FROM RACE TO ROAD
With this 964-powered former circuit star, Jonny Ruddock sweated the small stuff to turn his client’s dream of owning a Carrera RS 2.7-inspired restomod into reality…
The humble fuel filler cap has never been the hottest automotive accessory. Most of us only remove, replace and think about this usually humdrum component on the petrol station forecourt, leaving the part to blend into bodywork for the hundreds of miles in between. Not Jonny Ruddock. Owner of automotive and sporting restorations outfit, Carmeleon Classic, and a quarter-century stalwart of the paint and bodywork industry, he transformed the filler system of this Carrera RS 2.7 replica into a work of art. Evoking the ground-breaking 1967 911 R and Singer-styled restomods at his client’s request, he’s fabricated a swan neck filler pipe that places the cap up high and dead centre in the car’s fibreglass bonnet.
The crimped satin black circle ties itself into the matching wheel centres, grille edging and exhaust, yet it’s the surrounding bonnet that really deserves your attention. Instead of leaving the drilled edge of the cut-out untouched, Jonny has bevelled the fibreglass inwards and down to make the modified item look factory fresh. Conscious of the strength the RS replica bonnet might have lost during the conversion, he then layered sheets of carbon fibre around the new gap and bonded them into place. Not wanting to highlight the light but durable solution, Jonny and his assistant, Tom Wales, then finished the job by smoothing, filling and painting the additions to match the striking Signal Orange paintwork.
HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT
Attention to detail is key to the Carmeleon approach, and Jonny loves nothing more than work most enthusiasts would never spot. “If people notice something we’ve done, then whatever has caught their eye is out of place,” he explains. “We invest a huge amount of time into ensuring our
finished cars look like they’ve never been touched. That’s what I enjoy most about the work we do.”
The same keen eye turned this zesty 1971 911 from a simple renovation job to a transformative restoration — Jonny noticed the leading edges of the fibreglass rear wheel arches flared too far beyond the arch tops and three inches past the Fuchs alloys. “The arches looked so out of place. When we explained the problem to the car’s owner, he immediately saw things through our eyes. It was from that moment the project escalated.”
Then Viper Green, the air-cooled classic originally arrived at the Carmeleon workshop for nothing more than a pair of doors. The left-hand drive Porsche had enjoyed a previous life as a competition car in the United States and wore a bounty of fibreglass body panels, many of which the current owner has retained. With public road safety in mind, however, the composite doors had to go. William Francis Specialist Cars, located close to Carmeleon’s workshop in Bury St Edmunds, sourced steel replacement parts. Jonny undertook the conversion. “They wouldn’t quite fit,” he says. “The steel doors went on the door pins and just about made it into the aperture, but body modifications made many years ago meant they wouldn’t clear the rear quarters.” He had to cut the panels, which led to reshaping and more.
THE RS ICON THAT WON COUNTLESS RACES, REVIVED THE CARRERA NAMEPLATE AND REACHES AUCTION PRICES AS HIGH AS A MILLION DOLLARS
SPREAD YOUR WINGS
As a consequence of its motorsport career, the car was no stranger to modification. Previous bodywork changes had included the fibreglass doors, wings, bumpers and quarter panels, plus a substantial rear wing grafted onto the engine lid, while bucket seats and a full roll cage had ensured the possibility of an attack of the track at a moment’s notice. Mechanical
alterations were even more extreme, the car gaining a 3.6-litre 964 boxer (now roaring through a Magnaflow exhaust) and a magnesium-cased 915 fivespeed gearbox. This unusual running gear combination remains with the car today. By the late 2010s, however, the 911 was looking dilapidated, which is why urgent changes were needed when the current owner found the car and wanted to register it for road use. In the interests of safety and a compliant ride, technicians at East Sussex-based marque specialist, Paragon, refurbished the previously installed 911 Turbo (930) brake calipers, fitted new anti-roll bars and added Bilstein shock absorbers. Carmeleon has since stripped and powdercoated all supporting suspension system components to match the rest of the restoration.
Like so many owners of air-cooled 911s, this Porsche’s proud pilot wanted his car to echo the Carrera RS 2.7 aesthetic, which is why he requested body modifications evoking the look of the legendary model. Designed as a Group 4 homologation special with 210bhp and a kerb weight dipping as low as 975kg (in Lightweight specification), the Carrera RS 2.7 was the first truly track-focused 911 production model. It broke out of the smooth pre-impact bumper mould with wider rear wheel arches, a sculpted front assembly and the now iconic ‘ducktail’ engine lid. Moreton-in-marsh Porsche specialist, Rennsport, provided the 911 in Carmeleon’s custody with the Rs-style front bumper it now wears. At the other end of the car, the wedgy decklid is what the owner of this stunning Porsche cites as one of his favourite parts of the build, nodding to the RS icon that won countless races, revived the Carrera nameplate and today reaches auction prices as high as a million dollars. Even so, this orange machine isn’t designed to be an inch-perfect replica. Indeed, its owner tells us he wanted to combine the Carrera RS 2.7 concept with a personal touch, which is why Carmeleon was commissioned to complete a range of renovation tasks matching the car’s racing history with modern road usability and, of course, a flawless finish.
