The idea behind the car

The starting point was a 964.

That matters, because the appeal of the 964 has never really been about its outright performance. It’s the shape, the proportions, the driving position, the feel and the mechanical connection that make these cars so compelling.

But a 964 is also a car that was designed more than three decades ago.

So, the question was: could we preserve everything that makes a 964 special while addressing some of the things that make a modern Porsche so much easier to live with?

That meant looking at the car as a whole rather than simply adding more power.

The result was something that sat somewhere between a classic Porsche and a modern interpretation of one.

Restomod before it was a buzzword

What’s perhaps most interesting now is how much the landscape has changed.

Today, the idea of taking an air-cooled Porsche and carefully reimagining it isn’t particularly radical. There is an entire industry built around it.

And the best of those cars aren’t really about making an old Porsche new. They’re about asking what the car might have become if Porsche had continued developing that particular idea for another decade or two.

That was essentially what we were trying to achieve.

We weren’t trying to turn a 964 into something it wasn’t.

We wanted to make our interpretation of a better 964.

Would we do anything differently?

This is where I think the article gets particularly interesting.

Because eight years gives you something you don’t have when you’re building a car: hindsight.

Would we make exactly the same decisions today?

Probably not.

Cars evolve. Technology evolves. Our own experience evolves. And the restomod world has moved on considerably since 2018.

There are things we’d approach differently now, things we’d refine and perhaps things we’d leave completely alone.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean we’d build a better car.

Sometimes the compromises and decisions that seemed unusual at the time are exactly what give a car its personality.

The test of time

And ultimately, that’s the real question.

Not whether the car looked good in 2018.

Not whether it generated attention when we released the film.

But whether, eight years later, it still makes sense.

Does it still feel special?

Does the combination of classic 964 character and modernised performance still work?

And, perhaps most importantly, would we still want to build one today?

The answer is yes.

We might build it differently. We might have different ideas about where to spend the money, which components to use and how far to take the concept.

But the fundamental idea is still right.

Take something already great. Understand why it’s great. Then make considered changes that enhance rather than overwhelm it.

That’s the essence of a good restomod.

And perhaps that’s why, eight years on, this particular Porsche remains just as interesting to us as it was when we first built it.