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Porsche 956 (1983) Seat Question

Posted: Tue May 14, 2019 10:02 am
by SimonaModelismo
Hi!, I'm David, from Argentina, i'm working on a 1983 Le Mans winning car. The #3 956 Porsche (Wip thead soon) and have some questions...
First, the Tamiya kits come with doble seat, (like the photo), and i have saw some photos with doble, and just one seat.
Image
Did the real car (the 1983 956 le mans winner) have that 2 seats while racing??

And last, what seatbelts did they use? I saw some builds with Red Sabelts, and other with Black ones.
What is the correct setup for the #3 car???

Thank you for any information you could give me!

David.

Re: Porsche 956 (1983) Seat Question

Posted: Tue May 14, 2019 1:48 pm
by PeteJ
I sure others with add to this but if I recall right, the "passenger" seat was a Group C class rule for Le Mans just like the earlier suitcase and spare tire requirement. The passenger seat cushion was easily removable and not meant to actually be used by a passenger, thus no seat belts on that side. Some venues required the seat. Others did not. Either way, the aluminum framework for the seat was there. You would need to check the race by race rules to be "authentic". However a case could probably be made for either way if you chose to do so.

Re: Porsche 956 (1983) Seat Question

Posted: Tue May 14, 2019 2:38 pm
by SimonaModelismo
I am trying to represent the # 3 car that won the 24 Hours of Le Mans, but I can't find any picture where the interior is clearly seen to check if during the race they used the extra seat or not. And what's the color of the Seatbelts in the main seat.

Re: Porsche 956 (1983) Seat Question

Posted: Wed May 15, 2019 9:43 am
by stubeck
Assuming its similar to the #1, it does look like in this video that the seat is there, https://us.motorsport.com/lemans/video/ ... 15/331455/

Re: Porsche 956 (1983) Seat Question

Posted: Wed May 15, 2019 4:53 pm
by jaykay
The red Sabelts are wrong.
The Rothmans cars used dark ( black ) seatbelts by german manufacturer "Autoflug".
If you want detailed reference pictures for 956 003 you should get the Scalemotorsport reference CD.
That's the chassis pictured.
They are not period pictures but it seems pretty period accurate.

Image

Re: Porsche 956 (1983) Seat Question

Posted: Thu May 16, 2019 3:59 am
by Kofic
Hi David,

First of all there is a great documentary film from 1983: "Porsche 956 - Le Mans Fieber"
There is a lot of authentic footage from the development, testing and the Le Mans race.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASSRw_UfUZw

Last but no least there is a fantastic photographic collection of the Revs Digital Library from the Stanford University:

I fond some pictures (you can search by year and event (F1, endurance etc.)) from the No 3. car and No. 2 sister car, but not really good ones, but maybe it will help anyway.

You can zoom on the images!!!

https://library.revsinstitute.org/digit ... 17257coll1

https://library.revsinstitute.org/digit ... 17257coll1

https://library.revsinstitute.org/digit ... 17257coll1

https://library.revsinstitute.org/digit ... 17257coll1

Bye
Antal