Porsche 956 Cockpit Ref Piccys..

After purchasing the Tamiya kit of one of my favourite Group C Cars the Porsche 956 Newman version...I am looking for any reference photos of the cockpit, as the kit comes with the second molded seat and wondered whether the cars ran them in this formation...

Any help...

Danny

There certainly are pics out there of 956 cockpits. I seem to remember that a year or three ago, someone posted a bunch here- you might try searching for them.

However, they're not likely to tell you whether or not Joest ran with the spare seat installed during the race in 1984.

Obviously the seat could be fitted. Obviously, it also could be removed to access the fuel pumps behind it. But few if any pics you're likely to find will be of a Joest (or even another privateer) car in 1984. The '84 cars were an early configuration of the 956. Best as I've been able to tell, Porsche recommended that privateer teams in '84 run their cars with Kugelfischer pump fuel injection (instead of the Bosch setup depicted in the Tamiya kit), and Joest's cars had vented but undrilled rotors for the race. But I haven't seen cockpit pics of any 956 during the race. What pics/videos do exist usually shows the drivers changing from the right side of the car, leaving the left side door unopened and left side cockpit unphotographed.

Most 956s were reconfigured, reraced, and/or resold, some multiple times. Detail pics you're likely to find now will be of 956s in later configurations- and possibly set up for different racing series. For instance, it's hard to find pics of Kugelfischer setups, as most or all 956s were later converted to Bosch injection. The car that Tamiya based their kit on was not an '82 Le Mans configured car, but a 956B they studied sometime later.

I've heard that in the early 80's, the Group C regulation stating that the cars had to be able to carry a passenger was more closely followed than the same rule is followed today for LMP cars. It is very possible that while LMP cars today almost never have second seats installed, cars in '84 may have run with second seats.

I have the same kit, and am planning an (eventual) build of it. I've pondered the same question about removing the seat. For myself I've decided to leave it. I can't conclusively show that it was removed, and I don't have documentation for whatever fuel pump configuration the '84 Joest cars had behind the seat. It would be some effort to remove and scratchbuild the walls and components under the seat, the results won't be very visible through the windscreen, and there are better places on the kit to apply that level of effort. So on my build, the seat likely stays.

Has anyone seen the detail cd in the SMS/Tamiya 956 kit?
Again, I recall someone er.... giving a "preview" of some of the sms photos.

Might answer some questions.

I have the SMS kit, the CD is nice but for my taste the pictures are to "closeup" and that makes it very hard to figure where cables and pipes are going, other than that a nice CD

@Danny: you should invest a little time in google, I found hundreds of perfect pictures on the net in no time. The 956 and 962 must be the most photgrapeh car :-)

http://www.gurneyflap.com/


daniel
-germany-

I have the SMS kit, the CD is nice but for my taste the pictures are to "closeup" and that makes it very hard to figure where cables and pipes are going, other than that a nice CD

@Danny: you should invest a little time in google, I found hundreds of perfect pictures on the net in no time. The 956 and 962 must be the most photgrapeh car :-)

http://www.gurneyflap.com/


daniel
-germany-

Cheers for the comments, was thinking about getting that CD but never not round to getting hold of one...