Singer Vehicle Design was established in 2009 in California, USA, by Robert Dickinson, which pays homage to the Porsche racing engineer Norbert Singer. Singer Vehicle Dynamics or SVC was started by restoring, modifying, and completely reengineering the air-cooled naturally aspirated Flat-6 powered Porsche 911 964 coupes and Targas of their customers but later on, they started to produce their limited-run products like the 2018 Singer DLS (Dynamics & Lightweighting Study). In 2022, they launched their first ever 964 Turbo Restomod, known as the Singer Turbo Study, the most powerful version of the 964 Turbo, where Singer threw out the original 3.6L Turbo and replaced it with a 3.8L twin-turbo F6 developed with the Williams F1 Advanced Engineering department, pushing out a whopping 510hp, and recently, at the 2023 Goodwood Festival Of Speed, Singer showcased an even crazier Restomod of the 964 Turbo, known as the Turbo DLS, which pays homage to the Porsche 934/5 Race Car.
It was 1977 when Porsche participated with 2 934/5s in IMSA, but both the cars were kicked out after some seasons because of their wild driving nature. And now, almost after over 4 decades, it has been recreated by Singer in a track-oriented road-going avatar with modern engineering touches. Under the hood of the Singer DLS Turbo sits the same 3.8L twin-turbo air-cooled flat-6 from the Singer Turbo Study, where the Williams F1 Advanced Engineering department did their magic, and now the power has gone up from 510hp to a mind-numbing 700hp @9000rpm to the rear wheels via a 6-speed manual transmission. To handle that much power, a whole body of 964 Turbo was stripped out till the monocoque chassis and has been heavily reworked with an upgraded suspension setup along with upgraded cooling and aerodynamic set-up.
Talking about the design of the Singer DLS Turbo, it comes in 2 versions, one with a giant rear wing with NACA ducts, inspired by the original 934/5 racecar and the other one with a more urban look with a ducktail spoiler with silhouette similar to the 964 Turbo, but from the front, the hood is now made out of carbon fibre as the redesigned wider front wheel arches, the original halogen headlamp set-up is replaced by two LED bulbs which helps it to shed some weight. Moving to the side, the doors are now made out of carbon fibre, it runs on forged centre lock alloy wheels, 19″ at the front and 20″ at the rear with 2 different designs and the rear wider wheel arch is replaced by wider fender flares including ducts to cool down the engine and which also increases the aerodynamic efficiency and with that the flares features side-mounted exhausts too. Now, moving to the rear, first of all, you will see the opening for the air to pass through to reduce the drag, a giant diffuser below the reworked rear bumper, and the whole rear design looks like a unique work of art and the whole car will grab a lot of eyeballs every time it will hit the road or track.
With the exterior, the interior of the Singer DLS Turbo is been heavily reworked. It looks more modern with a retro feel to it, like the steering wrapped around Alcantara has a modern design, but with the old school analog driver’s display behind it with that, the whole dashboard has retro-modern touches. The whole centre console looks minimalistic with a classic exposed gear mechanism with a modern-looking gear lever, and standard seats are replaced by race-spec bucket seats with racing harnesses. To save weight, the rear seats are thrown out and replaced by FIA-certified roll-cage, door handles are replaced by straps to open or close the doors like the modern GT3 RS and so on.
Literally, in an era filled with EVs, restomod artists like Singer are keeping the ICE alive. The DLS Turbo is the most powerful creation from the house of Singer Vehicle Design with the iconic 964 silhouette. There are no official prices out yet but definitely like every Singer, it will cost millions of dollars.
