This Front-Engined Porsche 911 With A 1,200-HP Twin-Turbo LS Is Ragebaiting At Its Finest
Porsche purists will forgive a lot, but the 911’s engine location isn’t up for debate. The flat-six has hung out behind the rear axle since the 911 debuted in 1963, and that layout is a big reason the car drives, sounds, and feels like nothing else.
One Australian shop looked at that rule and decided it was more of a suggestion. What it built is the result of online ragebaiting at its finest (Gen-Z might call it “ragebait-maxxing”), and it’s arguably the most entertaining thing to happen to a 911 in years.
A Lowball Offer Turned A Tired Porsche 996 Into A Dare
Porsche itself went front-engined in the 1970s, developing the V8-powered 928 which was meant to kill the 911. Buyers kept choosing the rear-engined car anyway, and the 911 went on to outlive the 928 by decades. For purists, that settled the argument about where a Porsche engine belongs.
This build started with the 996, which happens to be the 911 purists love to pick on. It was the first water-cooled 911, it swapped classic round headlights for units nicknamed “fried eggs,” and its flat-six carries the infamous IMS bearing that can take out the whole engine when it fails. Few owners would cry if one of these lost its original motor.
Australian outfit ShowTime, which builds drift and stunt cars for appearances at Supercars events, had this 996 sitting as a shell in boxes. It put the car up for sale, and one buyer sent a lowball offer along with a claim that an LS V8 would never fit. That was the original ragebait in this story, and the ShowTime crew doubled down by putting a V8 in the front of a 911 to perhaps ragebait the purists too.
The goal was a car built for noise, smoke, and crowd-pleasing demos rather than a polite restomod, and Repco signed on to back the project.
Meet The 1,200-HP Porsche 911 With Its Engine In The Wrong End
The ShowTime Repco-Mod 933 Twin Turbo puts a GM LSX V8 where the 996’s trunk used to be, and it makes more than 1,200 hp. Two Turbosmart turbos and the handmade exhaust stacks poke straight through the hood. Fitting it all required a new firewall and transmission tunnel.
That output outclasses the hybrid 918 Spyder’s 887 hp, the fastest Porsche ever made, by more than 300 hp, without a single electric motor. Power goes to the rear wheels only, through an eight-speed Bentley gearbox converted to sequential shifts. The radiators and twin cooling fans now sit behind the driver.
Outside, a hand-fabricated aluminum widebody wears a carbon-fiber roof, hood, and doors, and its 997-style nose finally ditches the fried-egg headlights. Out back, a big wing with an LMP-style shark fin sits above a multi-strake diffuser. The suspension and Brembo brakes come from Porsche’s 911 Cup Car, and onboard air jacks.
Toyota Land Cruiser Sandy Taupe paint covers the body, and it rolls on staggered Rotiform wheels with Dunlop tires. ShowTime spent more than 2,000 hours fabricating over 280 parts.
Inside, carbon Recaro seats wear classic Porsche Pepita fabric, the houndstooth-style pattern first offered on the 911 in 1965. A red roll cage, a multi-function steering wheel, a digital cluster, an infotainment screen, and a switch panel with a rolling anti-lag button fill out the cabin. The carbon sequential shifter sits next to a hydraulic handbrake, which tells you this 911 is built to drift.
Why This Porsche Ragebait Is More On-Brand Than It Looks
LS V8s have been part of Australian car culture since 1999, when the LS1 arrived in the Holden Commodore VT II SS. Holdens and HSVs kept running LS-family engines until local production ended in 2017, so an LS-powered Porsche feels like a very Aussie answer to a very German question.
Repco’s link to GM V8 power goes back 60 years, to the Oldsmobile F85-based engines that won Jack Brabham and Denny Hulme the 1966 and 1967 Formula 1 titles. The brand also has history with front-engined Porsches, since a works 924 won its class at the 1979 Repco Round Australia Reliability Trial. That was the first international win for a front-engine Porsche in an FIA event.
Repco’s full build episode drops on its YouTube channel on Wednesday, October 14. Purists can stay mad, but this 933 is far more on-brand than it looks.
Source: Repco Australia
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