► The ultimate Porsche resto-mod?
► 964 underpinnings, 356 Coupe body
► By Rod Emory’s ‘Outlaw’ mod co.
You’ll have seen those frankly gorgeous renderings of the Singer 911 ‘Dynamics and Lightweighting Study’ that emerged last week – more power to Singer and its customers, the looks and specification are like a licence to kill. Could I justify homicide to own a set of those keys? Quite probably.
But. When it comes to resto-mod Porsches, Singer now feels so familiar its icy coolness seems to be defrosting just a little bit. Though perhaps I wouldn’t be thinking that way if I hadn’t happened to catch sight of the car pictured here in amongst all the 2017 SEMA show coverage from earlier in November.
This is the Emory Motorsport Momo 356 RSR. And it’s beyond rad before it’s even been finished.
Like that Absinth Green Singer DLS, this thing started its journey in life as a 1990 964. But what Rod Emory and his crew have done is marry those underpinnings to the body from a 1960 Porsche 356 B Coupe – 356s being Emory Motorsport’s stock-in-trade.
After all, as you may know already (not least from the CAR magazine article in early 2015), Rod Emory is one of the founders of the 356 Outlaw movement – hot-rodding classic Porsches for fun and pleasure (not least the fun and pleasure of winding up the purists).
The idea of this new project is to end up with a machine that evokes the spirit of classic 1970s Porsche RSR models, while looking like a mutant 356 and driving like an apex-era hardcore 911.
Which to me sounds absolutely fantastic.
As the name suggests, it’s being put together in cooperation with Italian automotive accessory brand Momo – which provided the unique centre-lock 17-inch wheels it’s rolling on. These are bolted onto genuine Porsche RSR hubs, incidentally, and cover 964 brakes.
The degree of fabrication required to make all the Porsche parts meet boggles the mind – and Emory reckons the resulting wheelbase has been precisely ‘tailored for optimum drive and aesthetics’. But it doesn’t stop there; that is custom Ohlins remote-reservoir suspension, and the eventual bodywork for the nose and tail will be hand-formed in aluminium.
All told, the 356 RSR is set to come in at ‘2200lbs’ – which is just 998kg in more familiar terminology.
So while no power output has so far been given for the Emory-developed 2.6-litre twin-turbo 911-4 engine in the boot, it’s clearly going to shift. Though as a one-off you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s destined to become a museum piece or garage queen, Emory has a reputation for building cars that are designed to be driven, and I’m sure this will be no exception.
The finished article (illustrated below) will be ready to rock in 2018. Praise the lowered.
