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1988 Porsche 962 Raced by Derek Bell and Tiff Needell Can Now Be Yours

We all know Tiff Needell from Top Gear and Fifth Gear. In 1990, he finished Le Mans third overall with the help of David Sears and Anthony Reid. As for Derek Bell, the British racing driver won the endurance race no fewer than five times.
1988 Porsche 962-200 raced by Derek Bell and Tiff Needell 9 photos
Photo: Historic Classics
1988 Porsche 962-200 raced by Derek Bell and Tiff Needell1988 Porsche 962-200 raced by Derek Bell and Tiff Needell1988 Porsche 962-200 raced by Derek Bell and Tiff Needell1988 Porsche 962-200 raced by Derek Bell and Tiff Needell1988 Porsche 962-200 raced by Derek Bell and Tiff Needell1988 Porsche 962-200 raced by Derek Bell and Tiff Needell1988 Porsche 962-200 raced by Derek Bell and Tiff Needell1988 Porsche 962-200 raced by Derek Bell and Tiff Needell
The 962 we’ll talk about today has been raced by Tiff and Derek in ‘89, but as fate would have it, the six-cylinder land missile didn’t cross the finish line. Curiously enough for such a motorsport-oriented automaker, this racing car never won a race, only settling for second at the Silverstone Superprint Supercup thanks to Needell.

Martin Donnelly, Price Cobb, David Hobbs, and James Weaver are a few other names connected to this example of the breed, and following its professional career, the 962-200 was old to Murray Smith who was successful in the Historic Sportscar Racing series. Since 2003, it’s been with Historic Classics of Uckfield, the UK.

The selling vendor is asking 985,000 pounds sterling for this piece of racing history, and as you can tell from the photo gallery, the 962-200 has recently gone through a ground-up rebuild to 1989 specifications. From the floor to the top of the roof, this job takes 1,200 to 1,500 hours according to Group C restoration specialist Katana Limited. From start to finish, that translates to approximately a year of work.

As the most dominant racing car in the earliest part of its career, the 962 will always be a blue-chip collectible among Porsche enthusiasts. Between 1984 and 1991, no fewer than 91 examples were built. 16 of them were used by the factory team while the remaining 75 were sold to customer teams. Derek Bell, who won 21 times in various 962s over the years, famously said that the 962 is “quite easy to drive.”

Care to guess how much suck-squeeze-bang-blow the 3.0-liter boxer cranks out? In its glory days, the mid-mounted boxer with a pair of KKK turbochargers ran to the tune of 780 horsepower and 524 pound-feet of torque (710 Nm) at 5,000 rpm.

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About the author: Mircea Panait
Mircea Panait profile photo

After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well.
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