BLUE THUNDER
A highly-modified hot-rod 911 from sunny Southern California
Under the Fast Newport Speed Cave moniker hides the private collection of Californian Mark Cilani, gathered in an inviting setting. His fleet includes a variety of high-performance toys, with the latest addition being a 1971 911, a tastefully crafted hot rod built incorporating some clever ideas…
Once a month, the Los Angeles Porsche Experience Center hosts a popular gettogether, known as The Morning Shift Cars & Coffee. It brings together an interesting mix of vehicles, with the Porsche marque representing over three-quarters of the entries. This is the place where we discovered Mark Cilani’s blue 911 hot rod, freshly completed and thereby attracting a crowd of admirers all morning long. People love it. Could it be the body and wheel colour combination? Or the simplicity (read: lack of gaudiness) of the whole project? Or the clever details? You be the judge.
A hardworking entrepreneur, Mark knows how to play during his spare time, thanks to a fleet of eclectic vehicles gathered at Fast Newport Speed Cave. It isn’t a business, but a great place for him to hang out with his friends. It has a pool table, a large lounge area with comfy sofas and a big screen TV, adjacent to a bar. As our photo shows, carand motorcycle-related memorabilia fills the room as well, from parts and trophies to race suits and books.
And then there are the cars. All have a high performance edge, though they’re quite different from each other. There is an all-black 2002 Ferrari 360 Spider with 20,000 miles on the odometer, along with a 1934 Ford roadster running a 750bhp supercharged 392cid Chrysler Hemi, which graced the cover of Street Rodder magazine. ‘I have owned it for 25 years now and built it from the frame up – it’s one of those cars that most likely I’ll never sell,’ he adds.
On the Porsche front, Mark is well-known within the Southern California scene for his green 1979 Turbo-bodied 911, which was raced in the ’80s. Under the decklid lurks a twin-plug, big-cam 3.6-litre motor mated to a 915 gearbox. He comments: ‘It’s pretty much a barely road-legal,
stripped-down, race suspension, fully caged race car with a licence plate. Every year, I do at least two or three interesting drives, including the California Targa. It’s about 1300 miles of backroads through the middle of the state, with 100 other pre-1979 vintage cars. Isn’t it every young gearhead’s dream to drive a race car on the street?’
Parked under the 1934 roadster, the 911 RSR is another intriguing piece of machinery, as it revolves around a streetlegal chassis complemented by a range of Flying Lizard Motorsports Cup-style components; however, it retains a ‘non-cup car’ high-performance engine and transmission. ‘You’ve got the best of both worlds,’ muses Mark. ‘Handling, braking and safety of a Cup car, but you also have the lower maintenance of a high-performance 997 motor and trans, which is a lot less expensive.’
Mark’s cave is also home to the blue 911 featured on these pages. From what he managed to find out, this ’71 ‘T’ model came out of the factory in November 1970 and was sold new in Portland, Oregon. Little information is known afterwards, until Marc Franck from Hillsboro (Oregon) bought it with a non-original 2.2-litre engine, in 2009 – he then decided to inject a bit of Outlaw soul into it. His concept called for an outwardly vintage 911 appearance, subtle and not at all flashy. However, he also envisaged it with ‘muchimproved-over-stock components hidden underneath’. It results in a quick ride given its light weight and engine output. To this end, Marc disassembled the coupé and began stockpiling parts, with the intention of building his dream hot rod.
The goodies in question included a rebuilt 2.7-litre flat-six from a G-series 911, a 901-style five-speed gearbox, together with a large inventory of bits and pieces purchased from wellestablished firms, such as Rennline, Elephant Racing, Rebel Racing, Tarett, Clewett, Dansk… The list continues with rebuilt Weber carbs, upgraded suspension and brake systems, plus exterior and interior trim pieces.
Years passed and by early 2018, the body had been resprayed in Hell-elfenbein (Light Ivory, Porsche code 131). It wasn’t the vehicle’s first repaint, as several previous owners had selected the same colour over the past decades. But then Marc Franck decided to sell his 911 T as a disassembled project car.
Enter Mark Cilani. While surfing the web, he stumbled upon Marc Franck’s ad on bringatrailer.com. The idea of
purchasing the coupé appealed to him as, in a way, it was still a semi-blank canvas for the Outlaw he had in mind. He contacted the seller, sealed the deal and the ‘T’ soon travelled from Oregon to So-cal, being delivered to California Porsches (californiaporsches.com) in Costa Mesa. Run by Jason Adams and his son Kyle, it specialises in the restoration, sale and consignment of early 911s and 912s – the perfect place to bring Cilani’s vision to reality.
The first item on the agenda involved…a fresh paint job! Mark longed for setting his ride apart from the many white and ivory 911s, ultimately settling on a custom blue. ‘I wanted the colour to look like an old lathe out a 1960s machine shop,’ he smiles. In a bold move, he and Jason agreed that powder-coating the 7x16 Porsche 944 Fuchs wheels a shade of custom bronze would nicely match the outside colour.
Great choice, isn’t it? Incidentally, the Toyo Proxes tyres measure 205/50x16 at all corners. Let’s also point out the partly painted aluminium decklid and brushed rear bumper guards, made in Poland and purchased from Sierra Madre.
