Porsche 911 Carrera 3.2 - Show & Go
Haute
cuisine demands only the finest ingredients, and an
effectively tuned Porsche is no different – as this highly
appealing 911 Carrera 3.2 demonstrates to perfection Story
by Chris Horton Photography by Rob Percy Car modification is
never a task to be undertaken lightly. Just as there’s a
fine line between genius and madness, so there is a
perilously slim margin between genuinely improving any given
vehicle and completely ruining it – especially when you
start altering fundamentals such as the exhaust and engine
management systems. And even more so when the raw material,
as it were, is as carefully thought out in the first place
as a Porsche. Even a Porsche, though, is generally a
compromise in some respect or other, and so for the
knowledgeable and the determined there frequently remain
some worthwhile gains to be had. It’s just a question of
knowing where to look – and then what to do about it.
This
retro-look 911 Carrera 3.2 is one of the most intelligently
conceived
and beautifully crafted projects we’ve seen for a
long time. It was built by American-born Greg Cranmer, half
of the two-man team that constitutes independent Porsche
specialist Tognola Engineering in Datchet, Berkshire. It was
intended partly as a road-usable
track car for Greg and his wife to have some fun with, but
also to showcase the higherperformance exhaust-system kit
that Tognola is now marketing for the 3.2 and the
essentially similar 911SC and Carrera 3.0. It’s cranking out
a proven, reliable and thoroughly accessible 255bhp and
221lb/ft (against a standard Rest of the Worldspecification
3.2’s 231bhp and 209lb/ft), and thanks to a subtle
weight-reduction programme is around 50kg lighter than even
a 964-model Carrera RS Lightweight, with obvious benefits as
far as power-to-weight ratio and performance are
concerned. (Cranmer’s last project was a highly convincing
993 RS replica that showed a similar attention to detail;
see pages 72–77 of the September 2007 issue.)
‘Half the
battle is finding a good car to start with,’ suggests Greg.
‘This one – it’s a 1985-model Sport, and so has the
old-style 915 transmission – had belonged to the same owner
for 15 years when I bought it last summer, and had been
repainted six years ago, so cosmetically it was spot-on. And
it had only 80,000 miles on the clock, so it was
mechanically very good, too. Some people will tell you that
a 3.2 motor needs a topend rebuild at that sort of mileage,
but I’ve had no reason to touch it. The only mechanical
issue is the usual weak second- and third-gear synchromesh,
but even that’s usually OK if you don’t try to rush it. I’ll
think about fixing that next winter!’
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