If you can’t take another Porsche 911 restomod, can I present you this instead? It’s a Porsche 912 restomod.
I grant you that’s not 911 unadjacent. To recap, Porsche introduced the 912 in 1965 as a cheaper, four-cylinder alternative to its recently launched 911, which was terrific but priced quite a long way above what Porsche buyers, coming out of 356s, considered to be Porsche territory.
The 912, which had a four-pot engine from the last of the 356s, bridged the gap until the 911 had comfortably established itself. These days, the 911 is widely recognised as the greatest sports car lineage of all time, of course, but it wasn’t always so. In being not just cheaper than early 911s but also lighter and with better economy, the 912 actually outsold its more-cylindered sibling at times.
But I think it’s fair to say that the 912, if not quite a forgotten Porsche, is certainly considered to be, by most people, outshone by the 911. Most people, that is, although not those at the Budapest headquarters of Kamm Manufaktur, where they retain a 912 fetish.
You might remember that we drove a prototype Kamm 912C (it was brief, so you might not) back in 2022, and then again a year later after it received some tweaks.
It was adorned with carbonfibre and was a hardcore piece of kit: in its initial incarnation, the steering had 1.7 turns between locks. I liked it a great deal. Things have been progressing afoot since then, and now Kamm offers a full-carbonfibre 912C that can weigh less than 700kg.
It has also done a huge amount of engine work and now has a 2.0-litre unit making 180bhp at 6800rpm. But I don’t want to get ahead of myself: you can read a review of one (whose eventual owner has specced a few things that leave it slightly over 700kg) in two weeks’ time.
But the cars rendered here aren’t these full-carbon, £340,000 snorters. They are Kamm’s new 912T – T for touring – that come in quite a few quid cheaper, at ‘just’ £212,000.