Early 911s have enjoyed tremendous success in historic rallying, but the next generation of rear-engined racers is about to be unleashed on the classic rally stages of Europe. Total 911 was recently given exclusive access to a real contender before it turned a wheel in anger. John Glynn reports.

As a car-obsessed kid growing up in the west of Ireland, motor sport meant only one thing: rallying. Supermen like Alen, Vatanen and Mikkola driving cars that looked like ours, down roads that looked like ours, but at utterly unfathomable speeds.

Modern-day world championship rallying is a pale imitation of what we grew up with. Today’s events are sanitised: media-friendly special stages in Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium are a far cry from flat-out fisticuffs through the Welsh forests. The current crop of WRC weapons is undeniably quick, but uninspiring compared to the rally cars of my youth. Thankfully, there are modern alternatives, and this 911 is a perfect example.

SWH 627T began life as a 1979 911 SC, which first came to England on holiday from France. While touring the UK, the little blue 911’s engine suffered a terminal failure, and the car was relayed to Francis Tuthill’s famous Wardington workshops. Faced with repatriation expenses and repair costs they could not afford, the owners decided to sell the car and cut their losses. 

Scant attention is paid to the SC’s rallying past, but the cars were widely campaigned. SCs were used in events as varied as the Safari Rally and the Manx International (where then-World Champion Röhrl was super-impressive on his island debut), before the SC RS burst onto the scene in 1984. But victory in the 1978 Monte Carlo Rally was the SC’s proudest moment; Jean-Pierre Nicolas taking the win, in a car built by local heroes the Alméras brothers.

Almost thirty years later, updated regulations were released for the MSA British Historic Rally Championship, opening the points-scoring positions to cars built up to 1981. Sitting in his office overlooking the forlorn French SC, Richard Tuthill recognised that the emergence of a whole new class in British historic rallying was too good an opportunity to miss, and a rally car was born. For their first SC rally build, Team Tuthill would pay tribute to the most famous SC ever: the Monte winner.

Building a winning rally car is a complicated process. The car has to be strong, usually meaning heavy, but also needs to be nimble, quick and controllable. Experience is the greatest teacher when it comes to getting the balance right, and this is Team Tuthill’s trump card. Tuthill cars and their customers have been frontrunners since they first competed in the 1993 Rally Britannia, when that man Röhrl took victory in a Tuthill 911. Since then, the family have run and won in everything from the London-Sydney to the Panama-Alaska, and every significant UK and European rally in between. The SC build would call upon all that expertise.

The first job was to strip the car completely and send the chassis for acid dipping, to remove the road-car paint and sound deadening. Once the naked tub returned to Wardington, it was treated to a few coats of primer before being wheeled into the fabrication workshop, and the not-so-tender hammers of Lee Adams.

The spot welding used on production bodyshells is strong, but not strong enough for the epic punishment dished out by flying down gravel tracks. Rally shells are seam welded to add rigidity and strength, as well as resistance to splitting along panel joins in an accident. The sunroof-free SC needed very little rust repair, so after seam welding it was time to install the cage. Different championships have different rules on cages, so while the Tuthill Safari cars use cages tied into damper tops and torsion bar tubes, the regulations for the British championship do not permit extensions beyond the passenger compartment, something Richard is not overly keen on.

“The risks taken by drivers in the ‘70s shouldn’t be carried through to today,” declares the driver who has enjoyed convincing wins in two of the four rallies he has entered this year. “The Forestry Commission have not made the woods any safer, and whatever a driver has is driven to the maximum. The priority should be on safety, and that means a full cage”.

Preparing the shell is also about removing weight. A fibreglass bonnet and one piece 3.0 RS-style engine cover are used on this car, but wings and doors are period correct in steel. Not that you would guess the doors are steel - they are incredibly light, and I double-check this with the boys. Once the other modifications have been made to the tub: mounts for the huge aluminium undertrays, oil coolers, fire extinguishers, seat rails, hoses, fixtures for the headlight and screen retainers and countless other tweaks, the shell moves on to the bodyshop, where the panels are fitted and prepared before colour is applied.

The arch extensions came straight from Alméras, and despite many hours work, the fit is not flawless. They look fine to me, but Tuthill senior is a perfectionist. “Now that the prototype is up and running, we’ll look at how we can improve the final appearance of subsequent versions, which probably means making our own body kits” says Francis with characteristic frankness.

Once John ‘the Body’ Milward had worked a bit of magic and fitted the arches, bumpers, tail and bonnet, it was time to cover the lot in paint. The metallic grey chosen for the shell and cage is a late Porsche colour, with the red a shade away from Guards. The finish is excellent inside and out. Even in areas where most people will never see, such as around the Perspex arch underguards, the paint has been painstakingly applied.

