Porsche Syberia RS rally car is what you make when you need a Hummer that's fast
Some history: The Porsche 911's first-ever race was the 1965 Monte Carlo rally, entered because Porsche's PR man at the time wanted to show how much the future icon could do. A year later, Porsche began selling an optional rally kit for the 911 that included Recaro seats, a roll bar, and adjustable Koni dampers. Porsche produced factory rally racers until the early 1970s, winning Monte Carlo three times in a row before letting privateers carry the torch so the factory could focus on campaigning in the East Africa Safari. After years of painful lessons, when Porsche took its brand-new 1978 911 SC to the safari, the 3.0-liter flat-six coupe was hours away from winning the race before damaging the suspension, demoting the car to second place. Porsche fans wanted their own replicas, and finding the new 911 to be an affordable option, the SC — built from 1978 to 1983 — went from denoting "Super Carrera" to "Safari Car."
Porsche took a big step up in with the 953 rally car. Built to win the 1984 Paris-Dakar, which it did, the 953 introduced the four-wheel-drive system Porsche would evolve for the 959 in 1985 and the 964-series 911 in 1989, as well as the now-unforgettable 911-based Rothmans livery. All of this is what's fueling today's 911 Safari Car revival around the world. Almost all of today's builds start with the so-called G Model 911s, produced from 1973 to 1989, usually focusing on the SC and the Carrera that ran from 1984 until 1989.
Fast forward to 2007 when a mysterious crew organized the TransSyberia Rally, a "sports-touring" event that stretched 4,500 miles from Moscow to the capital of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar. Of the 34 vehicles that entered, 25 were Porsche's purpose-built Cayenne S Transsyberia Edition.
Put this all in a pot and you have the beginnings of the car that brings us here, the Syberia RS. It's said that a German fellow by the name of Kai Burkhard wanted to buy a Humvee, but the low top speed, around 50 miles per hour, put him off. So instead, he imported a 1986 911 "in collector condition" from Japan with the idea of rebuilding it to provide almost all the off-road fun he could have had in the H1. Burkhard tapped the Tailor Made department at German suspension designer H&R, and the two set to work creating a build like the 953 Dakar winner.
The owner's been mum on most of the details including engine revisions. We do know H&R ripped out the old suspension and mounting points and cut out the wheel arches, fabricating a custom, adjustable coilover suspension with all-new spring plates, support bearings and geometry, bolted to chassis reinforcements that can handle the shock of high-speed jumps.
Other touches include a roof rack, two additional rally lights on the hood, perforated safety bumpers, a winch tucked into the front bumper with a faceplate reading "Come Up," tie-downs on the back bumper, and an RS-style tail common on the Safari Cars above a custom, central-exit exhaust. The Syberia RS sits on a set of Hankook DynaPro Mud Terrain light truck tires, sized at 215/85 R16 akin to the 953, on Fuchs wheels. The interior features Recaro race seats up against a roll cage, a Momo steering wheel, and a high-rise gear lever that makes us wonder if a sequential transmission's been swapped in. Something about all that shiny triple-black makes this build... enticing. We're not the only ones to think so, word is that H&R has already had inquiries about making more.
If H&R doesn't, there are several other options closer to home and more on the way. Two Gemballa factions are developing off-road Porsches, the tuning house starting with a 911 turned into the Gemballa Avalance 4x4, the late Uwe Gemballa's son developing a 911-based crossover. Also in Germany, Dr. Erik Brandenburg might be coaxed to build another replica of his Martini-liveried 953 restomod that he drove to a class win in the 2007 TransSyberia Rally, complete with perforated bumpers and Hankook light truck Mud Terrains the same size as on the brand new Syberia RS.
Closer to home, several shops specialize in Safari Cars, like Kelly Moss Motorsports, Leh Keen's The Keen Project, ex-Singer builder Russell Fabrications injecting a dose of 959 into its Safari Car, and Tuthill Porsche, Tuthill winning last year's East African Safari Classic Rally with one of its cars.
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