It has been more than 15 years since the now legendary Porsche Carrera GT entered production, with around 1270 of the V-10–powered supercars being produced in total. Now, Porsche is showing off a "recommissioned" Carrera GT that until now has never been shown publicly. A customer wanted a full factory restoration of his Carrera GT, finished to the level that could "only be achieved by Porsche itself." While that might sound insane, what Porsche Classic actually did is even more insane: they completely disassembled the car into individual components, checking, replacing, and refurbishing each one as needed.
Porsche Classic also fully overhauled the engine, transmission, and chassis of the Carrera GT. There's no word on how many miles the car had on it before this restoration, but it surely will feel like it just rolled off the assembly line. The Classic division also spent 350 hours refinishing the carbon fiber, because the material can fade and yellow over time. Every carbon-fiber component was sanded and recoated, including the tub itself.
The Carrera GT has been refinished in Oak Green Metallic, a color taken from Porsche's 1970s catalog that was never offered on the Carrera GT. On the inside, the leather seats have been finished in an ox-blood red with houndstooth inserts, also never an original option. There are more Oak Green and red leather accents added throughout, including on the seatbelt pass-throughs, the air vents, and the steering-wheel rim.
Porsche makes an especially big deal about the recommissioned Carrera GT's five-spoke magnesium wheels. The design is identical to that of regular Carrera GTs, but the wheels have been painted in a unique gold color, which also is carried through to bits such as the brake calipers, the rear badge, and the engine intake covers. Porsche's engineers went to great lengths to achieve the polished finish on the rim of the wheel that the owner desired. According to the brand's R&D center, polishing the magnesium rim of the wheel would "structurally alter the material" so much that it could be "dangerously weakened," so the team had to come up with its own remedy.
The solution? Silver. In a process that has apparently never been used in "series-vehicle construction" before, a layer of real silver was applied to the rim of the wheel and then covered in a final layer of protective coating to fight off oxidation—because the last thing a Carrera GT owner wants is a tarnished wheel. The culmination of all of Porsche Classic's efforts is a Carrera GT unlike any other, which is exactly what we assume the owner was going for.
A Porsche Classic spokesperson told us that more factory recommissions like this Carrera GT could be in the division's future, so to that we ask:
Daniel Golson has been an avid car enthusiast since he was a toddler, and after spending a few years studying automotive design in college, he made the jump to Car and Driver in 2016. When not evangelizing about four-door coupes, he can be found watching The Real Housewives with his two cats.
