CRANK IT UP LAUDA

There are many 911 restomods out there, but only one offers a genuine Porsche Fr engine. Charlie Martin meets its maker

- Charlie Martin

Porsche 911 restomods have become a bit of a cliché. New makers of them pop up almost weekly, promising analogue thrills and retro-modern looks. But Lanzante, the British firm known for maintaining many of the world's McLaren Fls and for making race and track-only cars road-legal, has produced one with a genuine difference. Rather than upgrade the contemporary flat-six engine, as is par for the course, it opted to retrofit a 1980s 911 with an actual Formula 1 V6 from McLaren's back catalogue.

Developed by Porsche and named the TAG after the F1 team's contemporary title sponsor (see box), the turbocharged 1.5-litre unit is rumoured to have put out more than 1000bhp in qualifying trim.

Retrofitting such a potent powerplant into a classic is a tantalising proposition - yet, as Dean Lanzante told me at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, that was not the original plan. He simply wanted to purchase McLaren's original TAG engine test mule, a 930-generation 911 Turbo, from the group's Racing division. Boss Zak Brown politely declined the request, but Lanzante was undeterred.

"They had a load of engines.

These engines had stood since the '80s, but they were all crated up," he recalled.

Sensing an opportunity, Lanzante began to assemble a business case for building a small run of road cars referencing that original mule.