One More than Ten (Years)

[Applause] [Music] 11 years ago I visited a strange chaotic Workshop in Los Angeles the cars inside blew my mind the singer Legend had been born things are different [Music] now climing it's bit different every Porche 911 reimagined by singer starts with an is sending their 964 generation car to singer the car is disassembled and then restored around its chassis and engine block in collaboration with the owner the building may be bigger but the Hat remains here's Rob to talk us around the turbo this is it this is the latest car I have to say if any car lends itself to the singer treatment it's the turbo isn't it cuz it's got It's got the Arches it's already got the width and now you can exaggerate that y talk me through it well uh the 930 Turbo I mean for for Our Generation Chris perhaps the pinup called 911 I had one on my wall I loved the idea of it Porsche's first super car and we wanted to try to try and you know respectfully and sincerely and authentically bring it into the into the new world with a bit more performance and fixing a few things but as usual trying to retain the essence of what made the 930 so special had a lot to do with width it had a lot to do with turbo lag and it had a lot to do with all sorts of things back in the day um and we've tried to give the car a comfortable stance and have it sitting comfortably on its Wheels without too much effort There's Something About The Wider axles of the turbo that mean that it looks more contemporary than a 32 Carrera looks like quite an old car but a a later G50 box particularly 89 turbo to me doesn't look that old no know what I mean cuz cuz the wheels really fill the Arches don't they you've now got a bigger front Arch to play with yes you know to to get a car to sit right it's very helpful to have a little bit of offset on the on the wheel and have a little bit of wheel barrel so we've worked hard to define a fuks that has a little bit of Barrel on the front and the back of course the back is less of an issue um well I didn't think you could get any more dish on a wheel than that he calls it Barrel it's a great word Barrel you know it's got to it's got to look like a turbo cuz it's a it's a Porsche Turbo right and it and it there are things that we need to get right and things we need to um you know press the emotional buttons with and and get right and um there are things that we need to leave well alone that car even though it it was a a celebration of an of an older looking car there was elements of it that looked Factory that's what you've done with this okay so how do you get these finishes this is your interpretation of the ironically impact bumper how long does it take to get these finishes we clay modeled this car for 2 years and we we obsessed about all sorts of things like the the bumper to body seal and it was the the impact bumper so the so these concertina um on the original cars and gave the gave the car some parking protection rethinking them and bringing them making them both an energy absorber and an exit for some heat because obviously got the turbos down there seemed like an obvious thing to do to me and um the Finish is a rubberized paint finish so so the parts of carbon yes and it's very protective and it feels like rubber and it allows us to get the kind of it's got a lovely lovely resistance you just touch it there's a bit of tackiness to yeah soft touch kind of rubberized paint and that allows us to get the the gaps rubber's much heavier of course and it shrinks makes these these gaps and these tolerances very hard to to pin down does this excite you as much oh yeah because this has allows us to go Bonkers you know and get everything right what I love about it is I see in the cars that you do I see like all car nerds there were shapes and surfaces that you saw in the turbo and they were they were outside in and inside right and you've played with them and bought and and added your interpretation to them but also it's a celebration it's an homage and the other one for me in this car you've got these shapes these are obvious this is obvious the seat bolsters yeah the seat B I can just imagine when I saw this the first shot I was like I know he spent ages grinning about this wellat there are so many if if so distinctive if you think a lot about these cars there are there are elements of the car that you've just got to the original Sports seats that weren't always fitted to early turbos had this very Square it was Square section and they they looked they call them Tombstone seats and they they were very they were rather straight and stiff on the upper half but this this was lovely so we retained this um and we wanted to get some you know some contemporary Porsche trimming this is very much an homage to the to the 1975 Turbo seat and also the classic here with the seat that you you had on it was was your interpretation of a seat it fitted the car perfectly I love the electrical adjusters on this right cuz that was again that's just pure 80s isn't it it is it is it is and and and why you know those lovely circular uh buttons with the arrows on the way they move yeah lovely they and they they're kind of sprung nicely I mean they're iconic I mean it's overused word but they there are so many corners of the turbo that that are that are just carved from a a time and a moment in the' 70s that have to be celebrated right yeah the turbo needed to sit on its Wheels a little bit better those big wheel archers were making promises that