Time To Gawp At Singer’s 300th ‘Reimagined’ Porsche 911

This rather beautiful blue car is a Porsche 911 that’s been extensively overhauled by Californian company Singer Vehicle Design. That much you probably already know.

It’s a particularly special one, however, because it’s the 300th car that the firm has turned its attention to. It started life as a standard 964-generation 911, as do all the cars that find their way into Singer’s workshop. These cars are then completely rebuilt, given bespoke powertrains, visually ‘backdated’, and painted and trimmed to the exacting specifications of their wealthy owners.

Singer Sotto commission – side

This particular car, named the Sotto commission (that’s Italian for ‘below’, weirdly), is a 1990 911 Targa. Singer has transformed it into one of its ‘Classic Studies’, a process that involves replacing the 964’s standard 3.6-litre air-cooled flat-six with a hand-built, naturally aspirated motor of the same layout. In this instance, it’s the range-topping 4.0-litre version, producing around 390bhp and paired with a five-speed manual.

The Sotto is finished in a colour that Singer calls ‘Resistance Blue’, which really allows the hand-stitched, bright orange interior to pop. It’s specced with optional carbon fibre bucket seats, ceramic brakes and a titanium sports exhaust.

Singer Sotto commission – interior

The 300-car mark is a big one for Singer, which was founded in 2009. Given the attention to detail that goes into each of its builds, hitting that milestone in 15 years speaks to a strong level of demand, despite a price tag somewhere in the six-figure territory that a Classic Study will set you back. During that time, its team has grown to around 700 people, and it’s opened a European base in Oxfordshire to supplement its HQ near Los Angeles.

It also arguably kickstarted the trend for restomodding air-cooled 911s. There’s now a huge number of companies out there that’ll take an old Porsche and completely overhaul it in exchange for a large sum of money, although arguably none have recaptured the level of detail that goes into Singer’s builds.

Singer Sotto commission – engine

We also won’t see too many more cars like the Sotto commission – in 2022, company founder Rob Dickinson announced that Singer was taking an indefinite pause on orders for the Classic Study, to focus on newer, more extreme variants: the hardcore Dynamics and Lightweighting Study, the more powerful Turbo Study and the DLS-T, which combines aspects of both in a ludicrously wide Le Mans-inspired body. Clearly, it still has a decent backlog of orders to work through.