CONTACT: THANKS:

Classic Carreras Walsh Business Park Ballysimon Limerick Ireland Tel: 00353 87 679 4858 classiccarreras.com Jon wishes to thank ‘My long suffering wife Elaine, who just lets me get on with it(!) and the lads in the workshop for suffering my constant strea

23/62R15 in size. Their classic ‘race tyre’ look matches the RSR styling perfectly. But, as he wistfully says, the tyres cost more than the wheels…

The engine is the turbocharged 3.3-litre 930 unit which came with the car as standard, but fully rebuilt and subtly reworked with a K27/19 hybrid turbo and TIAL wastegate, SC cams, light flywheel and a set of equal-length headers (with heat!). The result is a package that delivers around 360bhp and sounds simply awesome through the custom exhaust system…

Which brings us to the matter of what does it drive like? Now, as someone who has built his own personal interpretation of how a hot-rod Porsche should be, I’m fully aware of how one man’s dream may be another man’s disappointment. I didn’t know what to expect when I slid behind the wheel of Jon Miller’s Turbo RSR rocketship (and that’s what it promised to be…). Jon had already warned me to keep my foot to the floor when starting from cold, but that didn’t prove necessary as it turned out. Two, maybe three seconds and Woompa! The flat-six burst into life. Now for some fun.

‘You’re the first person to drive the car after me,’ Jon laughs, anxious to see what somebody else thinks of his baby. Well, let’s see. First impressions after even just a few yards are that the clutch is heavy (no surprise there), but so is the gear shift and the throttle pedal. I hoped the shift would ease off once the transmission oil warmed up, or was it just me, more used to earlier gearboxes?

Jon confirms I’m not alone in this judgement: ‘The gear change is about the only thing I wasn’t entirely happy with; it was a bit experimental and if I kept the car I would probably adapt a 964 shift to fit. The throttle pedal is standard, though, and I never really noticed any problem. In fact, I'm not sure you’d want too light a pedal on a Turbo!’

And he’s not wrong there. Once the oil had chance to come up to temperature, it was hard not to take the boosted flat-six up to the red line, just to experience once again that seductive, adrenalin-inducing rush of acceleration which, in this case, is capped with a fluttering ‘whoosh’ as the wastegate opens. Damn, it’s fast in a wholely controllable way – fast enough to get you in trouble, obviously, but also docile enough in delivery to give you the impression you can remain in control.

The TB15S inspire confidence in the dry, but become a little skittish in the damp. Their inflexible sidewalls remind you that not all our roads are as billiard-table smooth as they might seem, but they grip when warm like any race-developed tyre should. The turn in is sharp, the sound is stunning, the handling sublime. All in all, a true credit to its creator.

Returning the car to Saltash-based specialists Williams-crawford, where it is currently for sale, it was with a mixture of happiness and sadness that I handed back the keys. Happy because I’d just had a great day out behind the wheel of a pretty spectacular car, but sad that it isn’t mine. But it could be yours – all it would take is a phone call…

Throughout my 40+ years as a journo, I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to drive a wide variety of ‘interesting’ machines, some of which were memorable for all the wrong reasons. Jon Miller’s 930 backdate, however, will remain imprinted on the memory for being one of the finest hot-rod builds I’ve had the pleasure to experience. It feels tight, it looks a million dollars and goes like the proverbial. Perfect? No – no car ever is. As near as dammit? Oh yes, indeed… PW