The Porsche 962 (also known as the 962C in its Group C form) is a sports-prototype racing car built by Porsche as a replacement for the 956 and designed mainly to comply with IMSA's GTP regulations, although it would later compete in the European Group C formula as the 956 had. The 962 was introduced at the end of 1984, from which it quickly became successful through private owners while having a remarkably long-lived career, with some examples still proving competitive into the mid-1990s. The vehicle was later replaced by the Porsche WSC-95.

This particular kit was one of the factory entered cars from the 1988 season. The rear body section was often changed depending on the track configuration. When running on a high speed circuit, such as Le Mans, the rear wing was lower and smaller. This kit is one of the higher downforce versions.

I bought this kit second hand on a Facebook sales page as the price was reasonable and I wanted the kit. As sometimes happens, the kit box shown by the seller was not the one I got. The kit I got, while complete, was not in a sealed box as stated in the advert and had writing on it indicating that there were aftermarket items in it. None of those bits were in the box.

Tamiya race car kits generally follow the Tamiya mantra of make it accurate, but don't make it so fiddly that people get fed up with it. That means there aren't a ton of parts. The engineering is excellent as is the detailing. This has one main sprue, a lower chassis plate, a body and a set of tires. The clear bits were already installed. Since their installation is not shown in the instructions, I have to assume they are factory installed.

Since this is a curbside, one will spend most of the construction time building up the front and rear suspensions as well as outfitting the interior. Decals are provided for the racing harness and instrument dials. A goodly amount of time will be spent painting this one. Not only is quite a bit of instruction space taken up with this, but Tamiya provides cut out sticky masks to enable you to properly portray the bright scheme carried by this particular car. The two main shades of red and yellow are provided in Tamiya's spray range. In fact, when Tamiya does a car kit, they also ensure that the proper shade is available. This is something I really like about the company.

Instructions are superb and provide only Tamiya paint references. The large decal sheet is well printed and should prove to work just fine.

CONCLUSIONS

While not that much of a gear head, I appreciate the quality and ease of build of Tamiya's racing car kits. The few I have built have turned out just great and I know this one will be the same.  I should point out that the decals are supposed to be for the three cars entered in the 1988 LeMans 24hours. Unfortunately, you are provided the wrong rear bodywork for this race. However, that is not really much of an issue as the same number cars ran at other races. Just check the 'net for the appropriate photos as the placement of the small sponsor logos sometimes changed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche_962

July 2018