Porsche 911 restomods have become something of a cliché, with new firms popping up almost weekly with the promise of analogue thrills and retro-modern looks.
But Lanzante – the British firm known for maintaining many of the world’s McLaren F1s, as well as making race cars road legal – has produced one with a genuine difference.
Rather than upgrade the contemporary flat six, as is par for the course, Lanzante opted to retrofit a 911 with a genuine Formula 1 V6 from McLaren’s back catalogue.
Developed by Porsche and named the TAG after the team's contemporary sponsor, the turbocharged 1.5-litre powerplant is rumoured to have put out more than 1000bhp in qualifying trim.
It thrust McLarens to three consecutive drivers’ championships between 1984 and 1986 – at which point it was succeeded by the legendary Honda unit that delivered Ayrton Senna three titles.
Retrofitting such a potent engine into a classic is a tantalising proposition but, as Dean Lanzante told Autocar at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, it was never the original plan.
He simply wanted to purchase McLaren’s original TAG test mule, a 930-generation Porsche 911 Turbo, from the firm’s racing arm. Team boss Zak Brown politely declined the request, but Lanzante was undeterred.
“They had a load of engines. These engines had stood since the ’80s, but they were all crated up,” he says.
Sensing an opportunity, he began to assemble a business case for building a small run of road cars referencing that original mule. Cosworth was chosen to modify the engines for reliability and tractability on the road, but the costs quickly began to mount.
Lanzante explains: “We realised that doing two or three cars would be hugely expensive. Really, we needed to do more – a batch. Initially we thought to do as many as [the engine’s] race wins, 25, but there weren’t enough engines. We fixed on 11 cars, one for each driver for each year: the reason for the odd number was in 1985 they had three drivers – John Watson stood in for Niki Lauda.”
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With the best will in the world, this is the ultimate in pointless trophy tat. There's no way this car is usable with that uber exotic engine. Maintenance, spares, long term reliability, it's all a total non starter. Obviously, there's also the question of drivability, the whole thing is such a silly flex - a tiny, ultra-high specific output turbo engine like that is the last thing you'd do if the aim was primarily about making the car great to drive, it's all about image and "heritage" and showing off. Obviously the cars aren't going to be driven, that's not what cars like this are about. But even so, the whole thing is just such a turn off.
Well,I don't think they'll just be bought and become a Garage Bunny kept in an air conditioned Tent just to be gawped at, no, they'll be bought for track use maybe even raced who knows?, but if the buyer likes it then that's fine, they're happy,obviously it's not everyone's choice of the perfect car,but that's what makes us different, I like the 911, I guess it was when the 911 Turbo first came out with that huge wing on the back,anyway, yes the engine wouldn't be particularly good for everyday road use, but on a track....
Sorry, you're living in a total fantasy if you think these are going to be driven hard and raced. They're £1m base price with a realistic price of £1.5m and up. Yes, people race classics purportedly of that value or more, but in reality most of those are actually reps even when advertised otherwise.
Plus support and maintenance of, say, a 60s Ferrari, it pretty straight forward. Racing this car with this kind of exotic engine is a far, far more complicated and costly proposition. It's not totally impossible, but this car screams static trophy. "Garage Bunny kept in an air conditioned Tent just to be gawped at" is exactly what it is. It's not at all the kind of car someone would buy to do track days.
Ferrari due Track days for owners of their cars, the owners of say an FXX don't even get to keep there cars at home, they're kept by Ferrari so when track days are arranged owners come and drive there cars ,some owners are developers of the FXX ,so, a little piddly Porsche costs Buttons to own, and I'm sure funding isn't won't be an issue.
A Ferrari FXX is a totally different proposition. Ferrari has a market cap of 75 billion dollars and a massive facility and armies of technicians. It's all totally painless for the owner in terms of running and maintenance. It breaks? Ferrari will fix it. The end.
Where do you go when your ultra low volume, uber exotic 80s F1 engine implodes? What's the process? How many spares to they have? If a rod goes through the block, are there even spare blocks? It's far less clear, far more complicated, not remotely comparable. And if you think this car is the kind of thing that's going to be high up the list for doing track days, you really don't know anything about track days. Or track cars. It's a trinket, not a track tool.
Yep. Well said.