During the Goodwood Festival of Speed, Lanzante debuted a restored 930 Porsche 911 Turbo with an actual 1980s Formula 1 engine built by McLaren.
When you think of a Porsche, it’s because you have a need for speed, peppered with luxury. But this Porsche and 10 more like it are not for the faint-hearted.
YouTube channel Automotive Mike brings you a little sneak peek into the F1-powered, road-legal Porsche 930 TAG Turbo by Lanzante and it’s sure to set your heart racing. Just the sound of that 1.5-liter turbocharged V6 is thrilling enough but we’ll up the stakes with all the details.
Porsche 930s Powered By Actual F1 Mclaren Engines
The TAG engine, so to speak, was born out of desperation. McLaren was failing in the ’80s in the F1 and Ron Dennis stepped in. At the time, 1.5-liter four-cylinder engines were making 1,100+ horsepower. With that much power, the blocks would melt after a lap or two.
Dennis asked Hans Metzger at Porsche to make them a V6 and stole Williams’ title sponsor, aviation and motorsports company TAG, to bear the costs. Out of that ordeal, the TAG-Porsche twin-turbo V6 was born. The Porsche 930 TAG Turbo prototype went live to test the 1.5-liter TAG-Porsche Turbo V6 engine built by McLaren. These amazing engines went on to power McLaren F1 cars in the mid-80s to amazing wins.
The very same engines from the 1980s are now coming back to life in road-legal Porsche 930 TAG Turbo cars. This is the car racing around the Goodwood Festival of Speed.
Lanzante & McLaren Struck A Deal
Lanzante is the brainchild behind this new Porsche conversion. They also built the P1 and Senna GTR road car conversions and won the 1995′ Le Mans in an F1 GTR. Considering their longstanding association with McLaren, the two companies struck a deal.
McLaren is selling them 11 of the original 1.5-liter twin-turbo V6 engines that its F1 team used in the mid-80s. These engines won 25 of 68 races, three drivers’ titles, and a pair of constructors’ championships. Eleven such Porsches are on the assembly lines with each featuring a plaque etched with the drivers that used the engine. Think Niki Lauda, Alain Prost, and Keke Rosberg. The plaque will also carry the race results consisting of nine podium finishers and the winner of the 1984 British Grand Prix.
To make it road legal, Lanzante reduced the horsepower to about 500 from 750 and brought the torque down to 310 lb-ft. Even so, the roar of this turbocharged V6 in a lightweight Porsche 930 with better suspension and more aerodynamics is a crescendo of amazing tech.
Source: YouTube channel Automotive Mike
