Paul Stephens

911 and Porsche World - Replicas and Hot Rods

RISE OF THE REPLICAS

The real deal. The genuine article. One
hundred per cent authentic. You’ll find none
of that sort of stuff here. Quite the contrary,
in fact. Because as deliciously evocative as
this collection of iconic race-derived 911s
looks, they all share a little secret – each of them
is a fake.
Actually, fake is the wrong word, because it implies
deception. The only deception here is of the visual
variety (and some aficionados will have already seen
through that ruse); there’s no attempt by the seller of all
five of these cars – Porsche specialist, Paul Stephens –
to represent these fine-looking machines as anything
other than the recreations that they are. Well,
recreations, replicas and evocations… Because while
some of the cars try to stay as faithful as possible to the
historic Porsche model of which they are a facsimile,
others are merely inspired by the past, paying homage to
it rather than being rigidly structured by it.
Purists have been known to turn apoplectic about cars
like these, firstly for pretending to be something that
they’re not, and secondly because to create them in the
first place means hacking about a perfectly good – and
thoroughly genuine – 911. It’s easy to have some
sympathy with their concerns, particularly when the
donor vehicle is a nice, solid example. But when the
finished result is as intoxicatingly great to drive as the
cars pictured here, it’s hard not to start thinking that the
means justifies the ends.
Unsurprisingly, the recreation market has a soft spot
for 911s from the 1960s and 1970s, with special affection
reserved for the Carrera 2.7 RS and 2.8 RSR. Furious
debate is a generic component of any discussion about
the best 911 ever, but you’ll be hard pressed to find
anyone completely immune to the merits of that iconic
pair, even if they’re not personal favourites. With
impeccable motorsport credentials and with several wellrespected
motoring magazines hailing the 2.7 RS as the
most enjoyable Porsche ever, the lure of reproducing
these models – either wholeheartedly or just
cosmetically – has long been irresistible.
Of course, thanks to their single year of production,
1973, the relative rarity of the Rennsport models (1580
RSs and a mere 49 RSRs) adds to the mystique. And to
the increasing value of genuine examples. In recent times
the price of a top condition 2.7 RS has cruised past
£100,000, while recently a 2.8 RSR was sold in Europe for
just shy of £500,000. That’s serious money, which not
only denies enthusiasts even the faintest hope of
ownership, but also makes the lucky few owners more
reluctant to take out their cars on a regular basis and
use them the way Porsche intended – hard, fast and
furious.
Weigh up these factors and the appeal of a pretender
grows. For starters, you stand a chance of being able to
afford one in the first place, provided you buy a preowned
car – building one up from scratch using a decent
donor and good quality components, could set you back
almost as much as the real thing. And having spent
about a fifth the price of a pukka 2.8 RSR, you might feel
more inclined to come out to play.
None of the cars we’ve wheeled outside from Paul
Stephens’ Sudbury-based showroom is a mere cosmetic
special. Along with ‘the look’ come hardcore mechanicals,
chosen to make the driving experience either as
authentic as possible or as extreme as possible. Or both.
Each is slightly different in its conception and purpose; all
are utterly compelling.

