Yahoo Autos Porsche Built a Brand-New Air-Cooled 911 For the First Time in 20 Years
For the first time in 20 years, Porsche has built a brand-new air-cooled 911. Porsche's Project Gold, unveiled today, is essentially a just-assembled 993 Turbo S, built with an original, never-used 993 body shell and a ton of new parts from Porsche Classic.
Porsche rust-proofed the leftover 993 body shell using the same process it uses for new cars today, and painted it Golden Yellow Metallic, the same color featured on the new 911 Turbo S Exclusive Series. Porsche Exclusive created custom interior trim and badges inspired by the that new Turbo S, too.
The rest of the work was carried out by Porsche Classic technicians, who specialize in restorations. The engine is a newly-built 3.6-liter twin-turbo flat-six pumping out 450 hp, identical to an original 993 Turbo S. The six-speed manual and all-wheel drive system were sourced from the Porsche Classic parts catalog. There are other neat exterior details, too, including side air intakes inspired by those from the 993 Turbo S, and black Turbo Twist wheels with Golden Yellow accents.
Porsche says Project Gold's "hand-stamped chassis number follows that of the last series-production street-legal 993 Turbo, which rolled off the production line in 1998." Unfortunately, this means Project Gold can't be registered for street use.
That's the key distinction between this car and the recent crop of vintage-style "continuation" cars like Jaguars's "new" XKSS. Those cars wear VINs that were allocated in the year of manufacture-in Jaguar's case, 1957-that were never used. So Jaguar's "new" XKSS is registered as a 1957 model. Project Gold is more like Aston Martin's new, not-street-legal Goldfinger-tribute DB5, which is a newly-built recreation of a 1960s machine. (Shelby American's "continuation cars" are an entirely different thing, given Shelby serial numbers that pick up where the 1960s run left off-not Shelby-specific VINs.)
Now while this might not be a street-legal car, Porsche plans on selling it. It'll cross the auction block at an RM Sotheby's auction held at the Atlanta headquarters of Porsche Cars North America in October. Proceeds will go to the newly established Ferry Porsche Foundation in Germany.
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