When you gain more than you lose, is it really all bad to turn a Porsche 911 into an electric car?
How much are you really willing to compromise? What’s your line in the sand? And how firm are you on your limits if what you get in return is an undeniable improvement over what you had before? How much old, air-cooled Porsche idiosyncrasy might you be willing to trade for a lighter, quicker, quieter car? These are the questions the all-electric Everatti Porsche 911 Type 964 RSR forces you to reckon with.
The work of British engineering firm and car builder Everrati isn’t new to this publication. We’ve driven its Land Rover Series IIA and Mercedes-Benz SL Pagoda, and although purists will no doubt argue about their individual goodness, the original engines found in those cars weren’t really all that special—and they certainly were not either vehicle’s defining element. Everrati’s Superformance Ford GT40 replica development mule was far more sacrilegious, but at least it was a kit car, not an original. An actual air-cooled Porsche, though? A real 964-generation car, in rare RS 3.8 guise, no less? Surely, the company wouldn’t.
Oh, but it would. If it soothes your seething purist hatred at all, the low-mile 1991 911 Carrera donor car came with the hated Tiptronic automatic transmission, hence the low miles. (Everrati didn’t specify the precise mileage.) The fact it wasn’t driven much was not an act of preservation but of indifference. So then, it’s not a real RS 3.8, either, but the car’s commissioner and owner (who also owns DirtFish Rally School) wanted that type of look, so here it is, right down to the “3.8” molded into the rear wing uprights.
What he’s getting might look like a Porsche 911 RS 3.8, but it certainly won’t sound like one. The Carrera’s 247-hp flat-six engine and its 229 lb-ft of torque are gone, replaced with a permanent-magnet electric motor good for 500 hp and 369 lb-ft. You’ll note that’s roughly double the real turbocharged RS 3.8’s horsepower and better than 50 percent more torque. Like all Everratis, the electric motor is detuned from its maximum potential to both reduce wear and tear and to better match the car’s original character and behavior, if not a bit more quickly than before.
In that vein, the single-speed gearbox features a Quaife mechanical limited-slip differential. To maintain the original 39/61 percent front/rear weight balance, a 62-kWh battery is split into two modules, one mounted in back where the engine used to be and the other where the gas tank and most of the frunk used to be. (Space for a backpack remains.) Making most of the bodywork from carbon fiber helped cut weight to the point where Everrati claims this car, despite its batteries, weighs just 3,234 pounds, about 40 pounds less than an all-original 964 with a full tank of gas—and 13 pounds less than a fully fueled 964 911 Turbo.
There are some concessions to modernity, though. TracTive electronically adjustable shocks allowed Everrati engineers to dial in the feel of an RS 3.8. Regenerative braking is present but likewise programmed to mimic lifting off the throttle in a gas-engine car. The big giveaways are the HRE wheels and modern headlights. That and the fact it looks showroom-new thanks to a concourse restoration included in the build process.
The Everrati Type 964 RSR delivers exactly what’s been promised. It drives like any other air-cooled 911 but substantially quicker. Without a real RS 3.8 to compare it with, you’d have a hard time pointing out any difference beyond not having to shift gears and not hearing the engine. The effort Everrati and build partner Aria Group (which did Singer’s first 150 cars) went to in order to emulate the gas-powered 911 RS 3.8 paid off.
To make sure, we trail braked the car into a tight corner. Fat, modern tires kept the rear end in line, but you could feel the tail wanting to wag. The character, defined in part by the 911-specific weight distribution, is still there. The car still dances around when provoked, but in a way that’s fun, not frightening. Frankly, it’s the way any 964 on wide, modern tires handles.
Neither the steering nor the brakes betray the illusion, either. The Type 964 RSR has power steering, but it’s turned down for minimal help to match the original’s feel. It’s heavy at low speeds but lightens up nicely as the car goes faster, just like an unassisted steering rack would. It even loads up a bit in corners. The only thing it doesn’t do is tramline all over the place like unassisted racks are wont to.
The upgraded brakes, meanwhile, bite harder than you expect for an old car, but the stopping power still feels proportional to the car’s power and the speed it can carry. The response is correlated more to pedal travel than pressure, but it’s linear and predictable. The little regenerative braking happening is imperceptible.
There’s no disguising twice the power or the way an electric motor delivers it. Everrati estimates the Type 964 RSR hits 60 mph in 3.7 seconds, nearly a full second quicker than a real 3.8 RS. Unlike that naturally aspirated flat-six, the Type 964 RSR has torque, and it’s always available. Drop the hammer, and it pulls like a later 993-series 911 Turbo, only without the turbo lag and gear shifting. No, it just pulls hard from any speed (or from a dead stop), only beginning to trail off when you break triple digits. With those big new tires, you can roll hard into the power and exit corners without seriously worrying about inducing power oversteer.
The view from the driver’s seat isn’t entirely vintage, either. There’s the un-Porsche shifter, which just goes forward for reverse and back for drive, not to mention the little touchscreen just ahead of it that switches motor maps and shock settings. The Porsche Classic Radio with its little screen is at least a (modern) factory piece, and Everrati went to great lengths to modify the gauges to reflect new and necessary measurements like battery temperature while maintaining the vintage look.
What, then, do you give up entirely? First and foremost, the engine noise. Ask yourself if the angry sewing machine song of a late air-cooled 911 is something you can’t live without. Does an old 911 that’s quiet really bother you that much? Is it worth giving up the power and torque for, not to mention accepting the maintenance? Then there’s the matter of shifting. Are you OK with, essentially, the best automatic transmission an air-cooled 911 ever had? How much do you need to row your own? Besides, for what it’s worth, Everrati says it could do a manual transmission if a customer wanted it enough to pay for the R&D. Then again, with the electric motor’s torque there’d be almost no reason to use any gears except second and fourth, at most. So how much more fun would that experience be?
If you’re willing to cross those philosophical Rubicons, the only other compromises of note are range and recharging. Everrati estimates the car will do about 200 miles on a charge, which is of course about half the range of a gas-powered 964. Charging is also slower than fueling; it peaks at 150 kW on a CCS-type DC fast charger. It also requires you to leave the engine cover open, as that’s where the fast-charging port is. Level 2 home charging happens via the smaller J1772 plug under the old fuel filler door.
And … that’s it. Less noise, shorter drives, longer charging times. That’s what you give up for double the horsepower, half-again as much torque, and significantly less maintenance. As long as you’re not fundamentally opposed to the idea of a 911 EV, it’s a reasonable compromise in our book.
Whether it’s worth the $450,000 starting price is another matter entirely, and certainly a personal question. For roughly double the average selling price of an authentic Porsche 911 RS 3.8, you get a full concourse restoration, carbon-fiber bodywork, your choice of colors and wheels, bolt-on mechanical upgrades, and a full but completely reversible EV conversion as it requires no cutting or welding.
Source: MotorTrend by Scott Evans
Photography by William Walker
