News reached DSC this evening of the passing on Monday of Manfred Kremer at the age of 81.
Alongside his elder brother Manfred, who passed away in 2006, the brothers founded Kremer Racing in 1962.
The brothers were renowned for their ‘K’ cars, significantly modified Porsches, in particular, their cars based on the 911, 935, 936 and 962 with their achievements topped, in 1979, by an overall win at Le Mans for a Porsche 935 K3 piloted by Klaus Ludwig, Bill and Don Whittington, the Kremer car utilising then cutting edge materials including Kevlar while the factory cars were still using fibreglass and aluminium.
Kremer Racing missed only one Le Mans 24 Hours between 1971 and 1999 (usually with a multiple car entry) and during that period were very regular top 10 performers in a wide variety of (usually Porsche) machinery.
There was an overall win at Daytona too, this time with a Kremer K8, an open-top version of the Porsche 962 dubbed the Kremer K8 – Christophe Bouchut, Jürgen Lässig, Giovanni Lavaggi and Marco Werner took the win. Kremer Racing remain one of only two private teams (alongside compatriots on lifelong rivals Joest Racing) to take overall wins as private teams at both Le Mans and Daytona.
Whilst there were periods with Honda (an NSX at Le Mans in 1994, and Lola (A B98/10 in the FIA SCC and its precursors and at Le Mans in 1999) but the team’s history will forever be linked with Porsche.
The team continued beyond the death of Erwin Kremer in new hands in the VLN and in historic racing.
