When Porsche introduced the 964-generation 911 in 1989, it was met with great fanfare. MotorWeek’s John Davis called the car “an instrument of sensuous pleasure, if there ever was one.” The design was an iterative and evolutionary change to the vaunted 911, smoothing out some of the previous Carrera 3.2’s more unsightly imperfections. Porsche gave the aged machine a hit of botox and a workout regimen, and the 964 was an instant success. Twenty years after that Davis review, Southern California’s Singer Vehicle Design gave the same car an uncanny-valley visual revamp.
The ball that was set rolling in the process of Singer’s development totally pushed the car to be something new. There’s no denying that the engineering behind this car is second-to-none. It’s worth noting here that I don’t hold any grudge against Singer, and there’s no reason to say the company shouldn’t exist. But—and it is a big “but”—they look like shit.
If the cars had simply been a completely finished and incredibly over-engineered 964, they’d still be phenomenal and interesting and valuable cars. The long-hood design of a 911 died in 1973, and it should have stayed there. No, much like Singer’s cross-town Porsche tuner quasi-rival Gunther Werks does, these cars should have become aesthetically and qualitatively pumped up versions of their own chassis, not anachronistic Frankenstein’s monster “greatest hits albums.” It’s a 964 and should have stayed a 964.
To apply the style of a 1973 car to a widened chassis doesn’t look right, and to fit it with a 17-inch version of the iconic Fuchs five-petal wheel is unconscionable. The Fuchs was originally supposed to be a 14-inch design, and was later perfected as a 15. Even the factory-specified 16-inch 911 Turbo Fuchs are far too big for the car’s design.
Singer did the Hollywood thing of fetishizing a younger version of itself. It looked in the mirror every day looking for something to modify. After spending a few hundred thousand dollars at the plastic surgeon’s office, it came out over-plumped, sunken faced, and fake. Sure, all its bodywork is carbon fiber and the paint is a mile-deep, and the fittings and fixtures are gorgeous. Taken one at a time, the surgery was successful in the de-aging process, but step back and look at the whole, and it’s all overdone.
When Singer was producing just two or three cars a year, these visual assaults were hardly anything to worry about. But as production ramped up and billionaires began paying into the millions for their ill-styled “commissions” the results got worse. The company has now built 300 examples of the original 964-based machines, and pledges to build another 150. The 964 was already the lowest unit-production Porsche 911 of all time, and prior to this Singer-induced demand it was the least expensive generation for regular enthusiasts to buy, also.
This isn’t to say that Singer only builds 1970s-inspired backdate dreck. The company’s Turbo Study, DLS, and racer-inspired DLS Turbo are 1980s-inspired backdate dreck. The off-road-focused two-off Singer All-Terrain Competition Study (ACS), however, is something all its own. That car is still 964-based, but it manages to enhance and improve the 964’s original 1990s style with something that is wholly retro-future Singer. This was an extremely cool project that has sadly been abandoned.
As boring, unwieldy, and hacky as the original Porsche 911 Reimagined By Singer looks, these pale in comparison with the dozens of awful hangers on that have popped up all over the world. The deep-six-figure builds from U.K.-based Theon Design, and Paul Stephens spring to mind. Countless hundreds of 964s and 993s have been hacked apart in an effort to ape the iconic longhood 911, and not a single one of them look right. They’re too wide, too long, too modern, too much.
Attention to detail is great, and Singer’s near-perfectionist eye for detail should be applauded. I’d love to re-engineer every inch of each of my cars to be better, faster, more cohesive driving packages with gorgeous paint, stitching, knurled knobs, and immaculate leather interiors. It is my opinion that Singer has missed the forest for the trees and built something unholy. What once was a $30,000 used sports car has been bastardized into a game of one-upsmanship for billionaires. When high-end car dealers are “commissioning” Singer to build cars for them to sell on Bring A Trailer, something has gone horribly wrong.
964s look great on their own. Stop ruining them in an effort to make them look like pre-1973 911s.
