article in full - Tuthill Porsche

The roll-cage is the result of 40 hours in
the fabrication department. Leather-lined
interior puts modern Porsches to shame
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911 that looks like butter wouldn’t melt that
would, on the right road, frighten the life out of
a GT3. I thought the car didn’t exist. But it does
and it’s on this page now.
It’s here quite by chance. My pretend 2.7RS
was at Francis Tuthill’s being serviced and, as I
always do, I asked Richard Tuthill to show me
anything interesting he might have lying
around. He gestured in the direction of a rather
sober looking blood orange 911 with what
appeared to be Carrera rear arches, a 2.7RS front
air dam but, notably, no whale-tail, duck-tail or
door decals to be seen. ‘We’ve just done this for
a customer and we’re quite proud of it…’
True, the restoration of the bodyshell made it
look like a new car, but I suspected that was not
what he was driving at. ‘Take a look at this,’ he
said, flipping up the engine cover. If I wasn’t
quite so tall, I’d have taken the skin off my chin.
There, in the back of this sober-suited 911, sat
the promised land. In an instant I clocked
twelve leads coming off twin coil packs, the
massive intake trumpets and a surgical standard
I’ve driven luxury cars
that can’t match this
level of comfort along
a typical British B-road
of finish. ‘Go on,’ I stammered. ‘It’s based on a
3.2 Carrera engine, but it’s got some rather
special bits in it.’ I could see that. ‘The brief
from the customer was to make a tractable and
civilised road car that can be used every day, so
it’s tuned to have a good spread of torque rather
than outright power and runs deliberately on a
very quiet exhaust. Because of this it’s only
giving about 300bhp, but you could knock that
up to 320-340bhp just by changing the exhaust.’
‘Only’ 300bhp, huh? In a car weighing about
the same as a water biscuit. It is safe to say my
interest was captured.
‘The engine’s bored out to 3.5-litres, has twinplug
ignition and runs Jenvey throttle bodies and
a fully mappable Omex ECU running through
new SSI heat exchangers and a stainless steel
exhaust. It has different cams, 993 head studs,
race valve springs, new valve guides and piston
rings. Power goes from there to a standard G50
gearbox with a limited-slip diff incorporated.
‘On the chassis side we’re using EXE-TC
dampers, developed by our competitions
department and made for us by the same people
who do the dampers for Citroen’s World Rally
cars and these are complemented by different
roll bars front and rear and different rear torsion
bars. It’s also got our full-house braking system
on it with six-pot front and four-pot rear
aluminium callipers, and we’re running it on
Dunlop Formula R tyres, which are road legal
and work surprisingly well when it’s damp.’
All very impressive but Richard is not done
yet. ‘We’ve equipped this car with our own
pedal box complete with two master cylinders
and a balance bar mounted in place of the
standard servo. It gives a much better, more
progressive feel to the brakes and allows the
driver to wind the bias back to the rear when it
gets wet.’ And then there’s all the stuff you can’t
see, such as the 40 hours spent strengthening
the shell and a similar period of time spent
working on the roll-cage.
Cosmetically the car comes with Recaro
Sportster CS seats which both slide and recline,
plus lightweight carpets and leather door panels.
Tuthill 911
‘But,’ says Richard, ‘the real money goes on the
conversion of the body and interior back to
1970s spec. Depending on how far you want to
go, the costs can be considerable.’ How much?
Well Richard reckons there’s £25,000 in the
engine alone and the car’s insured for £100,000.
The final question was the most obvious of
all. ‘Can I have a go?’ A week later and with the
very kind permission of its owner, I duly took
my place behind its Momo wheel.
I spent my first few minutes without even
switching on the engine, but cooing over the
quality of the interior instead. It’s got a full cage
in it (and a brace bar between the front struts),
but most of it has been swaddled in hand
stitched black leather so you don’t notice at all.
There are seats in the back for your kids that I’d
not necessarily expected, while the Recaros for
yourself and preferred co-pilot are exceptionally
comfortable. Even before you set off, this is
clearly a car designed not just to be used, but to
be usable.
The key turns on the ignition, but it’s a
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