Yahoo Autos Theon Design Makes an Almost Perfect Porsche
It would be hard to find a more typically English place than Deddington. The small town in Oxfordshire has a population of just over 2000, most of whom seem to live in handsome stone-built houses lining narrow streets. It’s a place where anything built since 1800 is regarded as being a little nouveau, looking more like the backdrop for a period drama than part of the modern world. If you had to associate it with an automotive brand you would choose a long-dormant British one, like Riley or Wolseley or Lanchester.
Yet Deddington is the point of origin for some of the most exotic Porsches in the world, products of a small company called Theon Design. Prices for these gorgeous 964-based restomods start at £380,000 - that’s $470,000 at current exchange rates - without the cost of the base car used from the transformation. But if you want one you’ll also need to join a year-long waiting list for construction to begin, then stay patient for another 18 months as your car moves through the painstaking build process.
Theon’s founder, and creative force, is Adam Hawley. He worked as a car designer for Jaguar Land Rover and BMW, among others, but also has a long-held obsession with air-cooled 911s. Around five years ago he built himself an elegant 964-based restomod, one finished to such a high standard he started to receive requests to create others. Theon Design was formed to do that, and is now jointly run by Hawley and his wife Lucinda Argy. The company is about to complete its eighth car, the one that I’ve come to drive.
Theon’s cars are all individual and highly personal commissions. The donor 964 is first reduced to its component parts and then fully rebuilt. Bodyshells gain RS-style widened arches and carbon fiber roofs, engine cover, and bonnet. Bodies are then painted and retrimmed to an ultra-high standard, with correspondingly serious mechanical upgrades including bigger engines.
Which probably makes Theon sound like a British imitator to Singer. Hawley says he is flattered by the comparison, but also points out the significant differences beyond the fact one of his creations is going to cost less than half as much as one of Rob Dickinson’s—the biggest being that Singer is now exclusively building turbocharged variants. Theon Design buyers can choose between different naturally aspirated flat-sixes, displacing between 3.6-litres and 4-litres of capacity, as well as an intriguing supercharger conversion.
The car I drove was fitted with the 3.8-liter engine option, featuring flowed and ported cylinder heads, new pistons, and a lightened and fully balanced bottom end, plus a sextet of individual throttle bodies, each getting its own induction trumpet. The new motor makes 395 hp at 7350rpm, and—thanks to the weight saved by carbon parts—this has to work against just 2565 lbs of mass on Theon’s numbers. That’s a power-to-weight only fractionally behind that of a 992-generation GT3. The car you’re seeing in the pictures is actually fitted with the brawnier 4-liter motor, with an intake plenum rather than the individual intakes, but the attention to detail is every bit as high.
Like most car designers, Hawley dislikes the term ‘retro.’ Yet although. Theon’s cars are all 964-based—the penultimate air-cooled 911 that was on sale between 1989 and 1994—they take visual inspiration from earlier in the 911’s long lifespan. They lose Nineties details like the 964’s full-width rear lightbar and have gained many more Seventies touches like ‘warm chrome’ brightwork and headlamp bezels, plus Fuchs-style alloy wheels.
Despite the price tag, it’s hard to imagine any of Theon’s customers feeling short-changed when looking at the product up close. It has been honed with what is obviously obsessive attention to detail. The paint finish and panel gaps feel almost too good when seen up close, in that better-than-real manner of a high-resolution virtual rendering. Looking into the engine bay proves even tiny elements have been carefully considered. After a period of gawping, I noticed there was a cylindrical leather pouch next to the oil filler.
This, it transpires, is an oil filter cover. It looks a little like that supreme symbol of English domesticity, the teapot cozy. “The color was a little too glaring,” Hawley explains, “it just stood out too much against everything else, I was already a bit triggered by the yellow of the oil cap.” Considerable effort to spare the owner from the occasional sight of a mismatched black filter.
The cabin is equally immaculate. The choice of color and pattern is pretty much unlimited. The car I drove had what looked like the incongruous option of a 991-generation steering wheel, but the images show a more traditional, and appropriate choice is possible.
Much about the driving experience is familiar from other air-cooled 911s, but a surprising amount is different. Most of the ergonomic foibles have survived intact; Theon has tried to move the pedal position to give a less offset driving position, but the driver still sits pointing slightly towards the center of the car, and the upright windshield is as close as ever. The new metal gear shifter sits taller than the stumpier lever in an original 964 does, and it now controls a short-throw mechanism that links it to a new six-speed Hewland transmission.
The engine starts with the busy clatter of every air-cooled 911, but overlaid by a rorty exhaust note. (There is a switchable silencer, but even the quieter mode is pretty raucous.) Getting rolling reveals that, even at low speeds, Theon’s car feels like a turned-up version of the 964, much tauter and with quicker responses from the more direct steering. Almost every suspension component has been altered, with new geometry, stiffer bushings, firmer springs and—on this car—multi-stage active shock absorbers from motorsport specialists TracTive. But the biggest change is a new, quicker-geared steering rack with electro-hydraulic assistance and slack-free reactions.
The new engine has clearly been built to rev, with an ultra-light flywheel and a lightened bottom end meaning it responds goadingly to a slight change in throttle pressure. It starts to really pull hard past 4000 rpm, singing and then snarling its way to the 7500 rpm limiter. But there is still enough low-down torque for easy cruising. The new gearshift is joyful, light, accurate, and with a mechanical precision that encourages shifting when none is really necessary. The brake pedal is firm and easy to modulate, retardation building reassuringly as pressure does. This car uses cast iron discs, but carbon ceramics are an option. In short, as with the visual details, every dynamic facet is carefully honed.
But it’s no show pony. Starting to push harder reveals the Theon’s limits have been moved substantially upwards. The top-endy nature of automotive journalism means the last 964 I drove prior to this one was an original RS, a car in perfect condition that was experienced on warm, smooth German asphalt. But even on cold, rough, and frequently damp English country roads, Theon's feels at least as grippy and markedly keener to turn. The company has tweaked the ass-heavy weight distribution of the basic 911 by moving mass forwards. The new electric power steering pump and 12 Volt aircon compressor now sit up front. Static distribution now has 45 percent resting over the front axle, according to Theon, versus 40 percent for the standard car. Together with fatter and stickier tires--modern Michelin Pilot 4S--plus the revised suspension and steering, the result is much less sensation of the back end trying to steer the car under bigger lateral loads.
This isn’t to say that the Theon feels in any way inert or numb; you can still tweak and trim the cornering line through the gas pedal. There is more than enough power to push the rear axle wide in a tighter turn. (There is still no traction control system standing guard, but there is a new limited-slip differential.) But even doing the things we’re often told you should never do in an air-cooled 911, like lifting off abruptly in a wet corner, didn’t turn it snappy. It drives like a much more modern 911 than it is, tamed without having been made tame.
There is already an abundance of high-end 911 tuners on both sides of the Atlantic, from RUF and DP Motorsport in Germany to Singer, Gunther Works, and Workshop 5001 in California. Singer has recently doubled the size of its UK base in Northamptonshire and stalwarts Tuthill are still building restomods and rally cars in Oxfordshire. Now the UK has got another entry, too. Theon Design is every bit good enough to make the list.
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