Optimized retro sports cars - is that what we need?
07/14/2018
The Porsche creations from Singer are well-known; they stand for nostalgic design and almost supernatural driving performance. They are normally built on the air-cooled 964 models from Porsche, and visually they look more like the Zuffenhausen sports cars of the early seventies.
Now, on the occasion of the Goodwood Festival of Speed, the tinkerers at Singer Vehicle Design have presented the "DLS" Porsche 911, which they created from a 1990 964 for Porsche fan Scott Blattner. They enlisted the help of Williams and Hans Mezger. The result was a sports car weighing just 989 kg, which should be good for more than brilliant performance thanks to the enlarged four-liter engine with 500 hp. The weight reduction was made possible by the use of carbon body parts, many lightweight components and, for example, a Momo steering wheel with carbon spokes.
The lightweight construction is visible from the inside and outside, but the electronics specially programmed by Bosch with various driving modes, ABS, ESP, traction control, etc. are of course not. Shifting is done with a Hewland 6-speed gearbox, which also allows the engine to be mounted further forward in the car, which optimizes the weight distribution of the traditionally rear-heavy sports car.
Optimization is the central theme and the question arises as to whether one should really build such a rocket out of a Porsche 964, which can certainly compete with the performance of McLaren, Ferrari and the like, but probably also out-accelerates the fastest products from Zuffenhausen.
Of course, the craftsmanship and tuning skills of the Singer people are impressive, but at the end of the day, the DLS is neither fish nor fowl. It looks like a car from the early seventies - even the duck tail is there - is based on technology from the nineties and runs like a modern hyper sports car. But whether you want to buy one or have one built is up to you. In 30 years' time, however, this Singer DLS Porsche 911 will also be a classic car, until then it will just look like one.
