Porsche, Rolex, + The Rise Of The ‘Retro-Mod.’
Custom projects with no budget constraints and just a pinch of insanity.
It costs about five hundred thousand dollars to get started. That’s kind of the minimum entry cost towards Porsche perfection, at least in the eyes of Rob Dickinson, proprietor of Singer Vehicle Design in Southern California. The idea is actually pretty simple; what if you could make the perfect Porsche automobile? What would it look like? What would it contain?
In Rob’s eyes, it would have all the modern advancements of a supercar built by hand in 2020. But it would also look like a classic Porsche from the air-cooled era of the 60s and 70s.
This was Rob’s vision, and he spared no expense to create it himself. Already a successful musician with the band Catherine Wheel, he owned a long line of Porsches before taking the plunge with a fully-modified car in ’08. The goal was never to make it a business; he just wanted a car for his own use. But as soon as he took his 911 anywhere, he was swarmed with requests to sell it.
Why did so many people want the car? Firstly, Rob’s modding process went way beyond what most car customizers were doing. The first step was fully dismantling the car; stripping it to the bare unibody frame. Strategic points were then coated and stiffened. All body panels are removed and replaced with carbon fiber, save the doors which are retained for crash protection.
All parts of the car from the engine down to the carpet and gauges are upgraded. In what has become a sort of Singer ‘signature touch,’ the car’s doorframes and exterior brightwork are even nickel-plated! God (and the devil) live in the details.
But this stuff isn’t revolutionary. Shops have been tuning Porsches for years. Even full replacement of things like engines and body panels has been done before; customizers RUF in Germany are so thorough they are classified in the tax code as automobile ‘builders’ not ‘modifiers.’ What made Rob’s car different is that in the end, he made his car look older than it really was.
It just made sense for Mr. Dickinson; if you’re going to replace the body panels anyways, why not replace them with your favourites? This way, he got the body lines of the classic cars and the performance of something new! What was surprising was the reaction from the Porsche enthusiast community; it was overwhelmingly positive.
The original Carrera RS vehicles Singer cars look like from afar are deservedly collectors items. These classics were made in small numbers, and due to their rarity and value most sit in storage garages instead of race staging areas.
Rob wanted to use his car.
The newer Porsche donor cars he now modifies as Singer are made in much larger numbers than the cars of the past. So there isn’t much concern that he’s ruining history. And the process of ‘making a car look old’ even has a term now; they call it ‘backdating.’
Of course, this idea of ‘making new fancy stuff look old’ isn’t confined to the custom-car world! In recent years this trend has spread to blue jeans, guitars, and yes, watches. Vintage Levi’s jeans with faded wear patterns and even holes in the knees have been prized by costume designers and fashion heads since the 60s.
The business of ‘pre-distressing’ new guitars to look vintage got so big that Fender now does it in-house! Yes, you can buy a 2020 Stratocaster with pre-distressed scratches, even cigarette burns on the fretboard.
Twenty or thirty years ago, most watches were seen simply as tools. When something broke or wore out on a timepiece, it was simply replaced or upgraded. Then as watches became collectors’ items, originality and clean examples from auction catalogues became the new ideal.
These days, Instagram and online forums have popularized modding and even distressing timepieces in the same way the Fender shop ‘Relics’ its guitars.
Vintage watch dealers and owners stick dials in the oven, put cases in jars with coins to dull the finish, and bleach bezels to achieve the now-desired ‘ghost fade.’ All of these things used to be considered flaws! Now even some Swiss watches come from the factory with ‘fauxtina.’
The problem with an ‘investment-grade’ all-original car or watch is that it begs to be stored in a locked vault. Who wants to stress about putting the first scratch on something?
If your watch or car already has a few blemishes, there’s no need to worry. Wanna go full-throttle? There are a few Swiss watch custom shops that do things similar to Singer; Artisans De Geneve and Bamford are the first that come to mind.
For a lot of these buyers, a Singer Porsche or a Bamford Rolex isn’t their only piece in their collection. They keep the original, unrestored stuff around for special occasions and for investment, and a modded piece to use for fun. Other enthusiasts just want the best of both worlds, and a custom piece helps get that done.
Purists be damned.
