Motorsport News discovers Andrew Jordan’s dream project

Since leaving the high-octane world of the British Touring Car Championship, where he won the 2013 title, Motul ambassador Andrew Jordan has been forging a slightly different career in the world of motorsport.

He runs JRT Racing along with his dad Mike and they’ve just taken in a special visitor that wears a Porsche badge in a refined retro Motul race livery. Motorsport News recently called Andrew to find out more.

Andrew, that is a rather special Porsche. What is the story behind  it?

We’ve worked with this customer since the 1990s. He’s had lots of Porsches over the year: 962s, GT1s and has now just bought this 993 GT2. It’s quite a rare one as it’s done Le Mans three times and Daytona once. It was run by Larbre Competition, a French team,  which is the link with Motul because it supplied the lubricants in period.

It’s one of three Porsches built to run in GT1 spec at Le Mans in 1995, which were then converted to GT2 spec. So, it’s quite a rare  car, but as ever with these, they’re great in terms of history but  they’re in need of some TLC when it comes to build quality and attention to detail.

Is this project a complete nuts-and-bolts rebuild?

We’re currently stripping it back to the bare shell, to really see  what the metal work is like underneath. It’s one thing to look at it with the paint on, but until that’s all stripped off we don’t know.

It will then have fabrication work done where needed, and it will go on a jig to make sure the chassis is straight. Then the tricky thing is rebuilding it. The client wants it as new as when it left the factory,  completely original. So we need to be disciplined and put it back as it was.

We’re not building the ultimate latest-spec GT2 car. That’s hard,  because with new technology we could make it better, but we’ll be doing lots of research and specification to put it back as it should be when it left the Porsche Motorsport factory. It’s a nice challenge to have.

Is it daunting for you to start such a project?

No, it’s not daunting. It’s exciting. And this car is my absolute  favourite. I always said if I was in a position to have a car like that,  it would be a 993 GT2. We were really excited when we heard that was coming in. It’s not an easy project to do, but unlike other cars where we’re doing a lot of fuel tank and rollcage design, for instance, that’s more daunting because there’s more scope for  things not to go according to plan. It’ll take about six months to  complete the rebuild.

What will your customer use it for once you hand the keys back?

He’ll use it in the Peter Auto series and the Endurance Legends next year. Those events go around Europe. So, it’s nice to see that it’s a car that’s going to be used, and he’ll race it very hard and  drive it as quick as he can. We’re not only doing the rebuild either. We’ll look after it at the events, too.

With the distinctive Motul branding on the car, we guess you won’t use anything else but Motul Lubricants?

Absolutely. We’ll use everything from gear oil to engine oil and  brake fluids, like we do in all the other cars. I don’t know the exact grade that we’ll put in the engine. That will be determined by the engine builder. But yeah, we will put exclusively Motul in it and it  will be put back to the original livery, which had Motul on it. That’s how it ran in period.

The car is obviously a bit of a hero machine of yours. What is it like to drive and how does it compare to touring and GT cars?

I haven’t driven it yet, but I’ve driven one similar and it was very  cool. It’s actually very basic in comparison to a GT car these days, in terms of damping, brakes etc…

I will drive it when we test it. But it’s very old school in the sense  that it has a lot of horsepower and the damping isn’t great, so it’s quite a handful. A modern touring or GT car is so much more  refined with its damping and brakes. The technology has moved on so much that it is easier and more comfortable to drive.

Witham Motorsport are proud to support and work with a number of race drivers, teams and garages. To read more about who uses Motul oils and to shop the full range, please click here.