Speedline Porsche 962 Decals

By John Jameson

The Porsche 962

The Porsche 962 is an icon in endurance motorsport racing. Even today it remains one of the most popular sports cars and its success was seen throughout the world. Here in the 'states the 962 ran in the IMSA series and on European circuts as part of the Group C endurance class and saw duty throughout the mid and late '80s and even the very early '90's. Its sights and sounds were seen at some of the most famous endurance races such as the 24 hours of Daytona, and the 24 hours of LeMans. Yet the 962 could also be seen run by privaters at such great IMSA series circuts such as Road America, where yours truly first laid eyes on her. The Porsche 962 underwent many changes in its long and glorious years of service and the car remained competitive for an eternity, at least six years, which is and enternity in terms of modern sports car tenure. Because of its long length of service, and the different racing series it competed in, the car ran in many liveries with many small but obvious modifications.

The Decals

These new decals from Speedline and Twoguysracing span the many years of service the 962 endured.

	First is SPD7, the LiquiMolly sponsored decal set. This set of decals is to represent the car as run in 1985 in the WSPC series and driven by M. Winkelhock and M. Surer. The livery is a white body with the red, white and blue stripes as sponsored by LiquiMolly and Puma.
	Next up is SPD8 (Although my sample review has SPD 6 printed on the decals), the Miller High Life sponsored decal set. This set is to represent the car as run in the IMSA series in 1987 and driven by A. Holbert, D. Bell, P. Cobb, and C. Robinson. This livery is the Miller High Life Gold and white.
	Next from Speedline is SPD 6, Torno sponsored decal set. This set is to represent the car as run at the 24 Hr of Daytona in 1989 and driven by G. Moretti, M. Sigala, M. Baldi, and G. Brancatelli. This livery is the striking red, white and green as sponsored by Torno and Momo.

The last set, not seen here, is SPD 5, the Texaco sponsored car from the 1990 24 Hr. of Daytona. (Take a look at twoguysracing website and specifically this link for a look at the Texaco sheet The Texaco set wasn't ready at the time of writing this article. There was an apparent printing snafu and Kevin and Wayne at twoguysracing sent them back to the printers for a proper job.

Conclusions

The decals look of excellent quality. The decals are relatively inexpensive as far as decals go at $10 each. I imagine if these were sold by some other manufactures, they would run up to more like $15. These are full 5" x 8" sheets with color placement guides. All of the artwork is done by Umi Graphics. Kudos goes out to Speedline for the effort to produce quality decals and not automatically setting the price at the high end of the spectrum. I continue to be impressed by Speedline. They are pumping out decals asked for by builders and they deliver on their word. I see on their website they have in the pipeline another three or so sets of CART decals and a couple of TransAM Mustang decals sets slated for release. Wow! A busy little operation!

Speedline is the brand name of Twoguysracing and represents their leap into the aftermarket accessory field. The decals can be purchased directly from Twoguysracing or from your favorite aftermarket supply shop.

Having said all that, be warned that due to the many years of service and different series the Porsche 962 competed in, there are slight modifications required to accurately model each of the cars presented by these decals from existing kits, except perhaps the LiquiMolly version. I need to do a bit more research myself. There is no readily available 962 kit in IMSA trim and the kits that are out there are of the car in Group C form (962C) and include several versions from Tamiya including the 'From A' or 'Blankput' versions or from Hasegawa several versions, the 'Kenwood Kremer' the 'Advan', or the 'Omron' version as well as a few others that escape me. All of these kits are curbside. Tamiya's 956 kit in either 'Rothmans' or 'Newman' trim may also be an acceptable donor, as this kit is fully detailed, and can be kit bashed with a 962 kit for a real challenge, but perhaps most accurate. Some of the main things to look at are wing configurations and Turbo or air intakes. A few examples, the Miller car has a 'hump' for the turbo on the rear deck while the Torno car has a different rear wing and air intake scoops on the rear deck. So if youíre a stickler for accuracy you need to do your research.

A big thanks to Speedline for the review samples!!