VIN: the works Porsche 953 chassis 100022
History of chassis 100022
The 953 was the first four-wheel drive 911. Three examples were built to contest the 1984 Paris-Dakar Rally.
100022 was registered BB PW 528. It ran the Paris-Dakar as Porsche’s fast service car in support of the two main entries for Jacky Ickx and Rene Metge.
100022 was allocated to Roland Kussmaul and his navigator, Erich Lerner. Kussmaul was recruited having acted as the chief engineer on Porsche’s 1978 Safari programme. The trio of 953s were supported on the event by two MAN lorries filled with additional spares.
The 12,000km route to Dakar in Senegal included nearly 6000km of special stages.
Despite having been more involved in service work rather than the competition, Kussmaul and Lerner routinely finished stages in the top ten and often in the top five.
By the time the crews finished stage eight and reached Agadez in Niger (just before the mid-way point of the rally) Kussmaul and Lerner had risen to third place in the general classification.
However, on stage eleven (from Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso to Bouna in Ivory Coast), Kussmaul rolled chassis 100022 which led to a several hour delay waiting for the recovery truck to arrive.
Fortunately, Kussmaul and Lerner were unhurt and their car was only slightly damaged. Nevertheless, the incident caused them to drop to ninth in the overall standings.
Over the next couple of legs, 100022 moved back to eighth overall, but subsequent delays dropped it out of the top 20.
Kussmaul was finally able to push a little harder on the event’s last couple of days which took place in Senegal; he took second to Ickx on the penultimate stage (Tambacounda to Sali Portudal) and won the 100km finale along the beach into Dakar. This was a fitting result for Kussmaul and Lerner after they had done such a sterling job in support of their team-mates.
100022 ultimately finished in 26th position. The sister car of Metge / Lemoyne took victory and Ickx / Brasseur finished sixth.
Afterwards, all three cars returned to the factory where they were freshened up and used as part of the 959 development programme.
Notable History
WPOZZZ91ZES100022
Rothmans Porsche
Registered BB PW 528
01-20/01/1984 IND Paris-Dakar Rally (R. Kussmaul / E. Lerner) 26th oa (#177)
Text copyright: Supercar Nostalgia
Photo copyright: Porsche - https://www.porsche.com