the wheels couldn't keep I I think in in in in those in those days good phas and we've tried to fix that a little bit the car's much wider than a than a regular turbo um it's about 30 mm wider at the back and 20 at the front how do you get the proportions so right I'm I'm sounding a bit of a Copan now but you do Wheels we start with the wheels many difference between the classic and and a turbo is the classics on 17s the turbos on 18s these are the same Wheel and Tire specs as our DLS the dynamic lightweighting study so it's got two 45s and 2 95s on the back so it's a bigger wheel which allowed us certain amount of challenges to make the car sit comfortably on the 18-in wheel but yes starting with the wheels and tires get the wheels and tires right half the battle and getting them in the right spot and and then ing them and just creating a surround for the for the wheels is and the tires especially is is is job number one is that specific to Porsche shapes or is it for all shapes all shapes all shapes cuz these do look like they're melted over the wheels to me I think most car designers would say that um it starts with the rubber how the tire sits on rim gives a certain amount of tension to the thing and then you're you're Off to the Races how did you reach this solution to the front end again it's this if it had been Oe M back in the day this is what it would look like look cuz it just looks it looks like it's almost a factory solution yeah but it but of course it's radically different to to actually to the original car but somehow it looks like it might have been how did you do that we have to spend a lot of money developing new lights yeah you can imagine the the commitment and the the cash required to do that which is pretty unpleasant I might have had a little go in it already and I'm going to hopefully have a better go in it quite soon the character of the car is in ke in with turbo it's a bit more GT than out and Out Sports Car loads of torque fewer gear changes but it's mighty fast it is mighty fast yeah I mean it's got over 500 horsepower and and about know 2,700 lb it's going to be bloody fast marer have done a great job on the engine management it's got abs traction control and ESP from from Bosch it's got everything we can do to make it a a long distance thing that you want to travel with with a partner maybe and go go to Fantastic places and have some experiences in same could be said for the classic as well it's it's a little bit more frenetic a little bit more visceral and the idea was to turn the volume down a little bit but but but not lose the excitement first time we recorded something about one of your cars you told a lovely romantic story it wasn't a story it was the truth about how you'd got some modeling clay together in a room and you'd spent ages agonizing over wheel out shapes and effectively like all great ideas you just had the balls to get on and do it and what you ended up with was a car that captivated I think and really touched the nerve so much so that about 100 people tried to imitate you since but that was that was born out of Simplicity and passion yeah I'm not saying that's gone from this at all it's the same thing but now you're making something that's a bit more grown up are you staggered by how involved the process is and how much you have to do to do this cuz you didn't at the beginning you didn't do it with that did you but with this the the test it's incredible I've managed to relieve myself of some of those duties that's what I was touching on the greatest thing that's ever happened is that we've managed to surround us Ma and I managed to surround ourselves with people who are actually very good at doing specific jobs which is something that we weren't very good at back in the early days we were doing everything and we weren't very good at doing everything we were good at good we were we were good at doing some of the stuff maybe but the cars are just benefiting from process and from proper expertise in areas that where we clearly were not experts you know really hone honing the Dynamics of a car it's the most Complete Car we've ever done I mean there's massive amount of Lessons Learned in this thing part of the reason for coming here was to understand how far a companies's come you know that first little shed with the cars was was a sort of an assembly point of bits that not everyone knew where they were coming from it was it was lovely and mad yes this feels very grown up to me I'm I've been taken back today I didn't realize the scale of it it's it is pretty Orange spiring when you see it you realize how many people want your cars which they should do but it doesn't feel like a car factory it doesn't feel well that's it doesn't feel too sterile good and I and I still think there's some of that California Madness in it and you realize that it takes an absolute Army to do something as ostensibly simple as restoring a beautiful old Porsche 911 and to do it in a way that is repeatable that retains the the the wonderful essence of handbuilt artisanship which I think think we we've jealously guarded here if you look at what's going on here it's the same it's the same kind of commitment that was going on 13 14 years ago there's just more of it happening it's and it's just happening in a more organized way and it's the Testament to Ma and Jason Franklin our coo that we've managed to to to to to to make sense of an idea that we knew was a strong idea but we certainly didn't think it would turn into