Porsche brings back the 996
These are curious times we live in as car enthusiasts. With a great deal of looking to the future, there also comes a lot of reminiscing and reflecting. With the 911 Classic Club Coupe, Porsche is very much doing that and we’re here for it all day long.
This 996 is a one-off creation by Porsche for the Porsche Club of America, the marque’s oldest and largest club and has been over two years in the making. As is the way with subtle resto-mods, the devil is in the details.
The Classic Club Coupe is primarily inspired by the 997 Sport Classic, sitting on Fuchs style wheels and featuring Sport Grey Metallic paint. That clothes a new double-dome roof and 2.7 RS-style ducktail spoiler. The club’s Signature Blue features in highlighting inside and out and the Sport Classic theme continues on the inside, with houndstooth pattern in use.
The really tasty bit to us however is what’s going on underneath. Gone is the original water-cooled motor seen in the first 996s. In its place, an advanced version first seen in the 2006 997 GT3, displaying 3.6-litres and producing 381PS (280kW). Other bits coming courtesy of the newer-generation GT3 include brakes and chassis bracing. That’s more than the 997 Sport Classic, which was a re-clothed Carrera, received.
Known as Project Grey in the initial stages, it follows on from another recent Porsche Classic one-off, Project Gold, which breathed similar new life into 993-generation Porsche 911 Turbo. These are extreme expressions of the Porsche Sonderwunsch programme is capable of. We like very much. The question is, what one-off resto project would you have Porsche Classic complete for you?
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