This 850 Horsepower Slantnose 911 Turbo Is The Most Tubular Porsche Imaginable

Second chances are beautiful. This 1988 Porsche 930 Turbo Slantnose was suffering from corrosion and fire damage when it landed at Porsche Santa Clarita. After an extensive restoration you’ve got what you see here: The raddest of the rad — a totally bodacious 1988 Porsche 911 with an 850 horsepower 3.5-liter turbo motor that’s somehow not the most extreme part of the car.

This is the third year that Galpin, our sister company, and its Porsche store Porsche Santa Clarita (organizer of one of the best Cars and Coffees in LA) have entered a car in the Porsche Restoration Challenge at the Werks Reunion at Pebble Beach. This is a nationwide contest organized by Porsche. Here’s how the brand describes it:

Now in its third year, the Restoration Challenge is aimed at cars that are due for expert attention from the best possible hands: Porsche-trained technicians who are, like many owners, passionate enthusiasts, and have a portfolio of more than 80,000 Porsche Classic Genuine Parts at their disposal. America is home to more classic Porsche vehicles than any other market in the world, and more than 60 dealers are expected to participate.

There are three classes in the Restoration Challenge:

The Preservation category is intended to keep original components of the vehicle present, enhancing the vehicle to improve its overall function while not restoring it to like-new condition. For instance, this could mean making minor paint corrections versus a full vehicle repaint. The Restoration category is for those projects going through a true restoration process, returning it to like-new condition. Vehicles in the Restoration category will be most closely aligned with original production specifications. Based on the Porsche Sonderwunsch program, the Individualization category is for those entries that fulfill a special wish. This is the category for the creative use of Genuine Parts.

Clearly, this is not a car going up for the Preservation category as the work was extensive:

The previous two years Galpin won the People’s Choice Award and, yeah, they’ve now won it a third time.

You can see why. This 911’s been Reebok Pump-ed with enough ’80s nostalgia to make Oingo Boingo blush [Editor’s Note: I have no idea who or what that is. -DT]. Let’s start on the outside, where the flatnose has been augmented with an X83 Flachbau factory body kit that was only available in Japan and, even there, is extremely rare. That’s covered in a rich Rubystar paint job and a “racing stripe” inspired by the Porsche 75 year logo. It’s wild, but it works.

The body is nicely contrasted by custom made HRE wheels in a classic basketweave design with a turquoise blue paint. That same turquoise color repeats inside, with black and white pasha inserts.

The instrument cluster was also upgraded, and there’s a new audio system with the Porsche classic radio featuring a custom Blaupunkt sound system. I need to check and see if it’s a 911 with a quadrophonic Blaupunkt.

“Our goal with this Slantnose was to bring it back to the original generation while incorporating our own unique Galpinized design,” said Beau, co-founder of The Autopian and head of Galpin Motors.

Here’s a shot of the before, just to set expectations for how major this transformation was:

Here’s a look at the car dismantled:

The biggest change might be out back, where the new upgraded 3.5-liter turbo flat six sits. There are individual throttle bodies, a custom oil cooler system, and a transaxle with and LSD and cooler — all necessary to keep those 850 horsepower pumping through this thing.

Also helping keep this car propelled forward is the revised suspension, which takes parts from the 997 GT3 RS, as well as some ASP bits and MC coiloivers.

It’s so choice. It was also the People’s Choice as well as the Kid’s choice because, as always, the kids have great taste.

Here’s Beau explaining how it came together:

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So badass.