2.7 RS REPLICA

Of all the 911 derivatives, the 2.7 RS has to
be the most plagiarised, although often the
homage extends little further than the
cutesy duck-tail spoiler, retro bumper units
and Carrera script down each flank.
This car pays its respects to the old master with
more conviction and more sincerity, not to mention
more period-grade components; it really is intended as
a replica and not a back-dated more modern 911, nor
an ‘evocation’, a term that may or may not have been
first coined in Paul Stephens’ sales literature… It’s
meant to look like a 2.7 RS and drive like a 2.7 RS.
Outwardly it appears every inch the RS, from its original
7in and 8in anodised Fuchs alloys up to its trademark
ducktail. No visible evidence remains that it started life in
1971, as a right-hand drive, non-sunroof 911 T. The shell
was stripped to bare metal and rebuilt in 2004, initially as
a lightweight RS, complete with blue wheels and decals.
The next owner wanted something less Spartan and recommissioned
the interior to something more akin to
Touring specification, with a few more modern tweaks.
Because the aim with this project was to create a 911
that as faithfully as possible recreates the RS driving
experience, the 2.7-litre flat-six was built up to RS spec
around the original 4R cases and included mechanical fuel
injection; power is claimed to match that of the real thing
– 210bhp. The gearbox is a rebuilt aluminium-cased 915
five-speeder, while the brakes and suspension are to 2.7
RS spec.
As alluded to a moment ago, the cabin breaks with
historical accuracy in favour of day-to-day comfort and
ease of use. Whilst not looking out of place, the Recaro
seats are non-Porsche items; generously stuffed, you sit
more on them than in them, yet they’re comfortable
enough for long trips and have just enough lateral
support for playtime. Slotted into the facia is a period
Motorola radio, but it’s controlled by a modern device
located under the front passenger seat that even has
iPod connectivity!
Fire it up: the RS (let’s call it that, shall we?) sounds
typically brilliant. Not too soft, not too raucous. Crisp.
Clean. Very Porsche. Firm clutch action, familiarly notchy
gearshift. A slightly lumpen low-speed demeanour, as if
sulking about having to travel slowly. Good ride quality,
though, and already the steering is bobbling gently in the
palms, feeding back titbits of road information.
After a few miles the oil’s warm enough to let rip. The
engine is strong above 3000rpm, ballsy beyond 4000, and
then reveals a hit of extra sparkle as the needle kisses
6000, maintaining that fizz until about 6300. It revs
sweetly and swiftly, though you do need to press the
throttle very firmly and positively to the floor to liberate
all its performance. The RS is properly fast, too,
subjectively on the pace with far more recent 911s,
though perhaps not with the latest to wear the RS
moniker.
The brakes take some adjusting to. The pedal is long of
travel, spongy when the pads hit the discs, not quite the
match of the car’s performance, though I dare say with
greater familiarity you could adjust your driving style to
suit. The steering and chassis response, on the other
hand, are everything you could wish of a sports car. In a
way that a modern 911 doesn’t and a Lotus Elise can, the
RS establishes a connection to the driver, a rapport that
allows you to intimately sense what the car is up to and
what you can get away with. And the RS is so light of
foot, dancing daintily from apex to exit, letting you feel
the grip from the tyres and the bumps in the road surface
and the shifting of weight from front to rear in the corner.
You come back from a drive in this replica wanting more
time and more miles, just as you would in a genuine RS.
Yet for £39,995, my guess is that you’d be more inclined
to do precisely that in the replica.

PS CLUBSPORT

he advertising blurb calls this a Paul
Stephens Clubsport, yet one look will
convince you that here is a 911 hugely
inspired by the 2.7 RS, with a nod to the RSR
at the front end. But while the styling is
borrowed, the purpose of this Gulf orange 911 is to act
as a trackday warrior and occasional B-road blaster.
Its appearance harks back to the 1970s, but in fact
the shell belongs to the decade after, a 1983 911 SC
complete with galvanised steel. That latter attribute
was particularly desirable when in 2006 Paul Stephens
stripped it down to the bare metal with no intention of
replacing the underseal during the rebuild: for track
use the car needed to be light, and such rust
protection represented unnecessary poundage. While
on the weight-paring trail, the Clubsport was treated to
Plexiglass side windows and rear screen, an aluminium
front lid, glassfibre engine cover – complete with
ducktail – and lightweight facia, door cards and
carpets. With half a tank the car weighs in at 980kg.
Because this car isn’t a replica (merely looks a little
like one) Paul Stephens was free to build up what it
considered the best engine for the job. Sitting in the
tail is a lightened and balanced 3.0-litre motor with 964
cams and fed by PMO carburettors; power is quoted at
236bhp, which the company’s website gleefully
exclaims adds up to a power-to-weight ratio of 240bhp
per tonne, superior to those of the 964 RS and 993 RS.
The cabin treatment isn’t as extreme as that of the
white 2.8 RSR replica, but you still have to clamber
through a cage, shuffle your butt into the tight
embrace of a period bucket seat, and then clip yourself
in to a harness. All very race car and almost illicit when
you’re about to nip out onto the public road.
As with the 2.8 RSR, the Clubsport doesn’t really do
slow. The clutch is heavy, the transmission snatchy,
the steering stodgy, the ride heavy going. Pick up the
pace, though, and it’s like you’re injecting life into all
the components, giving them a reason for being. The
engine craves at least 4000rpm before it truly focuses
on its job, but after that it’s grunty and zingy, hungrily
piling on revs as its voice rises with a baritone bellow.
The engine’s more than happy to sit in the 6000rpm
region, and beyond, for extended periods of time, but
you’re travelling so monumentally fast at this stage
that the Clubsport’s full range of performance isn’t
compatible with public roads, at least, not in the south
of England.
The Clubsport’s steering doesn’t have the fingertip
delicacy of the 2.7 RS replica’s, yet it still picks its way
through corners with satisfying accuracy. There’s a
small amount of fight through the steering wheel when
you’re right on the edge of front end grip, but given the
geometry is set up with a heavy track bias, the helm is
commendably uncorrupted by dodgy road surfaces.
When you’re going fast in the Clubsport there’s
cohesion between all its dynamic elements, the engine,
handling and steering complementary to each other.
On the day the brake pads needed replacing after
some hard track sessions; shame, because their
slightly unpredictable arrival on the approach to
corners meant the Clubsport wasn’t quite as fluid as I
imagine it can be. Still, I’ve watched a video of Paul
Stephens – the man, not the company – hooning this
very car around a very wet Brands Hatch, clearly
having no trouble with slowing…

