Singer’s First European Drive Brings Reworked Porsches to the Swiss Alps
Restored and ready to go.
What do you do with a group of restored and updated classic Porsches? For the California brand Singer, the answer is to gather up everyone who bought one and take them on a grand tour of the Swiss Alps.
Singer Vehicle Design started in 2009 as a restoration company for air-cooled Porsches, specifically the 964 model. Rather than manufacture an updated version, it took existing models and imagined what they might feature in the 21st century. It is an approach that has been used worldwide to restore everything from Land Rover Defenders to E-type Jaguars, and a way to make once cutting-edge vehicles relevant for the current day.
The cars produced by Singer are heavily modified. After the company sources a “doner,” it strips the car down to bare bones. It then replaces panels with carbon fibre equivalents, rewires the entire vehicle, and a roll cage is fitted based on the owner’s preferences. Then, the engine. Technicians install either the standard 300 brake-horsepower or a souped-up version from Ed Pink Racing Engines or Williams Advanced Engineering.
Everything about the Singer restoration is bespoke, tailored to the driver’s needs and wants. A unique experience awaits in every car, and that is especially relevant on the roads of the Swiss Alps where 17 Singer Porsche owners recently gathered to show off their creations. Where better to test the limits of your one-of-a-kind vehicle than the Furka or Grimsel Pass, roads so winding and steep that they appear to be drawn by a child on the side of a mountain.
Based at The Brecon in Adelboden, the two-day event represented Europe’s largest gathering of Singer restorations to this point. The location matched the cars, the old-style hotels and chalets and lodges of the Alps a perfect backdrop for the midcentury 911s. But beneath the surface of both are modern, cutting-edge technology and design.
