THE SHIGA SAFARI

The Shiga Safari

Travelling to central Japan to check out a particularly well executed off road 911 build.

They say a Porsche can be anything. Weekend hauler, track day weapon, rally hero, even time machine. The latter being especially true as I stand in-front of Hajime san’s Safari inspired ’74 G series.

Lufthaus is nestled in the suburbs of Kusatsu City in Shiga prefecture. A stone’s throw from Kyoto city, Shiga prefecture was my first destination on my first trip to Japan 10 years ago. At the time, there were no hotels within my modest budget to stay in Kyoto so Shiga was the next best option. It’s just 15 min on the local train and I’m glad fate played me the hand it did. The mountains surrounding Lake Biwa are spectacular, especially in autumn. This visit years later happened to be around the same time of year, and the nostalgia was palpable.

Hajime san started his air-cooled journey working at a VW garage specialising in older air-cooled cars. This experience inevitably sparked his interest in Porsches and, more specifically, their engines. Following that, he took a position as a mechanic at a Porsche dealership in Kyoto.

During his 10 years with Porsche, Hajime san went through all the training you might expect, with trips to Germany to learn the inner workings of cars like the 918 and get the associated certifications. In fact, it was at this training facility that he took design inspiration for his own garage. The space he saw in Germany had a grey stone tile floor and featured a single lift in the centre, facilitating undivided focus to a single vehicle.

Years later, on the other side of the world, that simple space echoes through Lufthaus. The first thing that hits you as you approach the workshop is the Douglas Fur cladding, framed in glimmering corrugated iron. The provincial chapel-like gable rises through the forested surroundings, flanked by ornamental banana trees and adjacent to Hajime san’s family home. Large barn doors provide access to cars from the front and side, and a half wall window at the far end lets plenty of natural light in.

The car looks brand-new but carries its age with the heavy quality of vintage selvedge denim - though it’s light enough for the two of us to manoeuvre around the premises without so much as a grunt.

The car looks brand-new but carries its age with the heavy quality of vintage selvedge denim - though it’s light enough for the two of us to manoeuvre around the premises without so much as a grunt.

The interior is an eclectic mix of high street fashion and vintage rally. 996 GT3 bucket seats finished in Martini tartan and Heuer stopwatch make the car feel modern and vintage simultaneously.

On the driveway various other Lufthaus cars wait patiently. Hajime’s first love, a Beetle and split window bus are parked up as a reminder of his roots. Attention promptly turns to the Safari, no surprise considering it’s bright orange and lifted like a tractor. It’s the coolest thing I’ve seen all year. “Just because it’s cool” is often reason given when people buy some kind of quirky kei car, but a build like this generally has a deeper reason for existing.

Rather than a copy of a classic narrow body rally car, Hajime san’s build feels more like a restoration of a factory optioned road car that might have existed in an alternate timeline.

The brightwork sets off the orange paintwork like an enamel brooch pinned to a tartan jacket. The BF Goodrich all terrain tires on Fuchs and the 2-inch lift give the impression that we might at any time be joining the East African Safari, pending food supplies and shovels.

The interior is an eclectic mix of high street fashion and vintage rally. 996 GT3 bucket seats finished in Martini tartan and Heuer stopwatch make the car feel modern and vintage simultaneously.

Unsurprisingly, building a safari has come from a deep love of adventure, the great outdoors and powder snow. It turns out Hajime san is quite the mountaineer, scaling summits in the Japanese Southern Alps. What better way to begin the ascent than in a classic narrow body Porsche, with Shiga as the starting point you can choose to head through Gifu or straight up the central valley of Nagano, winding your way through towns and mountains.