2.7 CARRERA

or several years Paul Stephens has created its
own 911 ‘specials’, for want of a better
expression, comprising a collection of
complementary components aimed at making
the cars fun to drive and practical in a modern
context. These cars aren’t necessarily a tribute to any
one particular 911 model, yet they’re attired in retro
outfits. Could this car have been their inspiration?
Life began for this car as a genuine, impact bumper 2.7
Carrera, built late in 1973 to become a 1974 model year
911, and thus by a couple of months missing out on
legendary 2.7 RS status. If it had been made a couple of
months earlier, it might now be worth £150,000: if it had
retained its original specification, you might get £60K+. As
it stands now – even with its RS-spec 210bhp 2.7-litre
engine built around original 4R cases and rebuilt
magnesium-cased 915 gearbox – you could drive off
down the road for just £49,995. A lesson in not meddling
with something good? Perhaps: if a car’s value is of more
importance to you than how it drives…
Imported to the UK from Italy – where it was owned by
a count – by Luke Theochari in 2002, this Carrera 2.7 then
fell into the clutches of 911&PW’s Keith Seume, and used
as a project car. Nick Faure was amongst its subsequent
keepers. How tempting it must have been to take the
default option and create a 2.7 RS replica when this lefthooker
Carrera had its bare metal respray and was shorn
of its impact bumpers. Yet while its bumpers were
backdated with rounded glassfibre numbers, it was
decorated in a Kremer-inspired colour scheme, didn’t get a
ducktail, and ended up on Minilite alloys instead of
regulation Fuchs. And, almost randomly, it has 911 R-style
tail-lights. That package is bucking a trend for you.
The cabin suggests gentle motorsport may be on the
cards – period buckets, four-point harnesses, WEVO
exposed gate shifter mechanism, rally timers low on the
facia. Meanwhile an (annoying) alarm/immobiliser
demonstrates that regular driving matters have also been
attended to, as do its more modern wiper and indicator
stalks and electric windows.
None of these things seem of any importance,
however, once you start driving the 2.7. From the off,
everything’s right. All right, not quite everything – the
WEVO shifter is a big improvement on normal 915
mechanisms, yet it’s still occasionally notchy and
reluctant to engage the next ratio. Oh, and heel-and-toe
is even trickier to master in this left-hooker than it is in an
RHD car. But really, that’s the moaning over; the rest is
just good news. Great news…
The engine: loud, punchy and powerful beyond its
claimed 210bhp. Gets galloping at 3000rpm and then
goes quicker and quicker as the revs rise. Maybe a tad
vocal at the top end, but you’re unlikely to care because
you’re enjoying yourself so much going so damned fast.
The steering: delicate and very, very precise, massaging
information about the road below into your palms and
explaining in intimate terms precisely how the weight
transfer is shuffling around the chassis as you thunder
into corners. Brakes: not as progressive as those on the
white RSR replica, yet user-friendly, and powerful.
It’s so easy to tune into this car, to connect with its
dynamic abilities and then exploit them to the full. With
the occasional exception of that gearchange, every
dynamic element is well matched with the others, no one
area outshining the rest. You feel instantly confident
behind the wheel, and that confidence isn’t betrayed as
you go faster and faster.
With a few mods, reckons Stephens, you could make
this 2.7 Carrera eligible for Historic motorsport. My advice:
don’t, leave it alone. Enjoy it the way it is. Because frankly,
it’s the best Porsche I’ve ever driven.