Number one technician Chris Dale completed the build with a little help from Adam Ball. I’d love to give you chapter and verse on all the modifications the SC is packed with, but as Tuthills are a winning race team at the top of their game, they are understandably reticent to share some of the finer points. Some areas therefore remain off the record. Not that this will deter the truly determined; behind the camaraderie and superb social scene inherent in classic rallying, the teams are hugely competitive, and F1-style spy scandals are not unheard of.

Chris’s first job was to plumb the shell for oil, air, fuel, electrics, brakes and fire extinguishers. The front of the car features a lightweight fuel cell complete with a Tuthill favourite, the beautifully engineered Messerschmitt fuel pump. The huge central intake feeds air to the Turbo brakes and the twin oil coolers, and the modified scuttle now houses emergency buttons and heated washer jets - even the fiddly wiper arm covers are replaced with tidier anodised nuts.

Opening the featherweight doors reveals an impeccably trimmed cabin. Dash and door tops are covered in black flock, framing the heated screen and leading the driver’s eye out of the car. The dash seems laden with controls, yet uncluttered. The relocated fusebox is yet another modification destined for my car, and the electric brake balance lever and tidy toggle switches also inspire a certain amount of envy. One nice touch is the second horn button located on the passenger footrest - obvious when you think about it.

The windscreen is heated glass, the rest polycarbonate. Sliders replace the door windows, and removing the quarterlight frame has really improved the view. Smooth door panels and RS-style straps continue the theme of effective minimalism. The seats and shift knob are Sparco, with harnesses by Nicky Grist. Standard 911 dials are visible through the deeply dished Momo wheel, with clock and oil level/fuel gauges replaced by adjustable air vents - another mod for mine.

An intercom is absolutely essential in a rally car, and Tuthills use the Stilo ST30; very expensive in plain pound coins, but cheaper than an accident due to missed pace notes. The Stilo also incorporates a backup system should one intercom go down. Backup systems are the watchword in rallying, and many of the systems on this car are paired to provide a backup in case of failure. There are two fuel pumps for example, and there is also a backup hand throttle, which can be used to reach the end of the stage should the primary cable fail. The cable end is finished with a fully-trimmed grip, in typical Tuthill style.

The motor in this car is very similar to the classic Tuthill 3-litre recipe, though the engine builders at Wardington have added a few top-secret tweaks this time around. The build begins with a blueprinted SC case, to which race-spec pistons and cams are added. The ignition of choice is twin-plug Perma Tune. The engine inhales through a pair of Webers, breathing out via SSIs and a Dansk twin-exit silencer. With sensible compression, this car dynos around 280bhp, but the trickest versions will generate well over 300 horsepower.

Photos done and questions answered, finally it’s time to drive, and we slink surreptitiously onto the entertaining A361. This is not just Tuthill’s stamping ground, it’s mine too; Glynn Towers is just across the border in Northamptonshire. One of the main reasons I love living up this way is that we have some excellent driving roads and they are usually deserted. Today is no exception.

The SC pulls precisely under Richard’s right foot, with no low-rev race motor fussiness. The suspension is stiff but supple - from my passenger seat it feels perfectly damped. The car runs Tuthill-valved Bilsteins and they are superb. So magic carpet-like is the ride that I find it difficult to believe there’s a pair of torsion bars holding the front end up, as there is no hint of the front pitching usually associated with early 911s.

We press on, and I am reminded just how much I like Sparco seats. Pulling my harness a little tighter increases the comfort, as my spine is tucked snugly into the co-pilot’s Pro2000. Richard and I chew the fat while the £25k engine serenades the world, somewhere outside our headsets. I haven’t had a conversation at normal volume in a 911 since buying my stripped-out special, so an intercom for my car shoots to the top of my shopping list.

Richard tells me that running-in for this car lasted fifty miles: fifty miles where full load was not applied to the engine. After that, all bets were off. The standard procedure seems to have paid dividends, as the car is gifted with magnificent driveability. We talk about gearing, and it transpires that the SC is fitted with the same final drive ratio as mine, albeit with a stronger 8:35 ring and pinion. The difference is that it also runs one of Tuthill’s close ratio competition gear sets, currently geared to 115 mph at the rev limiter in top.

My Carrera 3.0 is geared to about 135 mph, putting 90 mph at 4k revs, the point on an air-cooled 911 engine where fuel economy seems to divide by two. I mention that I would ideally like to retain the shorter ratios from one to four, but switch fifth to a relatively tall cruising gear. Turns out the team already do this, mainly for cars used in regularity events. My mental shopping list is now on its second page.

We arrive at our local weighbridge and the fighting weight meets expectations, at just over 1000 kilos with some fuel on board - very impressive for a car in race trim. Richard’s face suggests that he was hoping for a bit less, but if it were my car I’d be well chuffed. “If it were mine, if it were mine…” I can’t shake off the notion as we strap back in and head out to stretch the car’s legs. A delightful daydream ensues.

