Porsche 911 by Singer: The 911 as Art

Back in 2009 we spent a couple hours looking at a half-assembled (or was it half disassembled?) Porsche 911 in a studio at the Aria Group while former musician Rob Dickinson described his wild vision of the perfect 911. It would be the best of everything, all the right hardware for an air-cooled Porsche 911. It would be the classic 911 comprehensively re-imagined with modern materials and technology – a hot rod built to the finest standards of workmanship.

It’s the kind of concept that you can grasp in a heartbeat, but we knew even then that it would take more than a heartbeat to fully realize such a vision. There’s always lot of heartache in the creation of any car, and this one had to appeal to a dozen or so Porsche enthusiasts with big imaginations and big wallets to match. As Dickinson admits now, he and his financial backer didn’t fully appreciate just how far they had to go, even once they had the prototype car to display in an informal event at the Baja Cantina on Carmel Valley Road during Monterey week in 2009.

But as Dickinson says, the idea was too good to give up. And now that Dickinson and his backer have changed their business plan and focused on building individual cars to order instead of creating a series of identical cars, it looks like Singer Vehicle Design is going to make it. This silver car is the fourth car to be built, and Dickinson says that there are several people waiting in line to commission the next one, even at a price on the far side of $200,000.

It all begins with the 1989-1994 Porsche 911 Carrera, the Type 964 that Porsche development chief Helmutt Bott built as a reflection of the Porsche 959 supercar. This car becomes a vessel for an array of high-tech components. Into the business end goes a flat-6 engine calibrated by Mirage International and assembled by Cosworth that features stainless-steel headers. The engine is matched with a six-speed, close-ratio G50 transaxle with a limited-slip differential. The wide tires are carried on Zuffenhaus wheels. The interior is meticulously redone in the traditional 911 style around new seats, pedals, steering wheel and instruments.

Dickenson’s concept has all along emphasized track-ready performance, but as this particular car shows, a more street-friendly state of tune (and appearance) can be chosen from the extensive menu of options. For example, you can choose a 300-horsepower 3.6-liter engine, a 360-hp 3.9-liter engine or a 400-hp 4.0-liter engine.

This car is headed right into a private collection, just like the three Singer cars before it, but we’re promised a drive in the next one to be built, which should roll out in February. The one thing that’s certain is the way the Porsche 911 by Singer completes the arc of the air-cooled 911’s evolution. Just 20 years ago, the Porsche 911 was regarded as an antiquated although charming artifact from the 1960s, completely irrelevant to modern driving. Now the Porsche 911 is thought to be an immutable object, and even its evolution into a dramatically different thing in the form of the new Type 991 is seen in a perspective shaped by the past.

From automobile to art, the Porsche 911 by Singer looks like everything you always hoped the 911 would be.

Michael Jordan, Executive Editor, Edmunds.com