2.8 RSR REPLICA

lthough it shares the same pristine white
colour scheme as the 2.7 RS, you instantly
sense the 2.8 RSR replica is going to be a
completely different beast. The muscular
haunches, fat wheels and tyres, the mesh
grille air intake all hint at extra violence. History
informs us that these visual messages were backed by
fact, the RSR developing almost 100bhp more than the
RS, despite the small difference in cubic capacity. The
RSR, of course, was pretty much pure race car with a
magnesium block, competition pistons and cams, twinplug
cylinder heads and a much higher compression
ratio. Bred for the track, it cleaned up on the track,
becoming 1973’s must-have racer for anyone keen on
trophy hunting. Only 49 were made, and the very few
that made it to the road were bought by the extremely
well off: they cost almost double the price of a 2.7 RS.
Paul Stephens refers to this car as a ‘replica’ in
correspondence and an ‘evocation’ on its website.
Perhaps the confusion arises because despite being
assembled from a more disparate collection of parts than
the RS, those components are of the correct vintage to
make it eligible – after a handful of other mods – to enter
Historic racing events. That positively affects its value,
too – it’s currently on sale for £69,995.
This RSR’s shell left the factory in 1973 configured as a
911 E, before being converted into an RSR in the 1980s,
when it was piloted by Alec Poole. Once its competition
career ended, it was subjected to a ground-up refurb that
included making it a little more road-friendly. The core of
its engine was donated by a 1973 2.4S (with 7R cases), to
which were added various factory RSR parts, including
twin-plug heads. But to make it more driveable, the
engine was also fitted with modern Jenvey throttle body
fuel injection, calmer (G60) cams and an Omex ECU.
Fighting the effects of 265bhp is a set of 930 Turbo
brakes, and this RSR is suspended by coil-over dampers.
Road-biased it may claim to be, but pull back the RSR’s
lightweight door and you’re confronted by a cabin built for
competition – roll-cage, Sparco bucket seats, all the
switches clearly labelled, a pair of huge red and yellow
warning lights to the right of the steering wheel.
Climbing in through the roll-cage isn’t elegant, and
because the seat is fixed, it takes a while to find enough
padding to get me close enough to the wheel and pedals.
You’ve got to flick a fuel pump on, then enable the
ignition, and then prod the rather understated starter
button. The flat-six awakes with a snarl and a lumpy idle,
louder and brasher than the motor in the 2.7 RS.
Same crummy gearchange, though, common to the 915
’box, but the clutch… It’s an instrument of physical and
mental torture, at least when you’re moving away from
rest. Big muscles are required to depress the pedal, and
then you keep raising it, raising it, raising it… Just when
you think it must be broken, the clutch catches with a
bang, triggered rather than engaged. With first selected,
the transmission doesn’t enjoy low speeds, shunting
slightly, keen for more speed.
To oblige this desire, you’ve got to give the engine a
pasting – below 4000rpm it’s flat. Bury the throttle pedal,
get 5500rpm to 6500rpm on the rev counter, and then
you’re flying. Hard, super-fast, wide-eyed performance,
accompanied by a menacing shriek devoid of subtlety. In
the zone, this motor responds with intense bursts of
thrust to any throttle input, yet is so skull-splittingly loud
you’re almost afraid to do so!
The RSR rep has great brakes: the pedal’s meaty, has
immediate bite, and the degree of retardation is easy to
modulate. Not so the suspension setup, though. There’s
nothing wrong with the ride – it’s firm, but not crashingly
so. No, the problem here is the suspension geometry, that
probably works to devastating effect on the track, but on
the road follows cambers and crests with the random
enthusiasm of a heat-seeking missile in a fireworks
display. Furthermore, that makes the rear end seem
twitchy; it isn’t, of course, but it robs you of confidence
and that slows you down.
But let’s not judge it too harshly. The problem, I think, is
that this RSR is described as a road-biased machine, when
in fact it’s a car configured for the track that you could
drive to and from the circuit, if your tow car and trailer
were unavailable. But wherever you drive it, this RSR will
be never less than wonderfully – if scarily – thrilling.