“This is where I like to test the diffs,” says Richard in my reverie, as we approach a large empty roundabout. He turns in at speed, and firmly flicks the car right. The tail cartwheels clockwise, and we slide gracefully towards the outside kerb. Throttle balances the motion, holding the car in this wonderful drift. Hunkered down, the car completes the circle, and we exit down yet another excitingly familiar road.

I know this route like the face of my watch, and so does the chap on my left. We glide atop a light grey line of grip, the SC staying smooth over substantial imperfections. On non-competition 8 and 9 inch Fuchs shod with Michelin TB15 rubber, this car is much more comfortable than a road going SC or Carrera at speed. We hit a severe hump in the road and the car lifts off. I stop dreaming and spontaneously erupt into laughter: getting airborne is one of my favourite Porsche pastimes. As we return to earth, Richard says the SC hasn’t yet been set up, and that the back end is a little low, but even on these bumpy roads and at proper-fast speed, we are neatly folded inside the performance envelope of both car and driver.

“There is just nothing like a 911″ asserts Tuthill, as he again casts the tail towards the verge, confounding the myth of ass-engine uncontrollability and drifting the car broadside through a favourite right/left kink. “They talk to you all the time and can never sound too good. Four-wheel drive cars are fast, and I loved rallying Imprezas and Evos, but nothing is as thrilling to drive as a classic 911.”

Easing off, a gateway approaches on the left where I assume we will pull in and turn around. Silly me. We pass with caution, making sure nothing is about to exit, and a dab of throttle, a twist of lock and a yank of the hydraulic handbrake later, we are heading in the opposite direction, continuing our conversation about what makes old 911s so good to drive. I ask Richard whether he feels that the light steering makes them so enjoyable and get a surprising response.

“The steering wheel is a great communicator, but really it’s my fifth damper,” he declares. “It’s there to moderate imperfections in this”, he continues, patting his right leg. If anyone else said that, they’d be met with an involuntary snort followed by some sort of abuse, but the last twenty minutes have conclusively proved Richard right, and it’s a thought-provoking note to end our drive on. We arrive back at base and park up. I thank him for a brilliant experience, but apparently it’s not over yet - the engine is still running. “Take it for a spin” he says, “see what you think”. I don’t need a second invitation.

The driving position is set for Francis, who recently ran the car amidst fellow rally fans at the Chatsworth Rally Show. Tuthill senior is easily six inches taller than me, so I sit further back than normal, but by the end of the driveway I’m settled. I’m used to loud interiors, so I initially leave my headphones off, to absorb every last drop of the experience. Once on the road however, the transmission screams through the solid mounts like a bone-cutting bandsaw in a butcher’s shop, and the headset goes on sharpish.

The car is comfortable from the passenger seat, but from the driver’s side it’s bliss. The Bilsteins are even more sensuous through my hands and feet, and the 15-inch tyres with their higher-profile sidewalls give the car a confident, wallow-free compliance. I pull off the main drag onto a regular b-road route, savouring every squeeze of the drilled throttle pedal. 

The speedo in this car is not normally used; it is the Brantz tripmeter in front of the co-driver’s seat that reads our speed. The car is of course road legal, but driving a full-fat race machine on the road is always deliciously subversive, and I begin to think the Brantz should have additional displays, like a naughtymeter. Three clicks of the short shift lever later, our naughtymeter says ninety days off the road if we are caught. Problem is, only at 80-plus does a 911 begins to tell you just how much potential it has.

My Catholic upbringing has thankfully prepared me for such moral dilemmas, and as we plunge down a dip towards a humpbacked bridge sitting right in front of a hard left-hander, I put my faith in a higher power and stand on the gas. Yes my son, definitely the right answer. A moderate lean on the hallowed Turbo brakes brings forgiveness; we hop over the bridge and the car steers quickly through the bend. I’m getting positive ego messages from every part of my brain, but I have no illusions of grandeur. I know I’m probably in the wrong gear, but the mellifluous motor doesn’t mind, scooping us up and catapulting us towards the next section without a worry. Hallelujah!

My cross-country excursion takes me uphill and down dale, over jumps and through villages. The SC is irrepressible, and exiting every junction is like dropping a hand grenade into a bowl of Rice Krispies - engine and gears exploding as gravel snaps, crackles and pops excitedly around the wheel arches. The car fuels my enthusiasm and I feel completely at home, my thoughts eventually turning to where I can buy a lottery ticket around here, and whether I can stretch the test drive to pick my two-year old up from nursery. Sadly, our time together is over all too soon and we reluctantly arrive back at the workshops.

I soak up a final few seconds in the gently-smoking SC before emerging and thanking everyone, not just for the drive, but for planning and building this marvellous machine, sure to be a big hit as next year’s season unfolds. As an SC devotee, I can’t wait to see how many new fans this little car brings to the 911 community once it gets out there and starts having fun. I’ll be there to see it too - wouldn’t miss it for the world.

Thanks to:

Richard and Francis Tuthill and everyone at the Wardington workshops

www.francistuthill.co.uk