Is it just me, dear reader, or have you also been getting a little tired of relentless restomod fever? Don’t get me wrong, I still appreciate the meticulous attention to detail, enhancements of the drivetrain and chassis of these projects, but none of them have really struck a bullseye - I just haven’t felt a connection or had my nostalgia heart strings pulled on. Until now: allow me to introduce the Tuthill GT ONE. 

While the GT2 and GT3 names are most associated with the ultimate 911 variants, that wasn’t always the case, as the 1990s saw the introduction of a new category that would sit at the very top of the GT racing pyramid: GT1. This exciting category was initially filled with the ultimate roadgoing supercars such as the Ferrari F40 and the ironically named (in this context) McLaren F1, with cars in this class able to race at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and compete for overall victory, as McLaren famously did in 1995. Porsche had modified their existing 993 GT2-based racer to fit into the top class, but it couldn’t match the competition. They went away, analysed the rulebook and in typical Porsche Motorsport fashion created one of the most impressive results of regulation-abiding lateral thinking that the world had seen.

The 911 GT1 was born. It too used the 993 as its base, before having a racing car built around it. The 3.2 litre water-cooled twin turbo flat-six came from the 962 Group C prototype and was mounted ahead of the rear axle, rather than behind it. The mid-engined monster retained the headlights and tail lights of the “regular” air-cooled 993, but the rest of the bodywork was bespoke to the GT1. 

In order for the car to be able to race in the category, a number of road going versions had to be built and sold, resulting in the 911 GT1 Strassenversion (street version). The engine was detuned slightly from 600 to around 540 bhp, and the round 993-style lamps were switched for the “egg yolk” 996 headlights on all bar the first two examples, but the cabin remained largely faithful to the base model. Only 21 were made and the road car was largely forgotten for a number of years, until the homologation specials from the GT1 era experienced an explosion of interest and value.

Endurance racing is where my heart lies, and after watching my first multi-class long distance race at Silverstone in 2008, I became obsessed with the cars that I had seen and heard which looked nothing like the F1 cars that I had become accustomed to. I began to delve into the history of the classes and the competitors that filled them, and became truly fascinated by the stories of how Lotus, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Panoz, Toyota and of course Porsche developed cars for the race track first, before figuring out how to make it road legal second.

The 911 GT1 won 47 of the 135 races that it entered, with the GT1-98 variant recording a 1-2 finish at the 1998 24 Hours of Le Mans, although that car was largely unrelated to the original 911 GT1 which was only slightly related to the 993-generation 911 road car. So with the history out of the way, the present day sees the 911 GT1 Strassenversion being a highly coveted and sought after car; they don’t come up for sale very often and when they do, they are frighteningly expensive. But now, Tuthill has put its spin on the 993 model and converted it into a GT1 for the 21st century, and it looks amazing.