TrueScale Miniatures 1980 Porsche 935 K3 1980 DRM #2 Jagermeister

The factory-supported Porsche 935's dominated Gran Turismo / Group 5 racing in the early 1970's. Then the Kremer Brothers, Manfred and Erwin, decided to take on the factory cars with their own version of the 935 that had been modified beyond the factory specs. The result was the 935 K3, a lighter, faster, better-handling version of the same car. Only 13 K3's were built but these cars had an impressive record winning LeMans overall in 1979, Sebring in 1980 and the 24 hours of Daytona and the Monza 1000 km in 1981.

The number 2 Jagermeister K3 competed in the DRM (German Racing Championship) with drivers Axel Plankenhorn, Rolf Stommelen, Jochen Maas and John Fitzpatrick. Although the material that comes with this car lists Plankenhorn as the driver, John Fitzpatrick was actually more successful winning both at Zolder and Hockenheim during the 1980 season in this car.

True Scale Miniatures (TSM) has purchased the Carousel 1 tooling for this car and is building them under the TSM name. But these new cars are detailed at a higher level than the C1's were. In fact, their elevated level of detail meets and sometime exceeds the more-expensive Exotos.

The engines are beautifully realized with better detail than Exoto. The only place where the TSM models fall short of the Exoto detail is that the wheels are not removable to view brake and suspension detail. In addition, the vents in the front fenders do not go all the way through as they do on the Exotos. But for my money, they are the better deal and I will be adding more to my collection!

Major Wins:

• 1979 24 Hours of Le Mans (Klaus Ludwig, Bill Whittington, Don Whittington in 009 00015)
• 1980 Sebring 12 Hours (John Fitzpatrick, Dick Barbour in 000 0009)
• 1981 Daytona 24 Hours (Bob Garretson, Bobby Rahal, Brian Redman in 009 00030)
• 1981 1000 km Monza (Edgar Dören, Jürgen Lässig, Gerhard Holup in 009 0003)

-True Scale Miniatures