The 930 Turbo is undoubtedly the progenitor of scary-fast cars. In its day, it was biblically fast, with performance figures relative to its contemporaries much akin to those of the Bugatti Veyron many decades later. It wasn’t called the ‘widow maker’ for nothing, and even by today’s standards, it’s a rather brisk car. What better icon, then, from which to draw inspiration for the Turbo Study, Singer’s latest bit of automotive pornography?
Those who know anything at all about fancy cars will have most certainly heard of Singer Vehicle Design, a Los Angeles-based company started by Rob Dickinson, the former frontman of a not-too-shabby English rockbound, Catherine Wheel. Each and every “restomod” of theirs features attention to detail and levels of engineering that genuinely baffle, and their latest creation, the Turbo Study, is perhaps Dickinson’s greatest achievement yet…
As is the case with each of Singer’s vehicles, each Turbo Study will be built to order, so any number of variations on the theme can be had. The show car features over 331 kW (what Singer refer to as a starting point) from its 3,8-litre twin-turbocharged and intercooled flat-six and was created with a vision of high-performance, luxury grand touring capabilities in mind. This vision yielded an impressive list of goodies and notable features are as follows;
Lightweight carbon fibre bodywork in Wolf Blue
Over 331 kW (power may be tailored to each owner’s specification)
6-speed manual transmission
Rear-wheel-drive and touring-focused suspension
Carbon-ceramic braking system
Interior presented in Malibu Sand with Black Forest wood accents
Electrically adjustable, heated seats
Air-conditioning
Specifications can vary from a luxury interior, AWD, and matching luggage, to lightweight seats, a dollop more power, and rear-wheel drive. Anything in-between goes, too – it’s up to each owner to decide.
The custom seats are reminiscent of ‘70s chunky sports seats and the original ‘whale tail’ rear wing design has been cleverly adapted to integrate intercooling, something which the earlier 930 Turbo never had. The louvered bumper styling cues harken back to the 930 Turbo’s plastic accordion-like impact bumpers, and the “shark fin” in front of the rear wheel—a stone chip guard in 1975 and on modern 911’s, features as a functional air intake supplying cold air to the engine bay to optimise combustion and cooling performance. A new evolution of the “Mezger” air-cooled flat-six, the 3,8-litre unit starts life as a 964’s powerplant, albeit significantly reworked for this application including electric wastegates and the aforementioned intercoolers, bespoke air to water items that are mounted inside the intake plenums.
Mazen Fawaz, Chief Executive Officer, Singer Group Inc. said, “We’ve more than doubled sales of our services between 2020 and 2021. Our new, much larger, consolidated facility in Torrance, California enables us to expand the team, respond to demand and welcome owners in comfort. Meanwhile, in the UK, our team is carefully executing each of the restorations enabled by the Dynamics and Lightweighting Study. The response to the Turbo Study from owners has been incredible and we look forward to working with each of them as their restorations progress.”
The Singer Turbo Study will run at Goodwood Festival of Speed in the UK from 23-26 June, 2022, and will then travel to the Monterey Peninsula in Northern California for Car Week in August 2022.
