Ever wondered what a modern day GT1 car would look like? Master of high-revving, rally- and race-ready classic Porsche 911s Tuthill has been too and decided to dream up an answer. Meet the Tuthill GT One, a very 911 GT1-inspired road-going supercar that’s debuting at Monterey car week.
The interesting thing here is that we’re not quite sure what this GT One is based on. Famously, the original 911 GT1 married the rear end – engine, transmission, cradle and tubular subassembly – of a 962 Group C car with trace amounts of 993 911 road car.
Tuthill’s release doesn’t specify any donor cars as such and in the images, we can see what looks at the very least to be a carbon passenger cell, or at least a carbon-skinned cell, with a very GT1-esque tubular arrangement – with inboard coilover suspension – at the back. It’s the same at the front, with the single-piece bodywork hinging forward at the front and rearward at the back.
It does however have what looks like a proper 911 windscreen. Also, when this car was spied being unloaded at the airport, it was seen with five-stud alloy wheels – clearly hidden by the turbo fans in the official images – rather than centre-lock items, which could suggest a more conventional basis that also employs a road-going 911’s wheel hubs as well as its spine. We’d bet therefore that somewhere at the heart of this thing are the bones of a ‘normal’ 911.
Everything apart from what forms its basis is known. The bodywork is all carbon-fibre and while it is GT1-inspired, there’s obviously no race-spec accoutrement. There’s no big wing, no canards or anything like that. There is still a big splitter that complements a long diffuser at the rear and like the original, it does still breath primarily through a roof scoop, with secondary inlets in the rear haunches.
There’s also still a bit of a kamm tail and the exhausts exit where they did before. But Tuthill does say it’s all been optimised using CFD, so while GT1-like, this is a shape that’s been massaged with modern tech that employs up-to-date aero solutions. There will, if demand materialises, be an optional track-focused aerodynamic package, though this is yet to be developed. The design comes courtesy of Florian Flatau, who among many other things, is responsible for the lusty shapes pedalled by that other famous name in classic 911 reimagining…
Buyers of the GT One will have two choices of engine. Available are either a 500PS (368kW)+ 4.0-litre naturally-aspirated flat-six, close in relation to the screaming 911K, or a twin-turbo version with over 600PS (441kW). They’ll sing via a custom inconel exhaust system You can also specify either a seven-speed dual clutch, or a manual transmission.
The whole GT1 car for the road thing carries on inside, too. This is far from the stripped-out, cramped, slightly apologetic cabins of the Strassenversions of the 1990s. Rather, we see a sumptuously trimmed, cocoon of exotic materials and peerless quality. It’s almost Pagani-esque, if Pagani built retromod Porsches.
Just 22 Tuthill GT Ones will be made, with each taking some 3,500 build hours to complete. There’s no word on price yet but safe to say, it’s probably going to breech seven figures with ease. It’s certainly an interesting thing, that opens up a new and exciting branch on the rapidly growing retro-inspired, resto-mod family tree.
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