FIRST LOOK Porsche Restomod That s NOT A 911

What's that you say? Another restomod based on a Porsche? Well yes, but this one isn't a 911. This is the Nardone 928, for our money one of the most intriguing restomods so far. Certainly the most left field. The 928 was the company's GT, originally conceived as Porsche's new halo car in an era when the 911's crown was slipping a little bit. At one point they were even considering a V10. Porsche's boss at the time, Ernest Fuhrman, thought a bigger, more luxurious sports GT was a safer bet than the quirky rear engine 911. But then the 928 project's evolution was disrupted by the 1973 energy crisis and everybody was suddenly very, very focused indeed on fuel efficiency. When it finally emerged in 1977, the 928 looked like it had been beamed in from the 21st century. It was designed by the brilliantly named Wolfgang Mibius under the watchful eye of Porsche's design boss Tony Lapine, who's one of the great unsung heroes of car design. The 928 was rounded, sculpted, smoother of form. It looked super futuristic and was also notably devoid of any spoilers or aero devices. Tom Cruise drove one into a lake in the early 80s brat pack film Risky Business and the film director Stanley Kubrick, well he drove one and he loved it. Now a Frenchman Thierry Nardone has reimagined it. A one-man band, Nardone says this is more of a continuation car than a restomod. He's certainly gone to ridiculous lengths here. The Nardone 928 contains 3,000 new components, 300 of them in the engine, 198 in the gearbox alone. The interior has been given a fabulous 80s vaporwave minimalist makeover with lots of milled aluminium components and an astonishing audio system. The price? €480,000. Now that doesn't include the cost of the donor car, it's probably about 20 to 30k. Thierry, it's lovely to meet you. It's a Porsche 928. Exactly. And yet it's not a Porsche 928. Yeah, not a lot remains. What makes it the Nardone 928? So we created 3,000 parts for the car so there is a lot of change. The body, as you can see, there is not a lot remaining from the original car. Just the doors, yeah? We kept the doors, for regulation mainly, but also they are aluminium so they are very light so there is no point to replace with carbon. But otherwise, everything else, including the windshield, it's new. And you worked with a design agency in Italy called Borromeo De Silva. Exactly. That's Carlo Borromeo, who's a very cool, very well-connected guy. And the De Silva is the son of Walter De Silva. Exactly, Fabio. Fabio De Silva, yeah. Did you brief them? How did it work? It was, let's say, a very natural collaboration. They love the idea to work on a 928, which is not a 911. But yeah, we started with a list of things that we wanted to improve on the original car. You know, you can do a backdate of a 911 but it's hard to backdate a 928. So we wanted to make more like a continuation. To move it forward rather than kind of... Yeah, exactly. Like if Porsche never stopped production after 995. So that was the idea. And we took inspiration. If you take a look at lines like this, or the shape of the fenders, it's inspired by many modern Porsches after 95 or in this area. Okay, so what were the list of things that you wanted to change? For example, I'm not a big fan of the flat fender at the back, you know. That was one of them. When they did the version of the GTS, they enlarged the fenders at the back but not at the front. So I wanted to correct this a little bit. We realized that the car was very long at the front and quite short at the back. Especially when you look at the Phase One without the small tailgate, you realize that there is a lot in the front. So we started by removing four centimeters at the front and we took them, we added them at the back. So shorter at the front, longer at the rear. Exactly. So now if you look, the balance is better if you look on the side, in my opinion. But that's one of the little changes we made. We also changed the curve of this glass here. Usually it's more like this. So we had to recreate this one. Now, as you can see, the trunk doesn't open like the original one. Yes, the whole hatch opened. Only the window opened now with the spoiler. And this part here is now part of the C-pillar with a kind of roll cage integrated into it. And that's all carbon fiber. Exactly. And surrounded by carbon fiber. The roll cage is metal. We have a lot of reinforcement between the two pillars. I mean, I drove the car like two kilometers so far, but because we just finished it, but you can feel that it's way... It must be much steeper. Much steeper. Yeah. The suspension has been reconfigured with new upper and lower hubs, front and rear, a bigger bearing and custom bushes. The brakes are bigger too and they're supplied by Brembo. The donor car steering rack was deemed too long. So that's been shortened and re-engineered for more directness, for improved sensation and likely a more positive front end. The wheels are new too, following field experiments with period correct BBS alloys and Porsche items, nothing would fit. So Thierry designed his own, inspired by the 928 S4's wheels and 80's turbofan examples. See, the way the door's shut, the sound the bonnet makes when it opens. It's very Porsche. Oh, it's so good though. Oh man, look at that. So this is the piece of art created by Italtecnica. Yes. It's a father and son driven company. It's the same. When you go in that type of company and it's, I think it's 30 something years old. The father used to work a lot with Jean Tod back in the days and with Maserati, with a lot of famous brands. And when I presented the project, what I liked is that they were already in the rest mode business, you know. So when you look at this plenum, for example, it was something, first we needed to modify completely the plenum because we tested it and the airflow was not good at all to make more horsepower with the original one. So we recreated a new one, but you can recreate, but here it's a piece of art. The shape matches perfectly with the shape of the car. So the donor car's engine was what, the 5.0-litre V8? The 5.0-litre V8, cross-plane crankshaft. So it sounds like an American car, a muscle car. Now it sounds like a NASCAR. I mean, it's so simple in here. I love that. Modern cars are just like, I mean, a lot of the functionality is great. Connectivity, everybody wants it. But, you know, at the end of the day, this is just, this is like a rest for your eyes, isn't it? Apart from everything else. So cool. So what is this all machined from CNC machined from aluminium? It's a solid block of aluminium here, solid block of aluminium here and we integrated the but yes, you're right. We tried to simplify as much as possible. So you have all the necessary buttons here and here and that's it. To me, you know, electronic is great in a car when it serves cause like safety, but when it becomes the contrary, because you have so much button that you are, you know, trying to understand, then you don't look the road anymore. And we need to talk about the trim as well. So this is, this is your homage. Yeah. It's a French word. Yes, exactly. The homage says what? The Pasha trim, which was the distinctive original trim, wasn't it? We wanted to re-imagine the Pasha and it's very tricky to make. So I contacted the company Alcantara and they were very happy to do this. It was a challenge for them, but I think the result is great. The idea was to have the possibility to have the Pasha effect with only one colour, but also you can choose to have two colours. It depends on the taste. To me, it feels like I could be in a car made in 2050. Yeah. As well. You know, that's the strange thing about restomods, this sort of memory of a future that hasn't happened yet. It's a bit crazy. And that probably applies most of all, if we turn. Yeah. There we go. Oh, very cool. And the air vents. Yeah. Everything is, it's just so beautifully done. And of course it is a Porsche. So when you shut the door. Yeah. This is important, isn't it? But we have to talk about that audio system. It is quite simply the best I've ever heard in a car. There are 11 speakers and a subwoofer under each seat. That meant they had to drill into the chassis to fit them. In fact, there are more subwoofers behind the seats and an amazing amplifier. Nardone consulted with a top level French audio expert to create this bespoke setup. So owners can stream music with unbelievable clarity. And to top it all off, it's incredibly discreetly integrated. Of course, we'll have to wait until we drive it to really know just how good this car is. But what can I say? It's my kind of restomod. It's the work of world-class partners who've envisioned a singular and very cool idea. Perhaps it's time to dial 928 rather than 911.