Singer Teams With Williams, Cranks Another Porsche to Eleven

Matthew Guy
by Matthew Guy

Singer Vehicle Design, builder of meticulously re-imagined Porsches, has partnered with the advanced engineering arm of UK’s Williams F1 team. Together, they’ve created an incredible commission for a well-heeled classic Porsche enthusiast. The sales commission was probably pretty good, too.

With a focus on keeping the weight down, this “Dynamics and Lightweighting Study” has resulted in the beautiful machine you see here, cranking out 500 horsepower and weighing less than 2,200lbs.


There is no turbocharged wizardry in this flat-six Porsche. Developed by Williams Advanced Engineering for this DLS project, it is a four-valve, four-camshaft engine which is naturally aspirated and air-cooled.

A host of weight saving tricks were deployed, with copious amounts of magnesium, carbon fiber, and titanium strewn littered around the car. Thanks to high-tech, gee-whiz Computational Fluid Dynamics, the car’s underbody and exterior surfaces are said to cut a sharper yet more stable line through the atmosphere at speed.

The wheels, looking for all the world like classic Porsche rims, are in fact lightweight forged magnesium 18-inchers from BBS with, naturally, centre locks. They are wrapped in a set of bespoke Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires. Behind the wheels rest a set of monobloc calipers from Brembo.

“On a technical level, the study has been fascinating and has resulted in an incredible restoration with the benefit of top drawer resources and modern science,” said Singer Vehicle Design Founder and Creative Director Rob Dickinson. “Artistically it has been a second chance to connect with the machine on a new level.”

The DLS has been a long-term project, spanning a full two years of intense study and component development. This car, the result of the project’s findings, was built for Singer client (and Porsche enthusiast) Scott Blattner, who requested lightweighting and high-performance enhancements for his 1990 Porsche 964 after presumably showing up at Singer’s office with bag full of money earlier this year.

Specifics of the study will be available to no more than 75 customers, who may choose to use the findings to have Singer build them their own bespoke version. It’s good to be stinkin’ rich.

Interested? Any commissions using the DLS specs will be undertaken in the UK at a new Singer facility on the Williams campus in Grove, Oxfordshire. A pricetag wasn’t announced.

[Images: Singer Vehicle Design]

Matthew Guy
Matthew Guy

Matthew buys, sells, fixes, & races cars. As a human index of auto & auction knowledge, he is fond of making money and offering loud opinions.

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  • Cognoscenti Cognoscenti on Nov 20, 2017

    In for the obligatory Catherine Wheel reference. I love the music that gave Rob Dickinson the cash he needed to found Singer. The cars? *shrug* - with that kind of disposable cash, I rather buy a Cessna 182.

  • Gardiner Westbound Gardiner Westbound on Nov 20, 2017

    “I've been rich and I've been poor, rich is better.” ― Mae West

  • Groza George I don’t care about GM’s anything. They have not had anything of interest or of reasonable quality in a generation and now solely stay on business to provide UAW retirement while they slowly move production to Mexico.
  • Arthur Dailey We have a lease coming due in October and no intention of buying the vehicle when the lease is up.Trying to decide on a replacement vehicle our preferences are the Maverick, Subaru Forester and Mazda CX-5 or CX-30.Unfortunately both the Maverick and Subaru are thin on the ground. Would prefer a Maverick with the hybrid, but the wife has 2 'must haves' those being heated seats and blind spot monitoring. That requires a factory order on the Maverick bringing Canadian price in the mid $40k range, and a delivery time of TBD. For the Subaru it looks like we would have to go up 2 trim levels to get those and that also puts it into the mid $40k range.Therefore are contemplating take another 2 or 3 year lease. Hoping that vehicle supply and prices stabilize and purchasing a hybrid or electric when that lease expires. By then we will both be retired, so that vehicle could be a 'forever car'. Any recommendations would be welcomed.
  • Eric Wait! They're moving? Mexico??!!
  • GrumpyOldMan All modern road vehicles have tachometers in RPM X 1000. I've often wondered if that is a nanny-state regulation to prevent drivers from confusing it with the speedometer. If so, the Ford retro gauges would appear to be illegal.
  • Theflyersfan Matthew...read my mind. Those old Probe digital gauges were the best 80s digital gauges out there! (Maybe the first C4 Corvettes would match it...and then the strange Subaru XT ones - OK, the 80s had some interesting digital clusters!) I understand the "why simulate real gauges instead of installing real ones?" argument and it makes sense. On the other hand, with the total onslaught of driver's aid and information now, these screens make sense as all of that info isn't crammed into a small digital cluster between the speedo and tach. If only automakers found a way to get over the fallen over Monolith stuck on the dash design motif. Ultra low effort there guys. And I would have loved to have seen a retro-Mustang, especially Fox body, have an engine that could rev out to 8,000 rpms! You'd likely be picking out metal fragments from pretty much everywhere all weekend long.
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