The Tuthill GT One Is An Ode To One Of Porsche’s Finest Racing Cars, The 911 GT1

From the undulating hills an hour west of the famous Silverstone race track in the UK, come cars that are beyond belief. Nestled in the picturesque town of Wardington, Oxfordshire, is Tuthill Porsche, a company that’s been rather busy perfecting early Porsche 911s. Under the slogan “The Porsche 911, as it was intended” Tuthill prepares some of the finest road- or rally-prepped iterations of the iconic flat-six sports car. Now though, they’ve turned their focus on one of Porsche’s more modern icons, the Le Mans-winning 911 GT1. What was once homologated by the Strassenversion is now turned into an incredible modern-day road-legal interpretation of the 911 GT1 race car aptly named, the Tuthill GT One.

From Group C to GT1

In the mid-1990s, endurance racing reached new heights under the GT1 regulations, set in place to retire the ridiculously fast Group C prototype race cars. Together with the ACO, the FIA sanctioned that GT1 and GT2 racing cars eligible for racing at Le Mans, for instance, would have to be based on road-legal production cars (to a varying degree). A minimum number of 25 road-legal counterparts had to be built, with GT1 allowing for more drastic modifications to be made, such as extensive use of carbon fibre, advanced aerodynamics, later brakes and higher power outputs.

With icons such as the Porsche 962, Sauber C9, Mazda 787B and Jaguar XJR-12 becoming obsolete with the rule change, the FIA opened the door for other types of cars and manufacturers to have a crack at blitzing down the Mulsanne straight in search of that coveted Le Mans 24 Hours victory. Despite a loophole win by Porsche with a modified Group C car in the first year of the newly formed GT1 class, it would write history just a few shorts later. In 1995 for instance, McLaren became the first manufacturer to win the grueling race in its first attempt since Ferrari in 1949. This laid the foundation of one of the greatest on-track rivalries in modern racing, as the battle between the McLaren F1 GTR, Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR and the Porsche 911 GT1 would soon ensue.

The Porsche 911 GT1, homologated by the 911 GT1 Strassenversion, was based on the front section of a 993-generation Porsche 911 with the back end of the obsolete Porsche 962. This also meant the gearbox, suspension components and 3.2-litre flat-six engine from one of the most dominant racing cars ever built by Porsche, would again find its way to a Le Mans win. The engine, fitted with a pair of turbos, produced around 600 horsepower. Porsche entered it in the 1996 season of GT1 racing and it immediately won its first race. Despite this promising start, it wasn’t until 1998 for the 911 GT1 to claim victory at the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans. By then it would already be in its third iteration, with a drastically updated bodywork more akin to a sports prototype racer instead of resembling a road car.

The Tuthill treatment

Although Tuthill shares no words on what’s used as the foundation of its mental-looking GT One, it’s safe to assume it’s something proper. You can’t just build this out of old bits and bobs lying around, as you can imagine. The chassis is likely to come from a donor-Porsche or is a bespoke built unit altogether, but that’s just assumptions for now. What matters is what’s mounted in, on or around the chassis, as the Tuthill GT One not only looks like it means proper business but it can actually throw a Mike Tyson-esque punch or two!

Starting with the engine, this comes in two configurations. You can either opt for a 4.0-litre flat-six that’s normally aspirated and produces around 500 horsepower or have that same engine turbocharged to bump it to 600 horsepower. And I bet if you ask real nicely, they can fiddle around some more and pump out even higher power numbers. Anyway, 600 horsepower sounds like more than enough for something that tips the scale at a mere 1,200 kilos (or just over 2,600 lbs). This engine is mated to either a 7-speed dual-clutch transmission or a manual equivalent. Personally I would opt for the paddle-shift option as it keeps it closest to an actual racing car and I would very much like to keep both hands on the wheel in such a machine! No performance figures are specified, but judging by Tuthill’s previous work and the power-to-weight of the GT One, I don’t need to explain much more.

Draped over all of this mechanical engineering, is a full carbon fibre exterior that closely resembles that iconic Porsche 911 GT1 Strassenversion, the road-spec homologation car for the 911 GT1. The front and rear sections open up like a clamshell and give way to the engine, suspension, cooling, carbon ceramic braking systems and so on. The aerodynamics, and the styling for that matter – done by Florian Flatau, who’s worked for Singer – have been optimized through Computational Fluidic Dynamics, or CFD. This means the GT One is slipperier than its inspiration, which aids performance and handling.

Around the back, a pair of Inconel exhaust pipes stick out just above a formidable carbon diffuser. Other standout elements are the integrated air intake on top of the roof, the signature wing that wraps around the entire rear end and the wing-mounted mirrors. Spread across the car’s bodywork, there’s a whole bunch of intakes and vents to get air in and heat out.

In true restomod fashion, it’s not just the exterior that has been restyled, but the interior as well. It looks nothing like the spartan interior of the 911 GT1 as raced at Le Mans, and also miles ahead of the 911 GT1 Strassenversion in terms of creature comfort. Not much is said about it, but you can see swaths of leather and finely machined switches and knobs in a soft sandy beige, with red pinstriping around the seats, door panels, roofline and dashboard. The three-spoke steering wheel looks like a reassuring thing to grip, with a pair of paddles behind it to work your way through the gears (or not, if you’ve gone for the manual).

Now, Tuthill will only build 22 of these fascinating-looking machines, and likely at an astronomical figure. There’s a ton of work poured into the project, with each one taking at least 3,500 hours to build, and the result certainly seems likely to live up to its potential. Expect something in the seven-figure range for this one, which seems to be the case more often than not for these high-profile builds. I mean, just look at the Eccentrica Diablo we covered a while ago, which had a base price of EUR 1.2 million, excluding the donor car! This could very well trump that, but again, that’s based on assumptions.

For more information, please visit TuthillPorsche.com.

Editorial Note: The images in this article are sourced from, and used with permission by Tuthill Porsche unless stated otherwise.