Putting the jigsaw puzzle together continued with the suspension assembly, which included a range of Elephant Racing parts: through-body front sway-bar reinforcement kit, strut top camber bushing and decambered front ball-joints. The back received more components from the same supplier, specifically a spring plate Quickchange kit (perfect to adjust the ride height), a Cambermax kit (for an aggressive camber setting of three-plus degrees), spring plate mount reinforcement panels (to prevent spring plate mounts from cracking), and mono-ball cartridges fitted in aluminium 197477 911 rear trailing arms.
More race-oriented pieces help the car remain glued to the asphalt, such as Tarett 22mm front and rear hollow tubular adjustable sway bars, Sanders Engineering hollow torsion bars (21mm in front, 27mm in the rear). There’s more, in the shape of Porsche Turbo tie rods and Heim joint end links, Rebel Racing rear spring plate bushings, Dansk front lower control arms, and Rebel Racing spherical bearings (with self-aligning washers). Von Street supplied the front strut inserts, fitted with 18mm Bilstein hub nut strut housings, along with the rear shocks. A remarkable list of highperformance suspension parts for sure!
The car has no difficulties stopping courtesy of Pmbrebuilt alloy brake calipers from an early ’70s 911 S, complemented with efficient Porterfield Porsche RS4 pads.
To accompany the rebuilt steering rack assembly, everything has been detailed to the hilt underneath, from the freshly plated emergency-brake hardware to the extra bracing by Rennline – Duncan Jones braced the jack holes, too.
The package purchased by Mark also included a stout flatsix, as he explains: ‘It was rebuilt in 2009 and had reportedly less than 1000 miles on it. The seller purchased the engine from Porsche racer Britain Smith in Portland, Oregon. Dyno results show that the motor sent 205bhp and 204lb ft of torque to the rear wheels of Smith’s autocrossed 911.’
Britain had selected an impressive list of parts, starting with Mahle/andial Rsr-style pistons and cylinders, set for a compression ratio of 10-to-1. For reliability reasons, he added Carrera hydraulic tensioners and Solex camshafts,
whilst EBS rebuilt the cylinder heads. On top of them reside PMO intake manifolds and Weber 40IDA-3C carbs rebuilt by Performance Oriented (Salem, Oregon). Behind the fan shroud, notice the liquid-filled manual fuel pressure gauge mounted on a PMO adapter, which receives fuel via a Holley electric pump.
Speaking of electricity, the firewall welcomes a complete Electromotive Xdi twin-plug ignition system, though Mark mentions the engine doesn’t run twin plugs at this point. The burnt gases then exit via an SSI header with heat exchangers, and a Dansk muffler featuring 2-into-1 tailpipes.
When opening the decklid, you’ll discover a Getty Design carbon-fibre fan shroud, held in place with a neat Rennline stainless strap – Mark Motshagen restored and ceramicplated the fan and housing. Other components participate in the motor’s good looks: powder-coated tins and (Wevo) engine mounts, Billet crankcase breather cover, Rothsport billet fan belt pulley spinning a rebuilt alternator, complemented by a Clewett billet crankshaft pulley with Xdi ignition trigger wheel and pick-up sensor. Power travels through a Patrick Motorsports RSR lightweight flywheel and a Sachs clutch, while the oiling system relies on an Elephant Racing fender-mounted oil cooler system and plumbing kit, with crossover pipe and thermostat. A few more billet components finish up the engine bay: oil drain tubes, sump cover and Tarett upper and lower 996 twin-plug valve covers.
Cool build so far, eh? Wait, you haven’t seen the interior and its outfit stitched by A and H Upholstery yet! Again the
choice of colour, a shade of red just loud enough, mixes successfully with the outside paint. Check out the lightweight front seats of unknown origin found at a swap meet, featuring interesting details such as side handles (to easily tilt the base); they are each riveted next to a data plate that came from a Pratt & Whitney WWII plane. The pilot faces an MPI Autodromo steering wheel (courtesy of racer Max Papis himself, the owner of MPI and Pelican Parts) and a set of original VDO gauges, including a tachometer restored by North Hollywood Speedometer.
In the spirit of racing automobiles, the cockpit has shed a few kilos/pounds with holes being drilled under the rear window, above the side windows, in the panel under the dash, and even in the doors’ A-pillars. More cheese-like components sprinkle the interior: top of the dash, Rennline passenger footrest, pedal covers by Marc Franck, aluminium housing for the trio of vintage Gallet stopwatches made by Jim Gharamendi… We should also comment on the beautiful and lightweight bespoke door panels and leather strap holding the doors. More Rennline products dress the beautiful trunk, more specifically the wire cover and the smuggler’s box lid.
Mark couldn’t be happier with the way his 911 turned out, as he contemplates: ‘I spent the last year building the car, and got plenty of enjoyment from working with a lot of amazing craftsmen in the Porsche industry. A big shout out must go to Jason at California Porsches for turning a lot of the wrenches on the project.’
The fact that project cars built with such imagination continue to emerge years after the Outlaw trend began to take off never ceases to amaze us. And Mark’s coupé is certainly one of the best examples of the genre.
“IT’S CERTAINLY ONE OF THE BEST EXAMPLES OF THE GENRE…”