Kremer Racing was built around the core business of developing and racing modified Porsche machinery. From the early 1970s the team worked with 911s, 914-6 GTs, and 934s, steadily building expertise in extracting performance beyond factory specification. When Porsche introduced the 935, Kremer began systematically designating their modified variants with the letter K followed by a sequential number, creating a lineage of increasingly sophisticated race cars that became benchmarks in customer sportscar racing.
The Kremer K-series represented a sustained program of independent engineering development:
The 935 K1 appeared in 1976 as their first privately built 935. The K2 followed in 1977 as a refined evolution. The 935 K3 was the most successful variant, built to approximate the bodywork of Porsche's own factory Evolution cars but featuring a key technical advantage: an air-to-air intercooler in place of the air-to-water systems used by the Porsche factory. This gave the K3 a reliability and performance edge in endurance conditions. The K4 followed in the early 1980s with an all-new spaceframe construction. The CK5 was a custom Group C prototype based on the Porsche 936, used as a temporary measure before Porsche's 956 became available to customers in 1983. The 962 CK6 addressed safety concerns that had emerged following fatal crashes with the Porsche 956 and 962C at Mosport and Le Mans, featuring stiffer chassis construction. The CK7 Spyder was an open-cockpit prototype using 962 mechanicals, designed for the Interserie championship. The K8 Spyder was an improved successor used in the International Sports Racing Series and at Le Mans.
The pinnacle of Kremer Racing's achievements came at the 1979 24 Hours of Le Mans, where their 935 K3 won overall. The winning crew was Klaus Ludwig and American brothers Don and Bill Whittington. The victory was extraordinary given that the 935 was derived from the Porsche 911 road car design, and it triumphed outright against pure sports car prototypes — an achievement that had almost no precedent in modern Le Mans history and would not be matched until a McLaren F1 GTR won the race in 1995.
The team returned to Le Mans endurance success years later, winning the 24 Hours of Daytona in 1995 with a K8 Spyder driven by Jürgen Lässig, Christophe Bouchut, Giovanni Lavaggi, and Marco Werner.
Kremer Racing's significance in motorsport history rests on two contributions: demonstrating that a privateer team could develop and engineer Porsche race cars to a competitive level independent of the factory, and winning Le Mans overall with a car that was technologically and commercially accessible to the broader customer racing community. Erwin Kremer died in 2006. After his death, managing director Uwe Sauer led the team, before younger brother Manfred repurchased it in 2008 and subsequently sold it to Eberhard Baunach in 2010.