Jochen Dauer had spent several years racing for various teams in the Deutsche Rennsport Meisterschaft and its successor series, the ADAC Supercup, before establishing his own outfit. At the close of 1986, he purchased John Fitzpatrick's successful operation outright, acquiring the team's racing cars, transporters, and all equipment. Dauer also secured a Zakspeed C1/8 for Interserie competition and obtained sponsorship from the Victor Computer company, confirming a full-season Supercup campaign with the Porsche 962C.
In the team's early seasons Jochen Dauer served as the sole driver across both the Supercup and Interserie, later bringing in co-drivers for endurance events. Toward the end of 1987 the team entered the World Sports-Prototype Championship with Johnny Dumfries and Harald Grohs sharing duties in long-distance races.
By 1988, Dauer Racing was running two Porsche 962s — the Zakspeed acquisition alongside a newly purchased chassis numbered 962-133 — across the Supercup and Interserie. Results improved markedly: the team earned its first victory at the Interserie round at Autodrom Most, then recorded a one-two finish at Zeltweg Airfield with Franz Konrad driving the second entry. Jochen Dauer clinched the Interserie drivers' championship that year.
In 1989 the team refocused on the World Championship and Supercup, with Konrad remaining as co-driver before being replaced by Will Hoy and Tic Tacs stepping in as the primary sponsor. Results in the World Championship were modest — only one classified finish among the rounds entered — but the team finished runner-up in the Supercup standings behind the dominant Joest Racing squad.
The collapse of the Supercup at the close of 1989 forced a strategic rethink. In 1990 Dauer split his resources, sending a squad to the Camel GT Championship in North America while merging the European operation with Konrad Motorsport for a joint World Championship entry. Both programmes struggled to complete races and withdrew before the season's end. A final effort came at the 1991 24 Hours of Daytona, where two 962s were entered: one driven by Mario, Michael, and Jeff Andretti finished fifth overall, while a second car shared by Al, Al Jr., Bobby, and Robby Unser did not finish. After Daytona, Dauer Racing withdrew from motorsport competition.
Following the closure of the racing team, Jochen Dauer began converting a Porsche 962 for legal road use. Dauer Sportwagen GmbH was created from the remnants of the racing operation, and work began on chassis 169. The completed car was unveiled at the 1993 Frankfurt Auto Show as the Dauer 962 Le Mans, with Porsche supplying customer parts developed during the 962's racing life and assisting in meeting road-legality requirements.
Porsche then approached Dauer to convert two further chassis into Le Mans racers, exploiting new production-based grand tourer regulations that permitted a larger fuel tank and a bigger air restrictor than the 962 had been allowed under Group C. Running under this classification in the 1994 24 Hours of Le Mans, a factory Porsche effort fielded the two Dauer 962s. The trio of Yannick Dalmas, Hurley Haywood, and Mauro Baldi won the race outright, with the second car finishing third. Regulatory changes the following year ended the cars' eligibility to race again.
In 1997, following the 1995 bankruptcy of Romano Artioli's Bugatti Automobili SpA and a subsequent auction, Dauer Sportwagen acquired most of the company's remaining assets: spare parts and five unfinished EB110 chassis. After several years of development and refinement, Dauer completed and offered the five cars for sale in 2001. Based on the higher-specification EB110 SS, the Dauer versions reinstated the four-wheel-drive system that had been omitted from the original SS model. New carbon fibre bodywork reduced weight by 200 kg to offset the added drivetrain mass, and remapped engines produced more than 705 PS. Dauer Sportwagen continued selling parts for the EB110 and converting Porsche 962 chassis on a commission basis, but the company ultimately went bankrupt in 2008. Remaining EB110 parts were transferred to Toscana-Motors GmbH, while the intellectual property associated with the 962 was purchased by a Luxembourg-based company.
Dauer Racing occupies a singular position in Le Mans history as the organisation behind a road-legal variant of an iconic Group C prototype that returned to the circuit and won under a production-car loophole. The 1994 overall victory remains one of the more unusual in the event's long record, a direct result of Jochen Dauer's ability to convert a decommissioned racing programme into a road-car manufacturer and exploit a regulatory window opened by the organisers in the post-Group-C era.