this which is what I'm asked most often it's got to be as close to perfect as possible and I've started using the perfect word when i' because yeah it's horrible word that's what we're chasing and I've always said no nothing and and the cars are not perfect there's nowh they are nothing is and you don't want it to be but everything really is important and we've got to keep an eye on everything and and the stuff that makes people go to bed sleeping well and thinking about their car is the that we love right it's the finishes and the the way Parts come together I mean this is there's joy and in in innocent little moments like that how a door door closes and the trim and the wheels and how the tires look and and this is the stuff that that inspired me now we have the ability to really Chase all the other stuff which is beautiful engineering underneath the car proper parts that go together beautifully that have been engineered by people who really know what they're doing and of course the car benefiting as a result in terms of not just how the car feels and how the car is going to endure but how the car goes down theing road which is which is uh which is the main thing singer services are based on co-creation singer team listens to the personalization each owner acquires and then restores their classic Porsche 911 accordingly it's a labor of love for everyone if Rob creates the beauty it's CEO ma who makes it all happen it's a bit different to 11 years ago yeah I'd say so I mean I don't even know where to begin I think there were four five cars in the workshop and now can we go to the start where I want to see one of these being flattened and prepped beautified is that right body and paint start there it gets cleaned up it goes into here the the cars are bodied in carbon fiber as you know y but the magic is really This Magnificent set of people who then massage the surface of the car every millimeter of it and every single car is hand finished like that all by hand it will always be done by and how long does it take for a shell to appear in here and then leave ready for paint it's about a month prior to this this takes about almost 2 months uh and then it goes into paint and that's because sorry let me stop you so there's 3 months to get it to the paint shop it just can't be automated cars aren are they're they're not perfect down to the down to the half millimet but we perfect them before they get painted look at these surfaces to get a 4 mm gap on every car and how do they measure that is there a tool there's a tool there's a measurement tool 4 mm on every car all the time and it's done by hand to make it perfect every time is everyone slightly different I suppose they are aren't they yeah of course and what's nice is it's there's a human being in every one of these right they've they' felt this surface to get it perfect and it's theirs it should and could never be simplified Could It Well it can't be automated no so I've been around your cars since the start I've driven cars that are dynamically as exciting maybe at the outside I've driven cars that nearly as beautiful but I've never driven cars that have as good a paint finish and we treat the whole car that way and the idea is that it's Exquisite craftsmanship through the entire car but how is the paint finish so good is it just do they just keep going at it it's just it's a dedication of time that's really what it is there's no shortcut watch it's just going to take as long as it takes and as you said great paint can only be applied to a great finished shell if that's not right this won't work once that once that's done this is this is a polishing and finishing area for the shell hours and hours hours of surface polishing and finish what about ppf ppf is the latest thing so the the car is ppf can can you do them here uh we do it we do it in the far corner so customers can have ppf applied by S they do and it's done with the car in pieces right so it's not after it's built on the on on the yeah and so it's very thorough and the idea is that you can't see any brakes you have to be told that it's there and you're you're also applying it to a perfect finish so it doesn't have as much of that you know sometimes ppf will take away from the Finish but you're applying it to something that's that's a that's a mirror so 11 years ago when I came to see you and Rob was there polishing inside of a wheel room before I went out you didn't have your own hyper car that races in wack no with Jensen button's name on the side of it that's right it's bizarre for me it's ridiculous cuz I look at how far sing has come and and I'm I'm still doing the same thing I'm just a bit fatter I got more gray hair a lot fatter I know but nothing really has improved for me no not for you what's that there this is much better uh that is our turbocharged lightweight nutcase I mean not that guy that car it is quite a story can we go and see some stitching yes when I first met you chaps on your journey everything was outsourced yeah that really just an assembly Point wasn't it really so it's everything in house now everything the entire process and so Staffing the business with people this talented is an is an enormous amount of effort we spend a lot of time really on the group of people who uh not only are magnificently talented they're generally very very sweet very nice dedicated folks it also makes me understand why occasionally I've said to you oh could you get your boys to just to a seat for me for my car you go no