by John Glynn | Jan 22, 2018 | Classic Porsche Blog, Porsche People
Confirmation of Singer Vehicle Design’s partnership with Williams Advanced Engineering became public several weeks ago, when computer mockups of the latest Singer Porsche DLS (Dynamics and Lightweighting Study), were shared on social media.
Some of my friends have been involved in the project since its earliest days, so I’ve been following progress from the sidelines for months. It is a interesting collaboration. Now that the bodyshells have entered production, Singer has started advertising for people to help assemble these cars in the UK. The jobs are here in sunny Northamptonshire and the accompanying text from the Singer website is below. You can also download the full Singer Porsche jobs PDF.
About Singer
Singer Vehicle Design was formed in 2009 to explore the creative possibilities within the vibrant world of the classic automobile. Singer is dedicated to the passionate study, preservation and optimisation of the world’s most respected high-performance vehicles. Our focus – indeed obsession – has been the pursuit of a meticulously restored and reimagined air-cooled Porsche 911. Our lofty objective is to distill, enhance and recombine the strands of greatness that have long marked the Porsche 911 as iconic. Today, the cars we restore to bespoke commission for our global clientele appear in the world’s most prestigious global automotive shows and publications.
Singer Porsche UK Jobs
Our latest endeavour on behalf of our clients is a Dynamics and Lightweighting Study “DLS” undertaken with Williams Advanced Engineering – part of the Williams Grand Prix Engineering Group. DLS encompasses a selection of restoration and modification services strongly oriented toward lightweighting and dynamic gains.
The restoration of cars for owners who select the Dynamics and Lightweighting Study will be carried out in the UK. As a result, we are looking for talented individuals to join our UK-based operations.
Job opportunities available Singer GB, a subsidiary of Singer Vehicle Design, will commence operations in February 2018 in Northamptonshire and is currently looking for:
- Painters
- Fabricators
- Mechanics
If you are interested in finding out more about the Singer GB team and these positions please contact us: email info@singergb.co.uk
by John Glynn | Dec 15, 2017 | Classic Porsche Blog, Modified Porsche Hot Rods, Road Trips
I went back to doing some magazine work earlier this year, with my friend Simon Jackson at GT Porsche magazine. Having run a few of my features through 2017, Simon asked if I fancied writing another regular column and I was happy to say yes, so the January 2018 issue has at least one page written by me.
Elsewhere in the latest issue is the story of my road trip to Ruf Automobile Gmbh last July. I made the trip as a passenger in Jonny Hart’s Delphi Green 911 SC, to demo the Classic Retrofit air conditioning system and give Alois and team a tour of the other Classic Retrofit products. The visit was a great success: so much so that the stop-off at the Porsche Museum the following day was a slight anticlimax. When a genuine Porsche hero takes you to lunch, the experience is hard to beat.
Ruf CTR versus Singer/Williams
After our trip, Jonny became part of the project team on the new Ruf CTR and has been working away on the development of the heating and ventilation system for this incredible car. I’ve seen lots of progress photos and they are pretty exciting – such a brave project from Ruf. No chance to share anything for the minute, but they will all come out eventually.
Jonny is also working on the new Singer, as are a few more of my friends, and that is another quite interesting project. Comparing the two from a static driver’s seat is interesting. The Ruf is built on a completely new body shell, all in carbon and with slightly bigger dimensions from the original, while the Singer retains much of the 964 floorpan with additional composite elements. Having seen both up close and sat in the Ruf, the slight shifts in scale give a different feeling from one driver’s seat to the other and that will be interesting to compare on the road. I probably won’t get to drive either of them, but no doubt the big boys will have much to discuss.
GT Porsche: my Tyre Kicker column
I first started working with GT Porsche editor, Simon Jackson, back in 2009. At the time, Simon was running Retro Cars magazine and my creative partner of the time, James Lipman, had already done a few features with him. The three of us went on to do a few bits together and I really enjoyed being in that magazine.
Like all good editors, Simon is easy to work for: he is not shy about speaking his mind on certain contradictions in the world of classic Porsche and is happy to let his contributors just go and get on with it. I like what he is doing at GT Porsche, especially given the operational pressures all magazines face nowadays. Check out the latest issue if you run across it.
Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support the blog or engage with me in other ways, you can:
by John Glynn | Oct 30, 2017 | Classic Porsche Blog, Porsche People
Very sad to hear that Peter Schutz has died. The 911 and its fans have Peter to thank for saving their bacon – he was the man who took over the loss-making Porsche as CEO in 1981 and famously walked into a product meeting where the 911 production graph on the wall stopped the same year. He picked up a marker and continued the line off the chart, over the desk, across the wall and out the door.
“Do we understand?” asked Peter. Those present must have got it, as the 911 subsequently went from strength to strength. The legend that is Ray Shaffer at Porsche Cars North America put some words about Schutz on his Instagram and I share them below. Ray knew Peter personally and he hits the spot nicely.
With his passing this weekend, we’ve lost a dear friend, father, husband, leader and mentor in Peter W. Schutz. He leaves this world a better place than the one he found, with his everlasting legacy and thoughtful teachings.
In the Porsche community, he was the man who invited Ferry Porsche back to his office in Stuttgart. He “saved” the 911 model and helped secure its future by championing the Cabriolet, Speedster and 959 developments and by listening to those around him – people like Porsche, Bott, Falk, Singer, Jantke, to name only a few. Peter also let the people of Porsche know their purpose by famously declaring: “as long as I am in charge of this company, we will never go to any race without the objective of winning.”
