Porsche shared a link to nice little video today, featuring Klaus Bischof and the cars of the Rolling Museum at the Philip Island Classic. Bischof talks about 935/78 “Moby Dick”: the longtail 935 that won the 1978 Silverstone 6 Hours by a masterful seven laps, and went on to reach 235 mph on the straight at Le Mans.

“Moby Dick was just to show the technique of turbocharging,” says Klaus. “You need a lot of fuel in this car: I was a mechanic with Moby Dick and we had to refuel every 35 minutes, so for preparing and running at Le Mans you can’t sit down! But it’s a fantastic car and shows what you can do with a 911.”

Porsche celebrated 60 years in Australia by bringing some very special vehicles from the company’s museum in Stuttgart, Germany: a 1987 962, Moby Dick and the Carrera GT you see in the background here. Moby was also at Rennsport later in the year.

Eight-time Bathurst winner and all-round legend Jim Richards was patron of the Queensland meeting. As well as treating competition winners to rides in his new GT2 RS, Jim was given permission for takeoff in Moby Dick for a few laps around the track. “I won’t give it a hard time,” says Jim to Klaus, the old mechanic replying to take it out and give it the beans: i.e. 820 horsepower (some 935s had 845 hp on tap!).

The final edit doesn’t show the pace seen in some period footage, but you can’t blame Jim for taking it steady. As Klaus says: “there is only one real Moby Dick: all the others are replicas.” Wouldn’t look good on the CV to be remembered as the guy that harpooned Moby.