SING FOR YOUR DINNER

As the motoring world undergoes seismic shifts in focus, Rob Dickinson's vision for Singer remains clear

- JAKE GROVES

MOST OF US car freaks have had some sort of formative experience with Porsche's 911, right? Riding in one, seeing one blitz past, or drooling over one in a car park.

Well, musician and Singer Vehicle Design founder Rob Dickinson is very much like all of us in that regard. You have to be, if you'd set up an entire business devoted to restoring and reimagining classic 911s.

"My dad introduced me to the 911 on an autoroute in the south of France, and just this curiosity around the car started from that point on," Dickinson says.

"Then was my first ride in one. It was just this alien thing: a black early 3.0 Turbo and 11-year-old me was just gobsmacked. It was like being in a rocketship."

Those seminal experiences I have cemented Dickinson's love for the 911 ever since.

Rob and his team at Singer Vehicle Design have been keeping that gobsmackery alive with their restored 911 models since 2009, only just now starting to tackle a thick strand of 911 DNA: the Turbo. "This obsession as a child in the 1970s fired my imagination," says Dickinson, "but in many ways for us to have been celebrating Porsche's early 911 models with the car that we build in California is almost not the obvious thing to do. The obvious car to celebrate, which is Porsche's icon, is the Turbo - and it's taken 12 years to do it."