Peter was a great friend of the late Bob Snodgrass and the family of Brumos Porsche. When Bob passed in 2007, Peter was the first person to contact me. I will never forget the thoughtful letter of care and concern he wrote about how to keep the Brumos spirit alive. It became my “go to” reference piece that would serve me well during my tenure as general manager. But I was not alone. Peter was a mentor to many personally and through the pages of his excellent book, The Driving Force.
With thoughts and prayers for Sheila, Lori and the entire Schutz family. Godspeed, Peter.
Peter stayed with Porsche until 1987 and was 87 when he passed. From what I have read, he lived a great life and his work certainly had an untold impact on my career, in many ways bested only by Ferry himself. I cannot begin to describe how many lessons from Peter’s career have embedded themselves in my outlook. He was truly a unique individual.
RIP Peter: forever an unforgettable part of Porsche history.
by John Glynn | Oct 30, 2017 | Classic Porsche Blog, Modified Porsche Hot Rods
EB Motorsport has unveiled its latest Porsche project: a beautifully detailed recreation of the legendary Porsche 911R, built to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the R’s record-breaking 20,000-kilometre endurance speed run at Monza in Italy in 1967.
In October 1967, Porsche sent its 906 race car to Monza, to break endurance speed records. When the 906 proved unable to withstand the rigours of Monza over extended distances, a prototype 911R was called for. Driven on its own wheels directly from Stuttgart and fitted with a test engine which had already logged 100 hours of flat-out running, the lightweight R claimed five world records, including covering 20,000 kilometres at an average speed of 209 km/h. It was a memorable moment in 911 history.
“Porsche motorsport history underpins all that we do,” says James Bates at EB. “Having successfully campaigned our 3.0 RS and RSR race cars for many years before adding the SWB 2.0 race car, which then finished as first 911 home in the Spa 6 Hours, we were keen to explore the edges of lightweight Porsche racing, so the R was a natural progression.
“Our new 911R showcases everything that EB Motorsport can accomplish and is fascinated by. Built on a 1967-manufactured SWB 911 chassis, which was fully restored in-house and now tops the scales at 804 kilograms in Monza trim, our 911R is loaded with meticulous hand-finished details, from bespoke brake parts and 906-style inlet manifolds, to our lightweight doors and in-house exhaust system with megaphone soundtrack.
“We’re excited to unveil the R on such a special anniversary. Our plan is to film some souvenir footage with it before offering it for sale later this year. Many of its unique components will be also added to our historic Porsche parts product range, so people can build their own interpretations of this legendary 911.”
Having seen the EB Porsche 911R up close and personal, there is no doubting its quality. Many of the closest R recreations I have seen up to now have been a bit wavy and a little bit delicate – much like the genuine R prototype my car once shared a pit lane with at Silverstone. This one is a more substantial piece of engineering that looks every inch an all-steel 911, but shows a stunningly low number on the scales.
The 911R’s passed its MOT but has yet to be registered. As soon as the Letter of Origin arrives from Porsche, the boys will get some paperwork, tax it and then we can take it up over Snake Pass. I’m looking forward to having a spin.
Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support the blog or engage with me in other ways, you can:
by John Glynn | Oct 28, 2017 | Classic Porsche Blog, Market & Prices
There’s been good interest in Porsche tractors at auction all year, so it will be interesting to follow this 18hp Allgaier Porsche tractor through the auction at Brooklands Historics on November 25th. Porsche tractors are a fascination to me and, while prices have still not gone crazy, their simple, honest and ego-free nature makes them a superb place to put a bit of cash in my view, especially if you have a bit of land to enjoy them on.
Having kicked off the people’s car concept with the VW Beetle, Porsche turned its focus to the land, creating a range of strong and reliable tractors for the masses. The first designs were registered in the early 1930s, but after WWII, only companies that had been making tractors before and during the war were allowed to produce agricultural machinery. So Porsche put its clever designs up for licencing and partnered with two companies: Allgaier in Germany and Hofherr Schrantz in Austria.
Produced as “Porsche System” products, more than 125,000 tractors were built under this arrangement from the 1950s until 1963. The old Zeppelin factory was used by Mannesmann, who took over Allgaier production from the mid-1950s.
The Brooklands tractor is an 18 hp, two-cylinder model from 1957. Originally supplied to an estate in the south of France, it eventually passed to a Belgian doctor in 2009, who restored it to immaculate condition and stored it in his drawing room. It was later sold to an historic racing driver and is now coming up for auction.
Brooklands estimate the tractor at £10-15k, which sounds about right to generate interest. The end result probably depends on how much activity it attracts amongst European buyers, so it could even go higher that that. I spoke to my friend, Michael Hodges, at Brooklands and got his take on the current classic market, which is broadly in line with how I am finding things.
“Things remain buoyant as far as historics are concerned, with a consistently high sales ratio. Last sale was a little down, but the market has hardened. As you know, the market has been high for a very long time. We find that classic Porsches remain good when realistically priced, but some sellers have unrealistic expectations.
“Some market commentary – generally from the less informed – is not helpful, nor accurate. Certainly, at the high end of the investment market, buyers are more cautious but it’s inappropriate to suggest that’s representative of the market as a whole.”
I am hoping to make it to Brooklands and watch the tractor go through. With 140 lots including 44 vehicles consigned for this sale, there are a few more interesting cars open for bidding, including a LHD Gen 1 GT3 in Viper Green with 39,500 kms, which is estimated at £115-140k. The sales results will make interesting additions to my Porsche Valuations database. More news from Brooklands later.
Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support the blog or engage with me in other ways, you can:
