Singer And Williams Are Remastering Air-Cooled Flat Sixes
Take a look at these renderings released by Singer today. Beautiful, aren’t they? That mess of pipes and gargantuan belt-driven fan belong to the reengineered Porsche flat-six that’ll be adorning new Singers in the coming months.
Singer is best known as the world’s premier 911 restomodder, taking careworn Porsches and bringing them up to modern standards without losing any of the magic that makes vintage 911s some of the most popular collectors’ cars of all time. And with a little help from motorsports legend Williams Advanced Engineering, they’ll soon extend their favor upon the classic 4.0L flat-six that’s been Porsche’s bread and butter for half a century. It’s an old recipe, made with fresh ingredients.
The engine you see here isn’t the 4.0’s final form, but rather a heavily modified 3.6 that’s set to debut this fall in a restored 1990 911 for prolific Singer client Scott Blattner, who owns a wind energy business that finances his four(!) Singers.
Designed with the help of longtime Porsche wizard Hans Mezger, the engine’s 60s bones belie its technology and 500-horsepower output. While it shares its progenitor’s layout, the Singer version adds aluminum throttle bodies, titanium conrods, and carbon fiber for the airbox and intake trumpets; the exhaust is made out of a titanium-and-Inconel alloy, which, combined with the projected 9000-rpm redline, should make for one hell of a noise.
Of course, all this power and prestige won’t come cheap. Singer routinely charges over $600,000 to restore a Porsche (not even counting the cost of a vintage 911 in the first place), so it wouldn’t be surprising to see Williams-fettled examples brush up against the million-dollar mark. But hey, if you’re the kind of person who already has four Singers, you’re probably ready to pony up.