If you haven’t heard of Singer Vehicle Design or its founder, Rob Dickinson, you’re about to spend a chunk of time doing drooling over the Porsche 911 tuner’s creations and ultimately trying to find hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy one of your own … but you’ll want to read this story first.
Singer is adamant about the fact that it is not an automaker; it is a custom builder of 911 tributes — at least it’s that phrasing that keeps Singer out of trouble with Porsche. The restoration and modification shop specializes in using 964 generation 911s as a platform, before it adds a classic 911 body.
Rob Dickinson is a former Lotus engineer and his vision for Singer is to build the absolute best versions of the original cars. That means adding incredibly detailed touches to the interiors, suspension systems, bodywork, brakes, and engines to bring out modern performance from classic 911 silhouettes. Let’s be clear: by the time Singer is done with a project, the result is merely a shell of the original car, but to many, it’s better in every measurable way.
With that introduction, Singer has revealed his latest creations, including a new Targa (also based on a 964 chassis). Both vehicles ditch the 964’s 3.6-liter flat-six engine in favor of a Cosworth-tuned 3.8-liter flat-six with 345 horsepower, or a more powerful 4.0-liter flat six with 385 HP. For reference, a 4.0-liter Singer car is only two seconds slower around Laguna Seca than the McLaren P1. These aren’t garage queens.
Whichever engine flavor you choose, you can pair it with either a five- or six-speed manual gearbox. Singer has only restored 24 cars since it started in 2009, with each project taking about 10 months to complete, but Dickinson suggested his operation will be expanding soon, with some surprises on the horizon.
For that much attention to detail, customers pay handsomely. Not including the cost of the donor car, Singer charges between $390,000 and $445,000 for each example. For high performance characteristics and classic 911 looks, no one does it better.
