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 in records, particularly 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 build a vehicle. You have rally cars, avenue race automobiles, drag automobiles. Safari is every other step beyond ruggedness from a rally car. A Safari 911 is manifestly lifted in the air, has meatier tires than a rally car would. 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. When you’re out in the desert or the woods, you want a vehicle it’s reliable. The first 911 positioned into the competition was surely rallied, now not avenue raced which the majority assumes. The Safari vehicles from Porsche were very successful.
Not absolutely everyone became first of all 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 was gonna 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, remove-street tires on it.” I stated, “Porsche did this for the duration of the ’70s and early ’80s. They did it, so why can not I do it now?” So I built the auto, and those same people, after seeing it and riding in it, 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: So for the exterior, the auto will get stripped down, sanded down, all of the home windows pulled out. Put new windshields in, new taillight lenses. We undergo and get it looking simply sharp. Then we add all of the Safari stuff so the mud flaps, the bumper bars, the light pod, everything we upload on top. The vehicle will get something taste of 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 that. We need the auto to pop. For the interiors, Porsche made all this loopy fabric in the ’70s and ’80s, and I try and use it as a lot as viable so you’ll see some honestly funky stuff. And why not? You’re lifting a Porsche 911, you are eliminating-avenue tires on it, you will take it inside the mud, and you’ll exit inside the woods get it dirty. You might as well deliver it a few personas. On the mechanic side, all of the essential suspension additives get replaced. We pretty much contact each component, but we also keep it quite simple, the form of as Porsche imagined it.
Keen assures first-rate via personally take a look at-riding every automobile himself. Leh Keen: I’m additionally driving the auto thru the complete constructing manner. So I can genuinely feel the auto-evolve. So if I experience something that is now 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 laugh. For those interested in their very own Safari Porsche, be conscious these infants do not come cheap.
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 definitely can do whatever you want with those vehicles. They’re rugged, they’re tough, and they can handle it, whether or not it is a metropolis city or in the center of nowhere in the mountains or the desolate tract.
