How to build an F1-engined Porsche 911

Porsche 911 restomods person go thing of a cliché, with caller firms popping up astir play with the committedness of analogue thrills and retro-modern looks. 

But Lanzante – the British steadfast known for maintaining galore of the world’s McLaren F1s, arsenic good arsenic making contention cars roadworthy ineligible – has produced 1 with a genuine difference.

Rather than upgrade the modern level six, arsenic is par for the course, Lanzante opted to retrofit a 911 with a genuine Formula 1 V6 from McLaren’s backmost catalogue.

Developed by Porsche and named the TAG aft the team's contemporary sponsor, the turbocharged 1.5-litre powerplant is rumoured to person enactment retired much than 1000bhp successful qualifying trim. 

It thrust McLarens to 3 consecutive drivers’ championships betwixt 1984 and 1986 – astatine which constituent it was succeeded by the legendary Honda portion that delivered Ayrton Senna 3 titles.

Retrofitting specified a potent motor into a classical is simply a tantalising proposition but, arsenic Dean Lanzante told Autocar astatine the Goodwood Festival of Speed, it was ne'er the archetypal plan.

He simply wanted to acquisition McLaren’s archetypal TAG trial mule, a 930-generation Porsche 911 Turbo, from the firm’s racing arm. Team brag 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 each crated up,” helium says.

Sensing an opportunity, helium began to assemble a concern lawsuit for gathering a tiny tally of roadworthy cars referencing that archetypal mule. Cosworth was chosen to modify the engines for reliability and tractability connected the road, but the costs rapidly began to mount.

Lanzante explains: “We realised that doing 2 oregon 3 cars would beryllium hugely expensive. Really, we needed to bash much – a batch. Initially we thought to bash arsenic galore arsenic [the engine’s] contention wins, 25, but determination weren’t capable engines. We fixed connected 11 cars, 1 for each operator for each year: the crushed for the unusual fig was successful 1985 they had 3 drivers – John Watson stood successful for Niki Lauda.”

He was “adamant” that the modular cars had to look arsenic the mule would person successful its day, truthful helium forced clients to prime from Porsche colours and materials. “It wasn’t a ‘Pimp My Ride’ car,” Lanzante jokes, noting that the TAG Turbo 911 has a sunroof, electrical mirrors and its archetypal steering wheel.

But 1 peculiarly important lawsuit – the proprietor of Alain Prost’s 1985 championship-winning McLaren MP4/2 – wanted much punch than the 503bhp afforded by the ‘regular’ TAG 911.

“We’ve had a batch of criticism,” helium says, but “they [McLaren] ran 4 bars of boost. We tally three. We’ve lowered the compression ratio due to the fact that we tally regular substance and they were moving contention fuel”. It’s a “trade-off” betwixt powerfulness and usability, Lanzante says.

Such is this client’s clout that Lanzante expanded its plans to comprise three ‘Championship’ cars celebrating each rubric won by TAG-engined McLarens. These are boosted to 625bhp and shed 400kg of weight, bringing them down to 920kg (dry).

They volition beryllium painted successful notation to the helmet liveries of the drivers who won each championship: the archetypal successful Alain Prost’s French flag, and the different 2 successful Niki Lauda’s Austria-Marlboro strip.

Expanding connected the Championship edition’s caller details, Lanzante says: “The seatbelts person Hugo Boss written on. The steering instrumentality is made by Personal and trimmed successful suede – not Alcantara. It’s each period-correct. The gearlever is the aforesaid plan arsenic successful the F1 car, and the wheels were made by Dymag from the archetypal drawings scaled up, truthful the spoke signifier matches the F1 wheel.” 

Traction power is included as a concession to drivability – ”a benignant of information measure” – but “this is simply a small spot much brutal,” Lanzante says.

Although the 3 Championship cars were not primitively successful the plan, Lanzante is steadfast successful his committedness to gathering conscionable 14 TAG Turbos successful total. He is of people constricted by the fig of engines disposable – and has purchased 1 other arsenic an “insurance argumentation for everybody” – but would not property the motor backmost into production.

Lanzante says: “You could remake that engine, remake the castings and each of that. But a batch of radical who’ve bought this, it’s not astir thigh times. This isn’t that.

“This is: you are driving a beauteous car, and you’re driving a car that a Formula 1 operator has campaigned successful a Formula 1 contention week. That’s the peculiar thing. That is what astir of the radical person bought this for. How galore radical would beryllium capable to bargain a [McLaren] MP4? There’s a few, but however galore radical would beryllium capable to get successful and thrust it? Very few.

“I could remake it, but it wouldn’t person the aforesaid psyche to it. It’s the information that it’s an archetypal engine. It’s that we borrowed the archetypal car from McLaren and scanned it. If I knocked retired a load much of these, there’d beryllium nary point.”

The TAG 911 was “the hardest” task ever undertaken by Lanzante, helium says.

So how to travel it up? “The information is, I don’t know.”

Lanzante elaborates: “A batch of radical person said: ‘You’ve done a Porsche project. Are you going to bash another?’ It’s a saturated market. I privation to pb with thing new, not conscionable travel what everybody other is doing. I’m not knocking anyone: I don’t privation to beryllium conscionable another. I privation to basal connected my own.”

But days aft our chat, Lanzante’s squad makes a large statement.

One of the different stars of the Festival of Speed was the Red Bull RB17, an Adrian Newey-designed way limb packing an 1184bhp hybrid V10.

Red Bull Technology bosses had already hinted astatine the imaginable for owners to marque the hypercar roadworthy legal, with CEO Christian Horner telling Autocar: “I'm definite determination are respective conversion houses that are susceptible of doing that.”

It proves that Lanzante gets determination first. “Work volition commencement instantly to make the indispensable upgrades to let it to beryllium driven connected nationalist roads,” its connection reads. 

I, for one, can’t hold to spot the finished product.