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"Moby was a monster": time to meet the mighty Porsche 935/78

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"Moby was a monster": time to meet the mighty Porsche 935/78 | Top Gear

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Should you meet your heroes? Top Gear gets to grips with the automotive 'Moby Dick'

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"Moby was a monster": time to meet the mighty Porsche 935/78

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Should you meet your heroes? Top Gear gets to grips with the automotive 'Moby Dick'

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Should you meet your heroes? Top Gear gets to grips with the automotive 'Moby Dick'

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"Moby was a monster": time to meet the mighty Porsche 935/78

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"Moby was a monster": time to meet the mighty Porsche 935/78

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"Moby was a monster": time to meet the mighty Porsche 935/78

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Should you meet your heroes? Top Gear gets to grips with the automotive 'Moby Dick'

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This is it, the event horizon in my car world. Once I’d clapped eyes on it, the Porsche 935/78 tractor beamed me in to a motorsport black hole I’ve never escaped from. What a stupendous looking car. I can’t remember the first time I saw it. Possibly in a tatty magazine in a dentist’s waiting room or maybe in a Le Mans snippet during a break from Rallycross on ITV’s World of Sport.

F1 cars were super cool in the late ’70s, but there was something about the closed cockpit Group 5 racers that really spoke to me. Probably that there was a semblance of recognisable car to the Capris, 3.0CSLs and 935s I saw two-wheeling over kerbs. They were wild, steroidal racers.

But amongst them, a stand out star. A car called Moby Dick. It was a deliberately unkind nickname, a reference to Hermann Melville’s great white whale and, we must assume, given to it by frustrated rivals, desperate to belittle a car that was running rings around them.

Photography: Rowan Horncastle

Literally. Its first ever race was the Silverstone six hour. It won by seven laps. The fear for Le Mans was that it might not only win its class, but win overall. After all, the regular 935 had won its class at every single Le Mans it started. And compared to a regular 935, Moby was a monster.

The floor was raised, dropping the body by 75mm, the gearbox was mounted upside down and the 3.2-litre flat six was totally overhauled (by Hans Mezger, naturally), with water-cooled cylinder heads and all sorts of trickery, including an additional KKK turbo. At a time when the road-going 911 Turbo had 260bhp, Moby had 845bhp.

At Le Mans in 1978 it qualified third overall and was the fastest thing down the Mulsanne Straight, pulling 227mph. But not reliably. Minor mechanical issues and a towering appetite for fuel meant the single car Porsche entered only finished eighth. It went on to race a few more times, but other than Silverstone, essentially achieved nothing.

Apart from acting as a complete racing inspiration to me – and probably many, many others. Even so, I never dreamt that one day I’d get to drive a – no, the – 935/78. And discover it’s about as challenging to drive as cars get. The most concerning is the locked differential which means Moby doesn’t exactly like going round corners. I steer, the front wheels turn, but the back wheels would far rather continue straight on. Eventually some kind of enforced agreement between the axles sees me get round the corner, but in a state of considerable alarm.

It’s a catapult for the straights, a compressor of distance

Which makes me nervous about pressing the throttle in any of the four forward gears. Don’t worry, nothing will happen, well, today. A sloth would find the turbo lag rather lackadaisical.

Just not the events that eventually follow. At some point the turbos are roused from their slumber and having pressed snooze a few times, decide to emerge from under their duvets and get to work. There’s plenty of warning, plenty of opportunity to lift, but something about the whole prodding a bear process doesn’t allow me to lift the throttle.

I’ve still never encountered a car that inserts quite as much force, quite as viciously, into my spine as this one. Nor accompanies it with a wider variety of hoots, whistles, chirrups, roars and barks. It’s a catapult for the straights, a compressor of distance, one of the very few cars I’ve driven that appears to not accelerate, but leap forward.

Moby doesn’t want to be your friend. Moby is vicious. Moby is unforgiving. Moby is plain brilliant. The most memorable and exciting driving experience money can’t buy. It competed almost 50 years ago now. And yet it remains the most powerful Porsche 911 there’s ever been. If Group 5 ever made a comeback, Moby’s descendant would need 2,300bhp to repeat the power advantage it had over the original 911 Turbo road car. Just imagine.

