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During the early 1980s, the
FIA (Federation Internationale de l'Automobile) established
the rules for international racing and the Porsche 956
prototype remained pretty much unbeaten in the Group C
class. With the aim of encouraging more manufacturers to
participate in motorsports, the FIA made the Group B class
rules more liberal and only required manufacturers to build
a minimum of 200 identical vehicles.
The new Group B rules offered interesting possibilities. For
Porsche, the 911, the oldest series in the Porsche stable
still, had a tremendous unexplored potential representing an
ideal test bed for assessing the future models. Since there
was no question of 200 customers accepting a racing car in
disguise, Porsche chose to develop the car for racing in
Group B class.
NOTE: FIA Group A class rules stipulating sedan-type cars
and production of at least 5,000 units in twelve consecutive
months, not possible for Porsche.
The project was officially launched in January, 1983 when
Porsche developed the ultimate "911" specification based
solely on technical considerations, regardless of the cost
or the work involved.
A production run of the 200 Porsche 959 vehicles needed to
meet the FIA rules were built and sold in 1986.
Initially, Dunlop developed tires with the intention of
producing road tires derived from their competition tire
used on the Porsche 956. Dunlop's Denloc tires had a unique
rubber rib attached to the bead that "locked" into a recess
in the wheel that would prevent the tire from coming off the
rim and suddenly deflating in the event of a puncture.
In addition to the recess to accommodate the Denloc bead
profile, the 959 alloy rims featured a hollow-spoke design
with a central locking nut. The wheels' hollow spokes form a
single air chamber with the tire. When fitted with the
Porsche air pressure monitoring, the system can detect
pressure loss due to cracked wheels and/or punctured tires.
A hub sensor reads the pressure in the chamber and transmits
it to the on-board computer, which activates an alarm below
a certain pressure.
The Dunlop Denloc tires were replaced by Bridgestone RE71
tires on the road version of the Porsche 959. The RE71 tires
were one of the world's first self-supporting run-flat
tires. They featured the Denloc bead profile, reinforced
sidewalls and were capable of meeting the road-going Porsche
959's top speed of 202 mph.
Bridgestone has built new RE71 N0 tires featuring the Denloc
bead profile in the Porsche 959 sizes. These are the only
tires available for real Porsche 959 vehicles and also fit
RUF (a Porsche tuner) wheels produced in the 1980s that
feature the Denloc bead profile.
These tires cannot be installed on standard 17-inch diameter
wheels and tires with standard 17-inch bead profiles cannot
be installed on Denloc wheels.
Only a few of these tires are manufactured in Japan each
year. The tires we have received are intended solely to
support customers in North America. They cannot be exported! |
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