You know you’re in a serious piece of machinery when the ignition switch appears to be better suited to setting weapons to “hot” in a fighter jet than starting the engine of a race car. This particular terrain-following missile finished second in class at the 1998 Daytona 24 Hours, before being converted for road use. Surprisingly the conversion of a GT1 to a road legal configuration takes less than you might expect. The driver notes just road legal tires, slightly softer suspension settings, catalytic converters and number plates are all it took. Even the Esso station-draining endurance fuel tanks are still in place. Apart from those minor tweaks, the Porsche is said to be largely as it was at the end of the 1998 Daytona 24 Hours.
When I was young in the 1990s, the 911 GT1 was THE racing Porsche, and was effectively built across three generations. This Porsche is the fourth customer car, and was delivered to Kremer Racing in 1997. By 1998, when this GT1 appeared at Daytona it did so alongside the updated EVO (note the 996-style headlight decals). At Daytona, this particular GT1 was bettered only by another 911 GT1 driven by no less than Allan McNish, Danny Sullivan, Dirk Mueller, Uwe Alzen and Jorg Muller.
The old steel-chassis 911 GT1 would soldier on until 1999; the last, and one of the wildest Porsche 911-based racers ever conceived.