The last time Apple Computer’s rainbow stripes adorned a factory-backed Porsche race car, Steve Jobs was 25 years old and the Macintosh didn’t exist yet. That was 1980. Now, 46 years later, the livery is back on two Porsche 963 GTP prototypes at Laguna Seca, and the cars wearing it happen to be the most dominant force in American sports car racing.
Porsche Penske Motorsport revealed that both of its factory 963 entries will carry variations of the famous Apple Computer scheme for IMSA’s designated throwback race weekend. The team teased the livery on Instagram before the full reveal, showing a helmet painted in the unmistakable rainbow palette that once turned a Porsche 935 into one of the most recognizable race cars of the early 1980s.
The original car belonged to Dick Barbour Racing. Driver Bob Garretson secured the Apple sponsorship through his connections to co-founders Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, back when Apple was still a scrappy computer company willing to slap its logo on a race car. That 935 ran the 1980 IMSA season and entered the 24 Hours of Le Mans with a driver lineup that included Bathurst legend Allan Moffat and future Indy 500 winner Bobby Rahal.
It retired after 14 hours with engine trouble.
The actual historic car no longer wears those colors. Comedian and collector Adam Carolla purchased it and had it re-wrapped in the livery from its more celebrated outing, a class win at the 1979 Le Mans with Paul Newman behind the wheel. The Apple rainbow design survived only through replicas and enthusiast builds, most notably a 944 that went viral in 2023.
There’s an interesting wrinkle here. Just two weeks before this throwback, a modern Apple Music livery appeared on a Porsche Penske car at the Long Beach IMSA round. That design bore no visual connection to the 1980 original — it was a contemporary ad buy, clean and corporate.
In hindsight, the two liveries appear to be part of a single sponsorship deal, with the retro scheme saved for the throwback weekend. Apple in 2026 doesn’t do conventional advertising. But apparently it will make an exception for a car that predates its own brand guidelines.
The timing gives the livery a shot at something the original never achieved: a major race win. Porsche Penske Motorsport has won two of three IMSA rounds this season, taking overall victories at both the Rolex 24 at Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring. Those are the two biggest endurance races on the American calendar, and the 963 has been nearly untouchable since a reliability overhaul transformed it from a fragile prototype into a championship weapon.
That dominance makes Laguna Seca less of a sentimental exercise and more of a probable coronation. Two cars in rainbow Apple livery, both with legitimate shots at the overall win, running a design that last appeared on a car that couldn’t even finish Le Mans. The contrast is almost too neat.
This is likely a one-race affair. Special liveries in modern prototype racing rarely survive beyond their designated weekends, and Apple isn’t the kind of company that leaves its brand on someone else’s race car for an extended campaign. If the rainbow 963 is going to make history, Sunday at Laguna Seca is the window.
Forty-six years between appearances. The first run ended with a blown engine. The second starts with two of the fastest cars in the paddock. Some comebacks write themselves.
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