Randolph Palmer This proper here might make maximum Porsche lovers balk. But that is a 1981 Porsche 911 SC… Tearing through the dust. Here’s why one organization turns luxury Porsches into heavy-responsibility off-roaders. The Porsche 911 is one of the most iconic luxury sports activities automobiles on record, particularly in motorsports. However, Leh Keen, an expert race car motive force and Porsche professional, prefers riding 911s off the racetrack… and, in fact, off the pavement altogether. Keen has become well-known for turning Porsche 911s into heavy-responsibility off-avenue automobiles… And giving them a beating. His employer, The Keen Project, builds ‘Safari 911s capable of tackling each form of terrain.
Leh Keen: There are quite a few one-of-a-kind approaches to building a vehicle. You have rally cars, avenue race automobiles, and drag automobiles. Safari is every other step beyond the ruggedness of a rally car. A Safari 911 is manifestly lifted in the air and has meatier tires than a rally car. More lighting fixtures, perhaps bumper bars if you hit something. The Porsche 911 is the appropriate platform to try this with. Everyone is aware of how Porsches are constructed. They’re built robust and sturdy. You want a reliable vehicle when you’re out in the desert or the woods. The first 911 positioned in the competition surely rallied, but now it is not avenue-raced, as the majority assumes. The Porsche Safari vehicles were very successful.
Not everyone first became keen on Keen’s plan to turn this kind of prestigious car into a dust-flinging off-roader. Leh Keen: I informed some human beings what I would do, and they said, “No, you cannot. You can’t do this. You can not lift a Porsche 911 and take it inside the mud, get it dirty, or remove street tires.” I stated, “Porsche did this for the ’70s and early ’80s. They did it, so why can not I do it now?” So I built the auto, and after seeing it and riding in it, those same people changed their minds and said, “Okay. That is pretty cool. One of the most difficult components is acquiring a donor car. We like a black-on-black Nineteen Eighties 911. They’re tough to locate. Part of my job is helping the customer to source them.
Once the right automobile is received, then the fun part starts.
Leh Keen: The auto will get stripped down and sanded down for the exterior, and all of the home windows will be pulled out. Put new windshields in, as well as new taillight lenses. We undergo and get it looking simply sharp. Then we add all of the Safari stuff, such as the mud flaps, the bumper bars, the light pod, and everything we upload on top. The vehicle will get the taste of the Porsche coloration you want. That’s what I, without a doubt, love is the top-notch hues. Porsche has used it over the years, and we want to use it. We need the auto to pop. Porsche made all this loopy fabric for the interiors in the ’70s and ’80s, and I try toto use it as much as possible so you’ll see some honestly funky stuff. And why not? You’re lifting a Porsche 911, eliminating avenue tires on it, taking it inside the mud, and exiting inside the woods and getting it dirty. You might as well deliver it in a few personas. On the mechanic side, all of the essential suspension additives get replaced. We contact each component but keep it quite simple, the form Porsche imagined it.
He is keen to ensure first-rate by personally looking at and riding every automobile himself. Leh Keen: I’m additionally driving the auto through the complete construction manner, so I can genuinely feel the auto evolve. If I experience something that is not quite proper, we can fix it before it goes to the customer so that when they get it, all they want to do is turn it on and move and laugh. Those interested in their Safari Porsche should remember that these infants do not come cheaply.
Leh Keen: So the general price range for the consumer needs to be approximately $one hundred twenty,000. That includes the donor vehicle, the Safari treatment, and my management rate ultimately of it. I like to call it the “Do it All 911” because you can do whatever you want with those vehicles. They’re rugged, tough, and can handle it, whether or not it is a metropolis city or in the center of nowhere in the mountains or the desolate tract.
