Porsche Group C legends take part in panel chat at inaugural Motoring Literary and Art festival.

On Saturday the 2nd of December we attended the inaugural Porter Press International Motoring Literary and Art Festival at the impressive Silverstone Wing. The event celebrated motoring books, magazines, art and automobilia and brought together many of the worlds top motoring writers, artists and publishers.

With an accomplished list of personalities from the motoring world there was a busy schedule of panel discussions and interviews. For the Group C fans “The all conquering 956s and 962s” was a fascinating discussion about the golden era of Porsche endurance racing hosted by Mark Cole with John Watson, John Fitzpatrick, Serge Vanbockryck and Sean Roberts. It was extremely interesting to hear some of the first hand stories from the development and subsequent domination of these incredible cars.

The series of ultimate Group C Porsche books were available for signing by the panel after the discussion. If you couldn’t attend the event but would still like to get your hands on one of the books, don’t worry! There are copies available online from the following link and the exclusive offers still apply for a limited number of copies.

Mark Cole was the perfect host for this discussion, having been a commentator on Le Mans for Europsort TV for 30 years as well as being press attaché for the FIA World Sports Car Championship. Mark is also the Author of John Fitzpatrick Group C Porsches – The Definitive History; this means he probably knows the John Fitzpatrick races as well as John himself!

John Watson is known by many for his Formula One career however following this he raced successfully in the World Sportscar Championship. Over the course of his career Watson raced the Le Mans 24 Hours seven times, including in 1985 when he drove another of our Works Rothmans cars (962-004). In 1984 he partnered Stefan Bellof to win the 1000km of Fuji in a Works Porsche 956, he also came 2nd in the World Sportscar Championship in 1987 for Jaguar.

John Fitzpatrick has had an extremely successful and versatile racing career from winning the BSCC championship in a Ford Anglia to becoming a team owner and being the only privateer team to run a double entry of Porsche 956s. The JFR team made a clear statement of intent by beating the Works team to win the 1983 Brands Hatch 1000km. JFR also famously ran the Skoal Bandit livery in the 1984 season as maintained on our 956-114.

Serge Vanbockryck is the author of the Ultimate 956/962 series of books. He has poured 30 years worth of work into this extremely detailed set of books making for incredible reading. As a walking dictionary of Group C Porsche knowledge he is the perfect person to join this panel discussion.

Lastly, Sean Roberts headed up PR for Rothmans during their Porsche era. He is arguably the man responsible for one of the most iconic racing liveries ever. He was also largely influential in the return of Group C racing at historic racing events.

Although the event focused on the motoring literature and art, there were some special cars on display as well! 

Some of the star cars included the double Le Mans winning Ferrari 250P/275P, 550 Prodrive, Ferrari 250 Breadvan and the famous Geneva Motorshow E-type ‘9600 HP’.