforded at 76MM – this one-off 935 Street did exactly as it said on the tin: replaced the smugness of any "regular" 911 Turbo owner with the green of envy.
None of this is to say that the 935 Street was merely a 930 Turbo in drag. Its 3.3-litre turbocharged flat-six was of genuine race origin, putting out a heady 380hp – 45 over and above that of the most powerful 930 Turbo iteration. New wheels, suspension componentry, brakes and more helped control the fury. While Ojjeh’s one-off treat came clad in a unique brilliant red hue, with cream leather, a wood-lashed cabin and a Clarion sound system, it could put the fright on most supercars of the day.
With it sat in the paddocks at the end of a row of race-ready 935s the differences are apparent. Yet it’s no less the embodiment of ‘80s excess and one-upmanship that it was always intended to be. Perhaps more significantly, it was a glimpse into the not-too-distant future of top-level sportscar racing – an era when a Le Mans-winning chassis had to have representation on the road and Strassenversion was one of the coolest names in the supercar world. For all its pointlessness, it was one of our favourite cars at 76MM.
Photography by Pete Summers and Tom Shaxson
Porsche
935