SEE FOR MILES
Early focus centred around the glasshouse and cabin, Jonny replacing the plastic rear window and metal retaining clips with more conventional glass. “We had to cut and weld to get the screen and rubbers to fit,” he explains. Work on the door shuts was
equally involved — they’d be trimmed in a standard 911, but here they’re exposed as part of the lightweight ethos, welded and smoothed to undetectability. Fitting a pair of reclining fabric-trimmed Recaro race seats and colour-coded TRS fourpoint safety harnesses led to even more involved metalwork — Carmeleon was able to retain the pre-existing roll cage, but the harness bar sat too low and too close to the cabin’s occupants to meet British road safety regulations, prompting Jonny to add new pipework across the diagonal. Steel box section has been added to the floor, replacing the tired original seat mounts.
As work progressed, Carmeleon agreed to transform the butchered remains of the original dashboard. “It’s important to remember this particular Porsche was used as a race car, meaning there was very little original 911 trim left,” Jonny explains. “We ended up placing a folded steel sheet beneath a new-old stock dash top roll and cut the fresh metal to accommodate the steering column and roll cage, thereby ensuring a clean finish. In fact, we took the cage, floor, facia and dashboard all back to bare metal. The work was relentless, but, as demonstrated by the end result, the many hours spent focusing on this aspect of the build was totally worth it.”
Instead of the planned partial repaint in Viper Green, the owner decided to make his air-cooled dream come true: now was the perfect time to realise his ambition of owning a Carrera Rs-aping 911 dressed in Signal Orange. After the Carmeleon team stripped his 911 back to a rolling shell, rectified minor rust patches and adjusted the fibreglass panels, they mocked up a range of authentic Porsche hues on remote control cars, just in case another solid shade from the manufacturer’s colour catalogue won out. They needn’t have bothered — Signal Orange remained triumphant in the owner’s eyes, though it’s the additional details that make this RS evocation shine. For example, look at the engine cover and ‘frunk’. Both are secured with motorsport-inspired external locking pins, but Jonny wasn’t content for them to sit noticeably proud of the body. To achieve a smoother line, he’s used sections of spare roll cage tubing to fabricate receiver mounts sitting 20mm lower than the surrounding metalwork. He’s also smoothed the
surroundings to make each locking pin look like it’s an original component.
The same commitment to exacting quality underpins even the smallest sections of the interior — the pedal box and the steering column (linked to a MOMO Prototipo drilled three-spoke, now the default aftermarket Porsche steering wheel) have been repainted to banish ancient flecks of Viper Green overspray and better match the satin black of the gear lever and kickplates, while each stainless bolt has been spun to a shine. The black accents continue with the aforementioned dash top and custom flat door cards, both trimmed in leather by local automotive upholstery specialist, Customstitch’d, while door pulls made from spare harness material add a subtle pop of the exterior orange. Some of the most precise work remains hidden away by design, though — on arrival at Carmeleon, the Porsche sported a labyrinthine electrical system with a mess of wiring and two complete looms, one fitted on the Porsche production line in 1971 and another which was bundled with the 964 engine conversion. Jonny has spliced the functional sections out of each loom to create a less chaotic system hiding itself in the centre tunnel. A two-push button, fitted in place of the pre-existing trio of switches for fuel, ignition and the starter, simplifies things further. “On this particular Porsche project, I’m most proud of the interior,” he adds. “We’ve worked hard to keep it very simple, but also very effective.”
Any Carrera RS 2.7 owner would recognise the ethos, but the execution is something special. Jonny has worked hard to achieve absolute perfection, and an upcoming engine and transmission rebuild at Oxfordshire flat-six specialist, Wrightune, will ensure this pretty Porsche has as much ‘go’ as it does ‘show’.
Interestingly, this beautiful build has taken its place in a collection including a range of high-end sports cars and even a freshly restored Westland Scout military helicopter, and yet, the Porsche still manages to draw attention away from its stablemates, no matter how jaw-dropping they may be. Proof, if proof be needed, that air-cooled 911s are still flying high. We’ll never look at a fuel filler cap the same way again!