Singer Vehicle Design, a restomod specialist based in Torrance in the Los Angeles area, rebuilds Porsche 911s of the 964 generation and sells them for around two million dollars each. Customers can expect to wait nearly two years for their car, a lead time that reflects how labour-intensive and heavily engineered each conversion is.
The process begins with a donor car, which is stripped to its bare chassis, sandblasted and reinforced. From there, more than 5,000 components are replaced with entirely new parts, and the finished car loses roughly 250 kilograms. The bodywork uses carbon fibre panels finished with up to eleven layers of clear coat, and around thirty upholsterers work on the interiors. The mechanical package centres on a new 3.8-litre turbocharged engine, with gearboxes supplied by Ricardo. The suspension has been rebuilt with a new front axle and dampers from EXE-TC, so that the car handles in a way that its original donor could not.
Singer draws on around 500 suppliers in total, among them Mahle, Williams, Cosworth and Bosch. Each car is tested on the Nordschleife, the demanding circuit in Germany, before it has been approved by the German TÜV inspection body. Test driver Marino Franchitti oversees much of the development work, and Jenson Button, a friend and collaborator of the company, is also associated with the project. Taken together, these partnerships explain why the cost per car is so high and why production cannot simply be scaled up overnight.
The company was founded in 2009 by Rob Dickinson, a former musician, and has grown to around 450 staff, about 250 of whom work at its facility in England. Chief Strategy Officer Mazen Fawaz is one of three leaders steering the business. Raj Nair joined early last year; he previously worked at Ford and has a background at Multimatic. The arrival of experienced figures from the automotive industry reflects the company's shift from a boutique workshop towards a more structured manufacturer. To date, roughly 500 cars have been sold.
Singer is also planning a Singer Drivers Club at the Willow Springs circuit in the Mojave area. The plans include a clubhouse, circuit layouts and private villas, giving owners a place to use their cars as well as to socialise with one another. The company says that between thirty and forty percent of its clients go on to order a second Singer, a figure that points to a loyal customer base rather than a one-off purchase. Beyond the 964, Singer has said that its next step includes concepts based on a later generation of the 911, although it has not set a fixed timeline for these projects.