because they're flat out doing this they are flat out this is this is another area where it's going to take the time that it takes yeah so it if it t it takes months to do an interior that's just it that's what we do for a living and I suppose there's one there's one question I have to ask and it's not meant to be difficult the more you do of it the better you get at it don't you of course yeah you shouldn't be ashamed of that I mean our our quality targets are unusually difficult yeah for I guess I guess for a car it's more like a like a wristwatch or something right like a jewel um and it takes it takes practice that's the new turbo sport seat this is what's going in that that white car a cloth as well that looks really good yeah this is the first first one and they will start to get in more and more shape over time there's some turbo seats kind of sit on that it'll fall it' be funny if you fell that looks fantastic with with the cloth inserts it feels grown up it feels like it's matured still doesn't feel like a car factory well it's never going to be it it's not a car factory no it's a reassembly of a very special thing yeah yeah and we treat it like a jewel yeah like we're building a a wrist watch it is not not a you know a refrigerator or something it's just some tool that's going to go out to the to the client it's very special there's a lot of there's a lot of uh it's still but it still feels Artisan yeah it is in the in the UK we call it cottage industry well we've tried to remove the artisanship from where it didn't need to be okay right where it's not really helpful in some areas um and then we've really dialed up the craftsmanship I mean look at this this is just ridiculous we've dialed look at the quality of it the craftsmanship where it matters there's lots of people that are imitating the company that's reimagining an icon do you take that as a compliment yeah I mean what what they don't understand is it takes this yeah yeah it's a heavy lift and if they do it great see them on the other side but it is it's a it's a mountain of consideration work and just Talent the amount of talent we have been able to attract at the business has allowed us to do this it's it's just the the attention to detail is is crazy for me you need to see the turbo interior let's go and see a turbo interior it's it's beautiful and now there's I mean there actually a proper printed panel as well yeah I mean the quality is ridiculous I hope people appreciate the quality it's a continuous Improvement we call it okay and it will continue to cycle and cycle and cycle through development to get it finer and finer and finer I have to say just feeling the fact that that's metal what other car Reimer would make that in metal no one would they it'd be plastic it would be plastic or printed a lot of printed stuff these days yeah but it doesn't feel the way it should so you'll rub your hand up against this when you pull the strap would you ever admit how much that costs to make uh not on camera it's a door panel for crying out loud and that's going on to this yes come see the inside okay so poke your head in there so you're looking at you know this sort of a speaker tray engine ECU is that blue box right in the middle and you know the the the amount of engineering it took to get to a piece that's going to really have an exterior finish that we require um and pre previously that was all just handbuilt was it it was just a hand formed maybe piece of aluminum that was covered in uh sound ending on one side leather on the other um we've really stepped it up sound quality build quality repeatability um all trying to get gaps and joints that are AB incredibly accurate the level of quality that we require is is unusual for a car I love the clock faces on this turbo they look at those clock faces they're Mega they're just gorgeous when you see the footage of Goodwood you'll see this car you'll be going up the hill at Goodwood I mean I just get drawn into these carbon ceramic rotors but there's a lot going on here it's beautiful yeah it's a ccmr rotor yeah um so you'll find that on a on a Chiron yep um and then we've developed a special damper with the integrated front axle lift yep um as is required with these things and when we arrived here there were four weight bags of sand hanging off that why because we've taken so much weight out of the car that it's made it kind of more rear engine yeah so we need to wait the car like a crayer GT that it doesn't otherwise otherwise it will do a static wheelie absolutely stunning casually you find those on a Chiron do you think you'd ever say that in 2013 do you think you'd say you get that on a Chiron again I can't stop looking at all the beautiful body shells and the colors you do have some inventive exciting customers don't you we do there's not a huge rush to go super fast through here it's really it does feel quite calm yeah if the focuses on quality execution getting it perfect it's not about getting it out fast the one thing that is really apparent is protecting that beautiful coach work when people are Boling stuff together that seems to be really important miles of yellow tape what's the yellow tape it's probably half the budget is the tape though don't damage the car we sorry we've just casually walked past four of the most beautiful cars I've ever seen the end result is still one of the most beautiful Automotive object I've ever seen and it still looks like it did 11 years ago it's still as exciting still makes me want