FROM RUST TO GOLD

From Rust to Gold

The story of a neglected Porsche 912 that became so much more.

“The project started in 2015 but it eventually took us 6 years to get to the end result. We loved every stage of it, slowly but surely taking it step by step.”

Though you wouldn’t know it from the way it looks now, Bas Jan Proper’s Porsche began life as a 912, one that was little more than a rusty shell in a Dutch garden when he first laid eyes on it. It’s hard to picture how you begin with a project like that and arrive at the 2.8 RSR-inspired car you see now, but then again he didn’t do it alone.

It was really a father and son project. Each design decision present on the final car represents a conversation Bas Jan had with his father at some point, a man who began dreaming about this project decades before it even began.

“My father had wanted to build a car like this with me from a very young age. I was 10 when we started the first car, but unfortunately he was forced to sell that one before it was ever completed. In his mind it was never going to be possible to start another one, until he got the call about the 912.

It had belonged to a friend of his who’d since passed, and the family were looking to sell. It was parked in the garden, unable to drive, and rusted through. My father made an offer and we were ready to begin.

Understandably, being parked outside in the Dutch climate is not beneficial for a classic Porsche. The first step was to strip it down to a bare shell, and from there we began planning the end result.”

For Bas Jan, the 2.8 RSR was always going to serve as the inspiration for the car he and his father put together. The originals were sold as the competition variant of the 2.7 RS road car, but no more than a few dozen are still around. Buying one of those is obviously very expensive, and you don’t get to create nearly the same personal design statement either, and Bas Jan’s car is very much a personal design statement.

Gone is the original 1.6 litre 912 four cylinder, the car instead houses a 3.5 litre flat six with mechanical fuel injection. Much of the suspension geometry replicates that of an RSR and it even has brake callipers from a 917. Really it’s the interior where the car delineates itself most obviously against an original 2.8.

“My father had wanted to build a car like this with me from a very young age. I was 10 when we started the first car, but unfortunately he was forced to sell that one before it was ever completed. In his mind it was never going to be possible to start another one, until he got the call about the 912."

“The RSR was always a dream car but the rarity of an original is just crazy. My father still had a bunch of old stock Porsche parts that we could use, so we decided we’d build a car inspired by the 2.8 RSR but we’d make it our own."

A light German square weave carpet compliments the exterior paint just right and chocolate brown leather isn’t something you’d ever have seen in a period race car. The WEVO short shifter looks like some kind of high-end kitchen appliance and the MOMO Prototipo wheel ties it all perfectly back to the 70s.

“We had endless conversations about the details” says Bas Jan. “The RSR was always a dream car but the rarity of an original is just crazy. My father still had a bunch of old stock Porsche parts that we could use, so we decided we’d build a car inspired by the 2.8 RSR but we’d make it our own.

Since the initial shakedown runs we’ve made several trips in the car. The thing I love about it is the fact that it’s so pure and raw. It’s comparable to a competitive rally car but at the same time it works as a comfortable cruiser.”