21 photos
It’s widely known Singer Vehicle Design spent the better part of the past couple of years working with legendary Porsche engine designer and engineer Hans Mezger in collaboration with Williams F1 engineering to create the pinnacle of 911s. The result is the Dynamic and Lightweighting Study (DLS), or the ultimate distillation of what a Porsche 911 can be. It’ll be on display for the first time ever at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed and then later next month during Monterey Car Week.
Deciding which is more of a highlight — the thousands of little design details pored over by Singer, the modern air-cooled engine by Mezger or all the nooks and crannies where Williams went to town scrutinizing for light-weighting — is a near impossible task.
The engine, all-new from the ground up, is as an air-cooled mill for the 21st-century, with no expense spared. The resulting powerplant is a 500 horsepower, naturally aspirated 4.0-liter flat-six limited to 9,000 rpm redline. The obsessive geniuses at Williams Advanced engineering then went over every square millimeter of the donor 1990 Porsche 964, considered every component and determined if it could be re-engineered or rebuilt lighter and stronger. It could be, and so it was: extensive use of magnesium, titanium and carbon fiber brought the total weight of the car down to 2,180 lbs, or about 200-pounds lighter than the current Miata.
Of course, in signature Singer-style, the interior of the car is still laden with jaw-dropping attention to design detail, despite Williams Engineering removing most of it. However, unlike the rest of Singer Vehicle Design’s lineup, the DLS 911 will cost somewhere close to the $2,000,000 mark. Designed by Singer, engineered by an F1 team and powered by a modern Mezger flat-six? Worth it.
