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Air-cooled Porsche production resumes… well, sort of

Anything you can do, we can do better. We imagine that was Porsche’s mentality when it set about building a brand new 993 Turbo from its wealth of original spare parts, 20 years after production of the cult air-cooled model ended…

Singer, RWB, Magnus Walker, Paul Stephens, Autoaktiv – the list of specialists building extravagant air-cooled Porsche 911s is endless. So, when Porsche Classic decided to join them and build its own restomod 911 – in this case a 993 Turbo from 1998 – it knew it had to go about things a little differently. 

‘Project Gold’, as it’s been dubbed, began life as a 993 bodyshell 18 months ago, before Porsche Classic’s craftsmen went on a supermarket sweep of their spare parts department and started the exhaustive build. Over 6,500 genuine spare parts were used to build the Turbo to virtually the exact same specification of the original car, complete with a brand new 450HP 3.6-litre twin-turbo flat six. 

Modern technology was used at certain points during the build, to ensure the quality of the Golden Yellow Metallic – inspired by the 991 Turbo S Exclusive Series – was as high as Porsche’s contemporary production cars, for example. The car, which was just revealed ahead of its debut at September's Rennsport Reunion, has been hand-stamped with a continuation 993 Turbo chassis number from 1998 (this is a ‘new’ car, after all) and as such is not road legal. 

We’re sure that won’t deter collectors from digging deep into their pockets when ‘Project Gold’ is sold by RM Sotheby’s at its Porsche sale in Atlanta to benefit the newly founded Ferry Porsche Foundation. Incidentally, the Canadian auction house set the benchmark price for a 993 in 2015 when it sold a GT2 for £1.84m. We wouldn’t be surprised to see this unique 911 soar even higher… 

Photos: Porsche

You can find a vast selection of air-cooled Porsche 911s listed for sale in the Classic Driver Market.