Project Tornado is a 700PS 911
The world of the resto-modded Porsche 911 has gotten a bit crazy over the past couple of years with the latest avenue of ‘reimagination’ being turbocharging. Singer just revealed its Turbo Study, which we saw at the 2022 Goodwood Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard, and now Gunther Werks is here with its own hot rod. Meet the faintly ridiculous 710PS (522kW) Project Tornado.
Producing all that power is a 4.0-litre twin-turbocharged flat-six built by Rothsport Racing, which has a Motec ECU, a flat fan and liquid charge cooling. Power is adaptable too, with the full 710PS meat coming when the car is in ‘track mode’ with revs going up and into the 8,000rpm range. You make do with around 600PS (441kW) the rest of the time. Allegedly, Gunther will also offer the Tornado in a tamer ‘Touring’ specification should you wish. The gears number six and are controlled with a stick, sending power to the rear wheels. And they called the 450 993 GT2 the widowmaker…
Visually, inside and out, it’s fundamentally the opposite of that Tuthill 911K we looked at yesterday. Everything about it is automotive jewellery on steroids, from the blistered carbon body with cooling inlets and air outlets, to the gurning chin, the whale tail and monster diffuser.
Add it all together and, dare we say it, there’s something of the ghost of Gemballa about the Gunther Werks Tornado, which is ironic because Gemballa was fond of meteorological names for its creations too. Unlike in most Gemballas – certainly the old ones – there’s real aero stuff going on underneath and overall to keep the 1,225kg Tornado feeling correct at speed. It’s a truly mad look with serious functional consideration.
On the inside, certainly in this orange car, it’s KTM superbike meets Luftgekühlt, with the typical five-pod instrument cluster and miniature media interface in the middle the most familiar 993 vestiges. Everywhere else it’s orange, carbon, Alcantara and finely hewn metalwork.
Obviously, everything for the 25 lucky buyers will be entirely bespoke and customisable. There’s no hard dollar number attached to it yet but many of Gunther’s more restrained creations to date have neared the seven figures and beyond. So would your money go on this, a Turbo Study, or some other flavour of reimagined Porsche 911?
Gunther Werks
Project Tornado
Porsche
911
993
