QUIET LUXURY

Quiet Luxury

This Loro Piana trimmed 911 is the latest build from the famed Porsche specialists at Workshop 5001.

“It has all the vibes and experience you expect from a 1972 Porsche, but it’ll keep pace in the canyons with a 992…”

Workshop 5001 don’t build a lot of complete cars. Though renown in the California Porsche scene particularly for engine rebuilds, their full restorations are rare and often agonised over for years. Each is distinct from the next, and each is given a number. The Loro Piana car has just been finished, and it’s only number 12 in the series. Shop owner Marlon is very hands on with these “numbered builds”, he still assembles each engine himself and he was more than happy to tell us why “12” was such a special car to put together.

“We do a lot of ’72 cars, they’re the holy grail, the one-year-only oil door cars and in my opinion the coolest of the long hood era. This car had previously been a bit of a track rat and at some point had a 3.2 engine transplanted in. These are my favourite donor cars to work on, I turn them into twin plug 3.4 litres with 315+ horsepower.

It left the factory in green metallic, then going British racing green for a time. We decided it should be green again, but landing on NATO olive. The aluminium ‘steelie’ wheels are a satin platinum colour, the leather is from Spinneybeck and this is the first build we’ve done with Loro Piana wool in the seat centres and headliner.

“It has all the vibes and experience you expect from a 1972 Porsche, but it’ll keep pace in the canyons with a 992…”

"To the untrained eye I want it to look like a classic 911, but the Porschephiles will enjoy finding all the subtle ways we’ve mixed and matched the parts catalogue.”

The car also retains a back seat as the client has kids small enough to sit back there. I was very happy to keep this feature, growing up in the back of a 964 was very formative for me, and my own daughters now ride in my wife’s 992 Carrera T. The other ‘touring spec’ elements are all the brightwork/trim pieces we kept on the car, all of which are factory, though they never existed together in this mix.

Hotrod people normally eliminate brightwork, often one-upping each other with more extreme looks and too many modern features or goofy looking headlights. We’ve gone more conservative. To the untrained eye I want it to look like a classic 911, but the Porschephiles will enjoy finding all the subtle ways we’ve mixed and matched the parts catalogue.”