2.8 RSR EVOCATION

cary monster. At least, that’s what it looks
like. That’s what it sounds like, too, when it
cracks into life and shoots flames from the
gun barrels poking from beneath its rear
bumper. This 2.8 RSR homage is almost
comically macho in appearance, its huge rear tyres in
danger of meeting in the middle, its broad, aggressive
stance suggesting pent-up potency on the verge of
violent eruption; and all this with rain threatening…
Evocative styling aside, this track-biased 911 has little
to do with an RSR, and all to do with the preferences of
its first owner, who wanted a toy for circuit work and
occasional road miles, rather than the type of replica that
might be eligible for Historic motorsport. Its specification,
therefore, borrows bits from wherever was deemed
appropriate, which ultimately limits its resale value, if not
its entertainment value.
Which isn’t to say its spec is compromised; quite the
opposite. The shell was donated by a 1972 911 T, to which
was added those wildly flared rear arches, and glassfibre
front lid, engine cover, bumpers and 911 R-style doors.
The front bulkhead was also strengthened and a cage
welded in. Brakes were courtesy of a 930 Turbo, as was
the steering. Bilstein coil-over dampers were installed,
together with adjustable rear trailing arm mounts.
Providing propulsion was a 3.5-litre flat-six built up
around 930 cases, and featuring Mahle barrels and
pistons, RSR camshafts, twin-plug heads, slide-body fuel
injection, RSR-style headers, and Supertrapp megaphone
straight-through exhausts. And so the spec-list goes on…
As you can see, no expense spared, and it would cost a
fortune to recreate from scratch today.
That it’s not a genuine RSR racer isn’t foremost in your
mind when you approach this beast, whip open the
feathery door, and limbo in through the cage. What does
focus your thinking is that this is a luminous green race
car without any silencers and you’re about to drive it on
the road. No doubt about it, this car’s intimidating.
But then you realise it has carpets, which is odd, and
you turn a key rather than press a starter button to get it
going, which soothes the nerves a little. The clutch is firm
but not calf-wrenching and engages progressively; the
steering’s not as heavy as the fat front tyres would
suggest. And it’s not even that noisy. Yet.
Even at modest speed the Green Meanie has what I’d
call lightweight performance – only a brush of throttle is
needed to send it shooting down the road, and it feels
undemanding of its suspension. Such lightness of being is
useful, because as with some of the others we’ve driven
today, the engine is comparatively dull below 4000rpm.
It’s quick to shake off its torpor beyond that, though,
accelerating the RSR-alike with a panic-inducing intensity
and a shriek so loud and powerful at the top end that
you’re scared your head will implode. You’ve got to pay
such careful attention to the road ahead because this car
hauls it in at a meteoric rate.
Though nothing like as bad as in the white 2.8 RSR
replica, you also need to concentrate on the steering, the
burly rubber rings beneath you occasionally, yet not
consistently, finding cambers and crowns too alluring to
resist. The racket, the speed, the writhing steering and
mobile chassis, all combine to create a truly wild ride, an
unforgettable experience.
With rain falling there’s no chance to explore much of
this car’s talents, and to be frank I suspect that the open
road really isn’t the place anyway. On a track I bet this
thing’s a blast, and the fact that you could drive it to the
circuit and home again, is simply a bonus. Should you care
it’s not a real RSR? For £59,995, not a chance…

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