Retro: Johansson’s ‘planes, trains and automobiles’ adventure at Sebring 1984

Stefan Johansson is half convinced the crazy adventures and obstacles he faced while trying to reach Sebring in 1984 inspired the popular 1987 movie ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’ starring Steve Martin and John Candy.

Some 35 years ago, Johansson was doing his best to keep a shaky Formula 1 career from flaming out. Invited to race at the famed 12-hour endurance event in Florida in an aged Porsche 935 against cutting-edge IMSA GTP models from March, Lola, and Jaguar, a battle of eras was at play. Taking paying rides when offered, Johansson accepted the challenge in the Joest-built 935 arranged by Colombian gentleman racer Mauricio de Narváez. Along with German pro Hans Heyer, the trio weren’t expected to do more than pad an obscene entry list overflowing with sports cars.

Provided Heyer and Johansson made it to Sebring.

From the outset, everything that could go wrong for the spiky-haired Swede did, and often with comical results. What ensued was an endurance race to get to the endurance race that far surpassed the rigors of racing a Porsche 935 around the old school airport circuit.

Stefan Johansson. Image by Richard Dole/LAT.

“Oh, this [is] a really good one, actually,” Johansson says. “It was with Joest, Reinhold Joest, because I'd been driving for him the year before in '83 with a [Porsche] 956 in Europe, and this deal came together very, very late, with Mauricio de Narváez who was the third driver in the car, [who] came up with the money, I guess. And they actually pulled out this old Moby Dick Porsche, the 935, out of the museum. Literally, the Porsche museum. It had been in there for years. I mean it still had duct tape numbers on the sides… Like, absolutely last minute. Just fill it up with fuel and send it, more or less.

“But the funny part of the story is that Hans and I, we were leaving Frankfurt [Germany] to fly out on...I'm guessing it would've been Monday probably, to arrive here Monday night in Sebring. Anyway, it was like that movie 'Planes, Trains and Automobiles' on steroids 'cause we didn't arrive [until] Saturday morning, before the race.”

De Narváez, left to practice and qualify the retro 935 without the support of his professional co-drivers, must have been wondering if he’d be driving solo for 12 hours after his teammates failed to materialize for five full days.

“It was like, unbelievable,” Johansson continues. “It was engines broken, snow delays, diversions, trains literally from somewhere up in upstate New York down to some other airport. I mean, it was crazy. To make a very long story short, this went on for like four days to try to get there. And we arrive on Saturday morning, by car. We flew in, so we had to drive like three hours. We arrive here at like at 8:00 in the morning.”

It's worth mentioning at this point that, despite accepting the invitation, and going through travel hell from Monday through Saturday morning -- race morning, to be more precise -- Johansson had never seen the Sebring circuit. Never walked it. Never driven it. And if that wasn’t enough, he and Heyer were completely exhausted. Compounding the problem, Johansson had never driven a Porsche 935.In a trance-like state due to sleep deprivation, our hero would get to know the 935, and Sebring, and where its dozen-plus corners went…during his first stint in the race.

“[I was] destroyed because we hadn't slept for like, four days,” he says as his eyes grew wide. “I mean literally, I was sleeping on airport benches and stuff, you know. And... I'd never seen the track, I'd never seen the car, no idea where...you know, of anything. We arrived at the track, I'm not even sure we signed in. Given de Narváez qualified the car like in... I don't know, 50th place or something because there was like 80 cars or something starting the race then.

“So he starts to race, and kinda just stayed in more or less the same [position], and then Hans jumps in. And he gets up to speed pretty quick, you know. So he starts picking up some places and then it's my turn. I said I'd never driven the car, I had no idea of the track -- I did see the [circuit went] left after the pits…”

Once inside the brutally powerful turbocharged flat-six-powered Porsche, Johansson was stunned to find the transmission was not suited for road course racing. The 935, however, would have been perfectly suited on the high banks of Talladega.

“And Sebring back then was like a huge airfield. To just get your bearings right, where to turn even, was difficult,” he adds. “And then this car had this locked rear differential. So if you lift completely, like if you're turning right and you're going a pretty hefty speed as you did that and you lift off completely, the thing would just turn left because the diff would just steer it...

“I knew nothing about it. I mean literally, it was like half an hour to get our s••t together, helmets and everything, and then just, all right, you're on! So, I was being passed by anything you could see out there. Ah, bloody hell.”

Considering all of the obstacles he faced, and the extremely long odds of hauling the old and cranky 935 from the back of the field into a competitive position, simply making it to Sebring and taking the green flag was a victory for the No. 48 Porsche team. But in typical Johansson fashion, that couldn’t be the end of the story.

How did de Narváez, Heyer, and the irrepressible Swede fare at the 1984 12 Hours of Sebring? They won!

Listen in to the rest of the tale that sounds like a Hollywood script, but actually happened 35 years ago in the Sunshine State:

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International link: https://marshallpruett.podbean.com/e/mp-501-stefan-johanssons-planes-tranes-and-automobiles-sebring-adventure/