Porsche 911 RSR by Rennsport: A classic racer for the road

[MUSIC] Launched in '63, the 911 quickly proved itself as a rally car. But when Porsche turned their attentions to circuit racing in the 70s, they found themselves in need of a few hundred street legal 911 race cars to meet new homologation rules. What they came up with was the 2.7 Carrera RS. RS standing for Rennsport, a name that is now shared with [UNKNOWN] company where this iconic [UNKNOWN] 911 1973 is celebrated and reunited. [MUSIC] Since you're always been 911 Have you ever dabbled with anything else? I've dabbled with a few other different cars but 911 is always in my heart since I left school. And I was actually working on the 1980s cars when they were brand new. Inspiration for Ren Sport was sort of reliving my youth when I bought the first 32 Carrera, which was Around 2007, 2008 when they weren't very much money and I converted it visually into a 2.7 hour rest. Right, so you did your own? I did my own. Right. I did a Grand Prix white with the Mexico blue stripes. Blue stripes and blue scripts on it. And it sort of went from there. So, this was originally an 88 car. Which if, obviously Ariosto made it to make look like a 73RS or a touring version of the 73RS had Porsche ever built one. You're going to get the purest, say looking around with any 911 is absolute sacrilege. What's your view on that. We do get that off a lot of people. We're very close to the Porsche club, whether you get Porsche club owners come over and say, that it's sacrilege, doing what we do. But the cars which we actually use are 1980's cars. There impactful cars. There's thousands and thousands of them out there. It was an everyday sports car in the 80s. In my eyes It's not really sacrilege, I think it would be if we were doing it to an original 72. Now robotic car and doing it. Yeah. [UNKNOWN] may would be. Yeah. But there's not many of them out there. My very much for believing. If you want to build something, build it are you wanna. That's when spot all over. So we stripped it back to its bare shell and started again. So what is this now running three Is now running a 3.5 liter engine. Yeah, which the base is the original 3.2 Carrera, but it's now taken out to 3.5 running on independent injection systems, the throttle body system which we use which we've just developed, with AT Power and then it run its own stand alone ECU which is fully programmable. So, it can get the optimum performance out of it. Yeah. It's around 300 horsepower on this one at the moment. 350, wow. [SOUND] [SOUND] I know there's a certain Californian resto mud company that tends to go for the later models and has all the coilovers and things. You've tried to keep things a bit more in keeping with the original is that right is still on the torsion bars? It is still on the torsion bars. We have done the 964 conversions with coilovers and 3.8 engines and 4 liter engines. But we're finding that more and more people now want the authentic 911 feel of the torsion bar, lightweight cars which sort of got lost on its way. As the [UNKNOWN] came out, it just started putting on Kilos and kilos of weights. What does this weigh roughly? This is around 1,100 kilos at the moment. Wow, the 73 car, the 73 RS and RSR are the things that really drive you here. These are the inspiration pretty much for everything you do. Why particularly the 73 car? This the shape of the 73 car before it got ruined with a big impact bumpers is just shouts 911. We've actually manufactured it made it all by hand out of lightweight steel panel beaten the old fashioned way. We use as much thin gauge steel as we can just try and reduce the weight down a little bit But we don't go ridiculously far on it, because we're building it as a road car. We do actually go against the grain and put a bit of soundproofing in it. It's the way people want the cars now is a road car to drive around nicely I have a conversation and your ethos really is to take a classic design and make it better. It's not the original RSR, but it's got that nice luxury feel when you're driving it air conditioning sunroof, satna Bluetooth, it doesn't have abs and it doesn't have traction control. [MUSIC] But the free driving 210 horsepower on tap the original RLS could hit 60 inches 5.6 seconds 100 miles per hour in less than 13 and sail on to 150. But if you want it, even more, you can take the auction box mark and 491 and the boffins in Suffern housing. Shave off another eight kilos of excess weight and work over the new 2.8 liter block to give you 308 bhp. And 55 or in sport Ring Wagons meaning race sport race cars were ever built on track. The RSR was phenomenal. Winning the Targa Florio, the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring, all in its first season. This is the motor sport legend that inspires the guys that run sport, and it's the closest thing that a mere mortal like me will ever get to that childhood hero. [SOUND] [UNKNOWN] by footsy, Polish grandson of Ferdinand. Than Porsche. This car is just easy to drive. They ergonomically got the 911 right first time at trying. It isn't cramped and awkward and overcomplicated like some early classics can be. It's just a very easy, retro supercar. Now this thing is how Rennsport would have imagined an RSR Touring would have turned out if Porsche had ever built one So it's got a few creature comforts, things like sunroof, air conditioning, a heater the works. These beautiful reclining shield seats which are period correct. And it's got a few period nods To the original RS such as the flat black door cards, the layout, the dash, everything is very familiar but it's got some lovely touches, some nods to other Porsche racing grapes such as the boat so we're gearing up from the 917, I was a little bit nervous about taking out. Something packing 325 horsepower or thereabouts on these greasy Cotswold roads. Then it just feels so planted, it feels absolutely [UNKNOWN] People say that you should never meet your heroes, well balls to that cuz this thing is awesome. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] Only about 50 genuine RSR were ever built and a good portion of that were stuffed into the [UNKNOWN] by gentlemen drivers back in the day. They almost never come out for sale. And a few years Years ago when classic 911 prices were going absolutely mental, the RSR, good RSR lightweights were fetching nearly seven figures. So if you're a dyed in the wool [UNKNOWN] fanatic like I am, and you've got about a hundred grand Burning a hole in your chinos and you really want to scratch that 911H. We've got a difficult decision to make because you could go out and buy a brand new 911 for about 100 grand, you could pick up the Carrera S the 99 Too. Or you could go to the guys at [UNKNOWN] sport and have them build you something really special. The car that we probably hang on to its value and pays a nice to perhaps the classic, the ultimate, the greatest. It is air-cooled 911 that Porsche ever made. Cars put [UNKNOWN] Porsche old man very [UNKNOWN] famously once said, I couldn't find the sports car of my dreams so I had to build one instead. [BLANK_AUDIO] So, roughly how many hours we go into this sort of car. On average between sort of 900 and 1000 hours for a build. When you were thinking about designing this, why did you build it to this particular spec? Orange is my favorite color. Right. But RSR body is my favorite body for the car. I like the big arches, I like the duck tail Although a lot of cars now have gone for the flat boot lid. Yeah. The ducktail's coming back in, I love that. I love the spot lamps on the front, I think it's just a period effect. Everything about this car is just everything that I want, and the way that I can use it as a daily car. You have designed this with a real driver in mind, haven't you? It's been used as it's supposed to be used. It is. I've got a 1970 911 upstairs, which is stuck in a Carcoon and it's a sort of garage queen but there's no point in having it. It's an investment only and it's a bit boring. There's nothing to it. Lots of drive and a lot to drive. I have seen that I have seen that. I'm not sure. [LAUGH] I will live in my youth or midlife crisis, whatever it is the tires can get replaced. Yeah, I don't believe there's any point in having a car unless you're gonna use it. What's the point in having 350 or five you know actually going to use it every now and then some people are in it. As the game of top Trumps, Well yeah, That's it. That's what it is isn't it I want it cuz I wanna use it. [SOUND] [MUSIC]