Deutschland Über Alles!
A SCORCHING PERFORMANCE IN THE DRIVING EVENTS SEALED THE DEAL FOR LIVI KREVATIN’S WILD 1978 PORSCHE IN THE SUMMERNATS 35 GRAND CHAMPION CHASE
GRAND Champion is the ultimate award at Street Machine Summernats, with the winner receiving the iconic Chic Henry Memorial sword. To win, your car needs to perform strongly not only in the Elite Hall judging (quality of paint, engineering, bodywork, etc), but also in a two-discipline driving event that tests acceleration, braking, handling and driver control.
The Summernats 35 Grand Champion is Livi Krevatin and his stunning 1978 Porsche 911 SC (SM, Dec ’22). The quality of the build, combined with Livi’s performance in the driving events, saw him edge out a tough field of Elite-grade street machines to claim the top gong.
It often takes several attempts to win Grand Champion, but Summernats 35 was the first crack of the whip for Livi and his wildly reimagined air-cooled German performance thoroughbred, which debuted at Motorex last year. He’s no Summernats virgin, though.
“I had a V8 Celica here years ago,” Canberra-based Livi said. “It was an RA40 with an alloy Rover in it. It was just a ‘street’ thing out on the oval, and I did the driving events in it.”
Livi scored the 1978 Porsche as partpayment for a job about 13 years ago. “I put a year’s rego on it and drove it for a while; I took it to the track at Wakefield Park before I took it off the road,” he explained.
The car’s transformation from tatty trade-in to world-class driver’s car took seven years at the Real Steel Group workshop in Queanbeyan. “It was going to be a nice road car, but things evolved,” said Livi.
The end result was featured in our December 2022 issue, and although this now-stunning pro tourer features plenty of hand-crafted parts, tricks and tweaks, Livi and the Real Steel crew built this wundercar to drive. The hard evidence of that was right there on the tarmac on Sunday morning in front of the Chic Henry Grandstand, when Livi and the Porsche received the highest accolade at Summernats.
“To be honest, I was a bit nervous,” said Livi after receiving the sword. He had every right to be; after all, the Porsche was a fresh build with less than 500 kays on the clock, and these tail-heavy cars have an unfortunate knack of leaving roads and tracks backwards. Thankfully, Livi’s Porsche exhibited none of those naughty traits as he drove it into the Summernats history books.