THE CANCELLED HOT ROD

The Cancelled Hot Rod

How Tom Kearns bought the ultimate base for a modified car, before leaving it almost completely untouched.

“I just loved the 70’s vibe it was giving off. The colour, the rear pop-out windows, the chrome brightwork and the ‘flat’ Fuchs wheels just spoke to me.”

As a prolific collector of air-cooled Porsches, Tom Kearns reasonably assumed he knew what he was getting when he bought this 1974 911 a few years ago. In the past, Tom has owned everything from a 356 all the way to a 997, with at least three other Porsches from the 1970s besides this one. This car was only bought as a base platform for a bigger design project he had in mind, a hotrod of sorts that didn’t actually need to be very good to begin with. Despite his best laid plans, the car itself proved just a bit too sweet to cut up.

“After the purchase, I had the car shipped to my home in California, where I decided I might as well drive it for a bit. Just a few days of using it as is completely changed my mind about the project. This car just drove so nice, even though it had some needs to attend to, and I fell for the look.

I could tell there was something special about the stock set-up. It’s an under-appreciated year for most Porsche enthusiasts, the first year of the impact bumpers mandated by US standards. The engine is essentially a late ’73 911T 2.4 litre equipped with the Bosch injection system and 2.7 pistons. It also carried over the earlier 911’s 7:31 differential which makes great use of the rev-happy motor. These are the things I fell in love with in those first few days, it’s a super torquey motor! I’m a sucker for torque.”

In his day job, Tom Kearns is an automotive designer, heading up one of California’s many great design studios. Naturally, it’s an industry packed full with genuine enthusiasts who almost always have one interesting car or another waiting at home for their next day in the canyons. The more of them we talk to, the more a particular make and model keeps coming up. For Tom, it’s become a bit of a habit.

"After the purchase, I had the car shipped to my home in California, where I decided I might as well drive it for a bit. Just a few days of using it as is completely changed my mind about the project."

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"Interest in older cars is really just an appreciation of good design and engineering. Early 911s had this in spades."

“Interest in older cars is really just an appreciation of good design and engineering. Early 911s had this in spades. I’ve previously owned many generations of the Porsche 911, including a ’71 S, a ’72 E, a ’78 SC, an ’86 Carrera, a ’94 964, a ’97 993, an ’09 997 and a 2011 GT3RS. I also now have a ’59 356A which I love and can’t believe I didn’t get years ago. I did a pretty major rebuild on the 964 channeling my experience in the auto design field too, and I was super excited about how it came out. I’d caught the bug to work on another project car, which was supposed to be this car. The original reason for purchasing it was that it’s a pre-smog car for the state of California, which is a huge deal if you’re going to do something non-stock.

My personal taste in design is one of simplicity and pureness. Many of my co-workers and designers in our industry are also fans of early Porsches, so I’m far from alone. I also do a lot of acrylic paintings that tie in with my obsession with everything Porsche, which I’m currently showing in my hometown at the Laguna Gallery of Contemporary Art.”