The hidden history in Porsche's stripy 963 Le Mans livery, now in 1:32 scale

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At first glance, the special livery worn by the works Porsche 963s at the 2023 24 Hours of Le Mans looks like a single, striking design: 15 stripes in seven colours, sweeping back from the nose and flaring out toward the rear.

Look closer, though, and it’s a history lesson on wheels, every stripe a nod to a different chapter of Porsche‘s Le Mans story.

Now Scalextric has brought that design to 1:32 scale, pairing the 963 with its great modern rival, the Cadillac V-Series.R, in the Pro 24hr Le Mans Hypercar Challenge Race Set.

Porsche unveiled the design in April 2023, on the eve of that year’s Le Mans dress rehearsal at Spa-Francorchamps.

The timing was deliberate, as 2023 marked 75 years of Porsche sports cars and the 100th running of the Le Mans 24 Hours.

To mark both, Porsche fielded a third 963, car No75, alongside its regular WEC entries.

The colour scheme was designed to connect the two anniversaries, with every colour on the cars carrying its own piece of Le Mans history.

Speaking about the inspiration behind it, Porsche’s vice-president of motor sport Thomas Laudenbach, pointed to the “Pink Pig” 917 and the so-called “Hippie Car” of 1970 as liveries that had made racing history and remained popular with fans to this day, and said the new design continued that tradition.

What each stripe means

Nothing on the car’s paint scheme was arbitrary.

The orange is a direct salute to the Gulf-liveried 917s of the 1970s.

The pink stripe references the celebrated “Pink Pig” 917/20 of 1971, a paint scheme that was revived in 2018 on the 911 RSR that went on to win the GTE-Pro class at that year’s Le Mans.

Green and light blue recall the 1970 “Hippie” 917, while the Martini stripes pay tribute to the 936 that took outright victory in 1977.

A dark blue stripe nods to the Rothmans-liveried 956 of 1982–83, sitting alongside a vivid red that commemorates the Salzburg-liveried 917, Porsche’s first overall Le Mans winner, back in 1970.

Finally, a yellow stripe through the middle, paired with the red, honours the RS Spyder, with which Penske‘s team won the LMP2 class of the American Le Mans Series across 2006 to 2008 – the very partnership that underpinned the modern works effort.

Even the way the stripes are arranged was a deliberate engineering and design challenge.

Porsche explained that the 963’s unusually long wheelbase meant the team had to “play with the proportions a bit,” with the colour fanning out toward the rear to create dynamic, harmonious lines across the car.

Of the many combinations trialled, seven colour schemes were ultimately chosen as the ones that gave the most immediately recognisable link to Porsche’s Le Mans history.

To tell the three sister cars apart at a distance, each carried a differently coloured engine cover fin: black for No5, white for No6, and red for the anniversary No75 entry.

Porsche’s rival: the Cadillac V-Series.R

The Scalextric set doesn’t stop at one car, though.

Sharing the box, and the track, is the Cadillac V-Series.R, GM’s own Hypercar-class prototype and one of the Porsche 963’s most consistent rivals in both the World Endurance Championship and IMSA’s GTP class since its debut.

Scalextric’s rendition captures the full sweep of the design in 1:32 scale, right down to the working front and rear lights on both cars.

The set is built around the brand’s ARC wireless system, with two ARC hand controllers and an ARC Powerbase doing away with the trailing wires of old, and Magnatraction built into both cars for grip through the bends.

There’s 497cm of track in the box, configurable into seven different layouts, so the Porsche-versus-Cadillac duel can be run as a tight infield sprint or stretched out into something with a bit more of a Le Mans straight to it.

The set is mains-powered, with digital chip upgrade compatibility for anyone wanting to expand into a multi-car Le Mans grid down the line.