I believe that the Porsche 911 is the most important model in European classic car culture. And this Pink Pig conversion for the old 964 generations, which will receive a 3.8-liter engine, is like the big block restomod of Euro-spec conversions.
While not completed, the project already looks ultra-expensive, the cream of the crop, even in the expensive Porsche world. It’s being put together for the biggest car celebrity in Germany, Jean Pierre Kraemer of JP Performance.
Many Porsche race cars are famous for their racing colors, the liveries. However, Project 917 “Pink Pig” is without a doubt the most iconic.
The Porsche 917 began development in 1968 when the FIA created a new class of homologated sports cars that could have up to 5 liters of displacement and needed to weigh over 800 kg (1764 lbs). The following year, under the supervision of Ferdinand Piech, the 25 necessary race cars were ready to do just that.
Pink Pig is a 917/20, combining the advantages of short and long-tail 917 models. It made its debut at the 917 Le Mans race, where the untested car proved to be the fastest during the qualifying session. However, it dropped out near the end of the event due to an unlucky crash.
Porsche designer Anatole Lapine was the one who decided in favor of the pink body color and labeled each of the body parts according to the butcher-style cuts. This combination has been replicated on several private and Porsche-owned cars, and they also sell a whole bunch of accessories, cups, shirts, and toys.
The pink color of this restomod is undoubtedly off from the original, but the 964 project car is clearly going for the Pink Pig look. It looks like the body started off as some kind of normal air-cooled car but received the widebody rear look of a race car.
All the complex metalwork is being carried out at a specialist German shop, AP Car Design. They’ve also installed a full race cage and impeccably painted everything. It’s cool to see the cabin raw yet painted, pink covering the gauges and even the gear shifter. It’s like everything’s been dipped in strawberry yogurt.
964 Turbo widebody looks, race car engine
And just so you know how cool our little find is, the Pig chassis was also visited by Marc Lichte, Audi’s famous head of design.
The Carrera RS came out in 1992 as a super-lightweight limited edition of the 964, derived from the Cup race car. It had a super stripped-out interior that was as much as 345 lbs (155 kg) lighter than a Carrera 2. There was also an even more exclusive, Carrera 3.8 RS featuring the Turbo widebody, which is what we have here.
This featured a bored-out version of the M64, normally a 3.6-liter, flat-six which produced 300 horsepower. The video below suggests JP’s engine will indeed be a 3.8-liter, but not the one that’s correct for this car.
My understanding of German is pretty rough, but it seems the knowledgeable mechanic is using a brand new (unused) 993 block which is matched to some freshly milled aluminum cylinder heads to make it a 3.8-liter. So it’s still air-cooled, but more modern and it’s apparently going to make at least 430 horsepower., which in such a light car sounds frightening.