Hero: Possibly the leanest, meanest, boostiest Porsche there’s ever been

Zero: An utter pig to drive

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This is it, the event horizon in my car world. Once I’d clapped eyes on it, the Porsche 935/78 tractor beamed me in to a motorsport black hole I’ve never escaped from. What a stupendous looking car. I can’t remember the first time I saw it. Possibly in a tatty magazine in a dentist’s waiting room or maybe in a Le Mans snippet during a break from Rallycross on ITV’s World of Sport.

F1 cars were super cool in the late ’70s, but there was something about the closed cockpit Group 5 racers that really spoke to me. Probably that there was a semblance of recognisable car to the Capris, 3.0CSLs and 935s I saw two-wheeling over kerbs. They were wild, steroidal racers.

But amongst them, a stand out star. A car called Moby Dick. It was a deliberately unkind nickname, a reference to Hermann Melville’s great white whale and, we must assume, given to it by frustrated rivals, desperate to belittle a car that was running rings around them.

Photography: Rowan Horncastle

Literally. Its first ever race was the Silverstone six hour. It won by seven laps. The fear for Le Mans was that it might not only win its class, but win overall. After all, the regular 935 had won its class at every single Le Mans it started. And compared to a regular 935, Moby was a monster.

The floor was raised, dropping the body by 75mm, the gearbox was mounted upside down and the 3.2-litre flat six was totally overhauled (by Hans Mezger, naturally), with water-cooled cylinder heads and all sorts of trickery, including an additional KKK turbo. At a time when the road-going 911 Turbo had 260bhp, Moby had 845bhp.

At Le Mans in 1978 it qualified third overall and was the fastest thing down the Mulsanne Straight, pulling 227mph. But not reliably. Minor mechanical issues and a towering appetite for fuel meant the single car Porsche entered only finished eighth. It went on to race a few more times, but other than Silverstone, essentially achieved nothing.

Apart from acting as a complete racing inspiration to me – and probably many, many others. Even so, I never dreamt that one day I’d get to drive a – no, the – 935/78. And discover it’s about as challenging to drive as cars get. The most concerning is the locked differential which means Moby doesn’t exactly like going round corners. I steer, the front wheels turn, but the back wheels would far rather continue straight on. Eventually some kind of enforced agreement between the axles sees me get round the corner, but in a state of considerable alarm.

It’s a catapult for the straights, a compressor of distance

Which makes me nervous about pressing the throttle in any of the four forward gears. Don’t worry, nothing will happen, well, today. A sloth would find the turbo lag rather lackadaisical.

Just not the events that eventually follow. At some point the turbos are roused from their slumber and having pressed snooze a few times, decide to emerge from under their duvets and get to work. There’s plenty of warning, plenty of opportunity to lift, but something about the whole prodding a bear process doesn’t allow me to lift the throttle.

I’ve still never encountered a car that inserts quite as much force, quite as viciously, into my spine as this one. Nor accompanies it with a wider variety of hoots, whistles, chirrups, roars and barks. It’s a catapult for the straights, a compressor of distance, one of the very few cars I’ve driven that appears to not accelerate, but leap forward.

Moby doesn’t want to be your friend. Moby is vicious. Moby is unforgiving. Moby is plain brilliant. The most memorable and exciting driving experience money can’t buy. It competed almost 50 years ago now. And yet it remains the most powerful Porsche 911 there’s ever been. If Group 5 ever made a comeback, Moby’s descendant would need 2,300bhp to repeat the power advantage it had over the original 911 Turbo road car. Just imagine.

Hero: Possibly the leanest, meanest, boostiest Porsche there’s ever been

Zero: An utter pig to drive

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Should you meet your heroes? Top Gear gets to grips with the automotive 'Moby Dick'

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Meet your heroes: Porsche 935/78 ‘Moby Dick’