to drive it it's a car that makes you want to walk up open the door and have a look inside so I will I will okay the seat's covered got a beautiful metallic green exterior it's lighter than oak green this isn't it it's a bit lighter yeah and it's got a it's got a sort of CBA Brown interior I mean every time I come here I just want one they're stunning Maz they're stunning they're still stunning and actually what you call Classic that's a chapter that's closing how many more left to build I think about 100 125 then and then it's turbo then it's all turbo I've never seen so many like this you see for you it's normal it's it it is hard to get used to but they're unicorn cars you know you don't expect to see more than one or two in one place what a journey fabulous to see everything what a journey so here we go then the first time anyone has seen the turbo on film on road and a little bit of sexy track work afterwards I suppose time flies when you spend so much time around the beautiful Motor Cars Porsche 911 reimagined by singer in its turbocharged form I first drove one of these in 2013 I think so this is 11 years on and there's already a a Heritage of these fantastic Motor Cars hundreds of happy owners lots of happy journalists too of which I am one so what's turbocharging done well it's a lot more than just turbocharging this is a car of very different personality it's a lot more performance than the normally aspirated car not DLS obviously cuz that's really got a lot of performance very light but this is It's potent and that boost [Music] builds so what we've got here for me is more of a fast GT car and that is just what the doctor ordered but it's still alive and agile perfectly suited to these beautiful Canyon roads is north of Malibu which incidentally where we shot that first film all those years ago it properly gets going as well much faster than the normal normally aspirated car this turbocharged engine really brings a lot more performance than the standard car boost builds from about 2 and a half 3,000 RPM but it really keeps going it's calibrated to keep going all the way well beyond six so hang in there and it delivers very flat handling very agile huge amounts of grip I mean those wide rear tires I've just been full beans in first gear coming out of a hairpin not even a chir it's nicely geared as well it's not too long but it's a it's a car of different personality so you want to get it into third gear and then just enjoy the turns enjoy the steering which is just the steering loves at modern cars it's just gorgeous you can feel the road conditions in front of you I know I sound like a 198 Road tester that's cuz I am one at heart that's fantastic steering wheel bang on as well as ever rob has got this driving environment just spot on this engine okay turbocharging always takes away a little bit of noise but what you get is this elasticity isn't it the sense of the bungee rope you come out of a corner and you go who it's still going it just pulls you to the horizon it shrinks the gaps between the corners those straight bits it shrinks them but I've still got a lovely noise I've still got Pure pors of sand behind me yeah and it's it's powerful it's fast it is just fabulous motor car [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] there you have it the beautiful fast and sophisticated Porsche 911 reimagined by singer in its turbocharged [Music] form mean is that is following me isn't it within 18 days of meeting Ma and realizing he hadn't turned up in our car park to buy a car he was just a nut job for these cars like like I was we were already imagining a turbo if the F model is the early 911 which for many really isn't the pinup 911 is it it's an insiders 9911 a little bit it's an early 911 but you know the 911 hit the mainstream You could argue um with the G model in 7475 and of course the the the big moment for the G model was was the turbo and that was that was I had one on I literally had a poster of the turbo on my on my bedroom one you have own one or l no I remember I saw one in norch City Center outside a pub that my band used to play at it white I was 11 so it was like this must have been 65 75 76 77 Norwich City Center so it was an early turbo and it just looked like a wide spaceship it just looked so unignorable you just could not ignore it it was just and and and and it was just parked half up on the curve and I just remember watching people's reaction to it and it was like obscene it was like obscene these obscene big arches and stuff and it was like no 911 I'd never seen and I was reasonably familiar with the 911 and you know it just made its Mark and it's like you know iconic is an overused word isn't it but it it it it just represented this new era of of Porsche which was all about speed and rubber there was all this black rubber everywhere and there was no Chrome on it and it was Rubber and it was mid 70s and we' come out was there was there any Chrome on the door suround was it all I think the the first tur had chrome door door mirrors all about rubber it what all this beautifully molded fabulously Germanic Bellows fabulous Bellows it was just like it just felt felt like a weapon in the world of the nerd the turbo front fender is a bit of a specialist object because the St had already given us a load of extra width on the front but it's a very different shape to a turbo front Wing isn't it if you stand and look at the front fender Wing we I call it we call it a wing in England but a fender not the