Would You Rather Have a Restored Classic or a Lanzante Restomod?

Before They Were Rivals...

During the mid-1980s, Porsche supplied race engines to the McLaren Formula 1 team. Those engines powered various iterations of the MP4/2 (and subsequently the MP4/3) race cars which were driven to world championship victories by the likes of Niki Lauda and Alain Prost. After they have served their purposes on track, we typically see many of these F1 cars and their cutting-edge components are hidden away or placed into museums. The British automotive firm, Lanzante, has plans to change all of that as it has acquired a handful of these Porsche F1 engines from McLaren in order to build the ultimate turbocharged Porsche classics.  

Lanzante Motorsport

Lanzante has a relationship with McLaren that dates back to 1995 in which they took McLaren's development F1 GTR racer to victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Most recently, Lanzante has been involved in converting track-only McLaren P1 GTRs into road-going variants coined the P1 GT. Similarly, Lanzante previously participated in the BPR Global GT Series (which would subsequently become the FIA GT Championship) campaigning a Porsche in 1995 and 1996, so it is understandable how this new Porsche-McLaren-Lanzante venture may have taken shape. 

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It Begins With Boost

Lanzante is said to have acquired 11 TAG-Porsche TTE P01 engines that were used by McLaren in their 1984-1987 Formula 1 efforts. The engine is an 80-degree 1.5L V6 with twin-turbocharger units and loads of trick internal components (especially cool considering the time period in which they were used). At the height of development in 1986 and before the boost-limitation rules were put into effect, the engine was capable of producing 1060 bhp in qualifying trim. However, the performance was typically dialed back to a 'conservative' 960 horsepower for race longevity. 

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McLaren's Secret

During the '80s, McLaren themselves built a prototype Porsche 930 using the TTE P01 engine. The car was kept under wraps for a good while and most never even knew it existed. That car for the last few years has been on display at McLaren's headquarters enjoying a very cushy existence. Most recently, this car was on display at Rennsport Reunion VI with Lanzante expressing that they would build 11 cars like this one with the race engines they have acquired.

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Street-Friendly?

Enter Cosworth who has installed a new crankcase, adjusted the air-fuel mixture, and bolted on smaller turbos so as to speed up power delivery. The max boost has been decreased by 25% to 43 psi and the redline has dropped down to a paltry (sarcasm) 9,000 rpms. After all of that, the Lanzante 930s will produce 503 horsepower and 310 lb-ft of torque. While 503 doesn't sound like much when comparing to newer performance cars, Lanzante tossed out a ton of weight to the car in addition to the TAG engine 220 lbs lighter itself over the old 3.3-liter. Thanks to dieting efforts on Lazante's behalf and you get a 930 that is 500 pounds lighter than the original Turbo model. 

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Pieces of History

If the car on display is an example to go by, the remaining cars will have badging to display details about the particular engine installed, F1 chassis it was used in, and the race results in which it participated. Pricing on the Tag-Turbo will cost you about $1.45 million which includes the donor car and all of the options checked.

Dan Lanzante stated that they couldn't get any additional engines from McLaren, "so this is it. There will never be another car like it."

>>Join the conversation about the restomod 930s by Lanzante right here in the RennList Forum!

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