Pierre bought his 1997 Arena Red Porsche in 1998 with 3000km on it, and it really was from a little old lady. Ten years on and I’m sure the first owner would barely recognize their old ride. The exterior modifications are so extensive it’s nearly impossible to list them all, but it’s worth trying just to run through some of the most desirable names in Porsche tuning. The substantial and muscular flares, GT2 wing, brake venting sideskirts, and front chin are all Gemballa parts. The front bumper is a true Euro spec GT2 part, while the rear is covered off by a RUF Turbo R piece. Pierre tells me RUF parts are only available to owners of actual RUF cars…
and a RUF VP came up to him once at a SEMA show and asked incredulously how he managed to score that rear bumper cover and RUF carbon fibre hood. Needless to say Pierre keeps it on the downlow where they came from! Stuffed under those fender flares are a set of 18x9F/18×10.5R Kinesis Motorsport 3 piece forged K28R wheels which were custom painted a matte gold colour. 255F/285R Bridgestone Potenza RE050 rubber rounds out the rollers.
Nestled under that big ducted GT2 rear wing is a TPC M90 supercharger kit running a custom 10psi pulley. The supercharger was ported and polished and the engine was blueprinted and balanced by GTek Tuning before they went in and tuned the Unichip piggyback system properly. A thick Spearco (finally a name that should be familiar to Japanese tuner fans) intercooler sits just below the venting and of course it’s fully polished. Rennsport intake and exhaust valves combine with bronze/manganese valve guides on the ported and polished heads. Forged internals are taken care of by way of Pauter con-rods, Mahle 3.8L pistons, and Webs Cams 3.8L cams. Cargraphic EL headers and high flow cats help scavenge the serious exhaust this car generates. As you can imagine 10 years of engine mods makes for an extensive list that carries on.
But what always gets me going most is the suspension, not the power. Roock Racing Super Cup coilovers and sway bars handle the primary cornering duties while TRG spherical links, rear monoballs, rear subframe mounts and sold transmission mounts all keep the driveline nice and stuff. Obviously this power and cornering potential is reigned in by a good set of stoppers. Pierre chose Brembo’s Gran Turismo brake kit front and rear with ubiquitous Goodrich stainless braided lines and Pagid orange compound pads.
Looking at this car you may assume that a tiptronic convertible is really more of a GT/cruising type car but I’m not sure if you could classify it as such any more with the amount of work that’s gone into the performance of this car. It’s truly a one off car with a tremendous amount of thought put into modifying it in all the right ways.
Huge thanks goto Pierre for bringing his car out and sharing some of the hilarious and scary stories this car has given him. It’s always refreshing to see an enthusiast car with some very different types of modifications than what you’re normally exposed to in the scene. I hope to get another chance to shoot this car sometime soon!