not the whale tail but the actual thing that covers the front wheel it's an extraordinarily great shape we call it putting a bit of PSI Under the Skin So you you you you know you massage the services so they they've got the right amount of bicep but they also have some senu but it's very very respectful to an original turbo architecture yeah it's got quite a big face on the on the on the whel arch different to an st and of course the St was the inspiration for me for the classic as we call it um you know a mus a muscular 911 silhouette without any aerodynamic addenda that had this fabulous kind of confidence stance we took a lot of time understanding the presence and the way of the classic and we wanted to make the turbo it's almost like you'd stuck you stuck your lips over the exhaust pipe and gone so it went just just a little bit and we were talking earlier about you know turbo lag and a lot of our of our friends and customers who knew we were doing the turbo said it's going to it's got to have turbo lag right and we were saying well yeah I think so but we can get rid of most of the turbo leg no no it's got to have turbo leg and you were saying today it needs to have some turbo leg right but it needs to feel authentically turbocharged but in a good way the personality of the turbo is interesting for me because the car is a bit a thug yeah I mean it's not blun it's a blunt instrument it's not this delicate thing where you you know you come back and fingertip car yeah you you wax lyrical about the delicacy of it really it's about shortening the gap between the corners it's a it's Patrick baitman in a car it's red braces today I definitely got that it's a thug it's got It's got great it's got the best steering you've ever done really fantastic I mean but the idea is that you can you can wield it yeah so that it's it's not something that's immediately you know foreign or out of balance and cuz the the original car it was particularly fast I don't know why they considered it so fast but it was out of balance and anyone can throw a giant engine in something if you inflate part that part of the car you have to sort of inflate the the rest of it and it's an incredible exercise going through every single you heard the story about the um power steering yeah so we regeared the power steering we regeared the power steering rack to get more you know cuz we're going to have more Tire much more than that those those components were design3 never had power steering did it but you don't just rear it you willy-nilly we went through 20 sets of gearing to get it to get the steering right to get the steering right to hit the target and it has to be a very complete exercise it can't just be one one area of it it's a little monster a real monster actually it's got a personality all of its own because what what I think is has always been interesting is that the despite the gorgeous styling mechanically and the way they drive these cars got personality their own they really have they're true to the original Porsche but they add something in but this feels completely different to anything you've done before in a in a quite a wild way it's it's really it's fast car Neil knows when I'm having to work and I was working quite hard at times today and a turbo should make you work you if you if I'd got in that thing and just gone ly Daddy D fourth gear slide you'd have failed because it should be a thug it should be a bit spiteful it shouldn't be it shouldn't be horrible it's you know it what it is it's got fantastic steering it's got a front Ender you can trust back of the car there always been a problem yes I know but but the back of the car is got so much mechanical grip you're immediately secure and actually if you want to step beyond that you are being what we call in the trade a you could also drive it across that's fair enough you could drive it across the country so you have to have that range is that's a very difficult range to make something civil it's it's it's very easy to make a a track car or a boy racer hardcore loud thing to make something that feels like you could be in it for a week but then also does that it's not just the doing it's the consideration of what the target is what are you trying to accomplish and how hard are you going to push everybody to that Target you've been out in it all day but what are you um what do you think of it it's completely different to what you've done before which I love it has a personality about it that grows over time the best porches don't reveal themselves immediately you know that if you're getting them and they're onedimensional and you drive them for an hour and you've got it sused it's not a great Porsche and I've got L there's more of them than than I'd want to admit that just give themselves up too quickly so this thing it's quite complicated uh you can't just get in it grab it by the Scruff and have it sorted in the first 10 minutes build you got to You' got to build up to it which I love very very fast as in the tur anything turbocharged portion for some reason you have to really when you get in the car you check your surroundings you've got all your beautiful Rob interior which is stunning I love there's lots of humor in the dials which I think is wonderful there's lots of theater I think it's it's it's more than I expected as well

Channel: Singer

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Id: 7AUDjJvxtMk

Length: 37min 1sec (2221 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 04 2024