The past year has been, as ever, extremely busy, covering a wide variety of cars and projects.

Big news last summer was the Gantspeed built 356A of Gerald Harrison and Jonathan Douglas successfully completing the infamous Peking to Paris Rally. This extremely tough event, covering over 12,000 km, took  crews through the sand and dust storms and rough tracks of the Gobi Desert, through Mongolia and Russia, returning to Western Europe via the Baltic States. A huge adventure, and a tribute to the engineers who built the car (known as "Molly")and the skills and resourcefulness of the crew. The car coped with the atrocious conditions extremely well, though due to air filtration problems at one stage, did suffer from major sand and dust damage to the engine. An overnight partial engine rebuild in Western Siberia by Gantspeed staff, ably assisted by the incredibly enthusiastic and hospitable staff of the local Porsche Centre in Ekaterinburg (yes, they do have one!!) soon had them on their way. A few thousand miles more and they arrived at the Finish Control in Paris. Quite an achievement! The whole story is featured in the April issue of 911 & Porsche World magazine

Also on the Motorsport side of things, Tim Bryan has had another successful season's racing in his Gantspeed developed 928GTS. Earlier in 2007, encouraged by the condition of the engine after stripdown, following a season's racing with our Dry Sump System installed, we embarked on some further development work on the engine, including bigger valves and uprated camshafts. Now having over 500bhp at his disposal, Tim has reduced his lap times considerably, posting some excellent results in the Intermarque and Porsche Open series.

 

 We are now able to offer a Dry Sump System for the 928 in kit form from stock. See details under the "Showroom" page.

Gantspeed also carried out race preparation on Tim's lovely yellow 2.7 911S , and the car  had a successful season racing in the "Heritage" series. More recently, the car competed successfully in the Tour Britannia.

 

Another successfully completed project has been the rebuilding of Paul Hough's beautiful little 356 pre-A Continental, following it's unfortunate accident on last year's Rallye des Alpes. This was a very major undertaking, requiring substantial structural reconstruction and panel replacement. During the rebuild, the car benefitted from installation of a rollover bar, full harness belts and a bespoke new 12v wiring loom. Paul has since been to Spain in the car to successfully take part in the MSA Euroclassic 2007.

 

Other major projects include a full restoration of a 1972 911S Coupe, taking place over a couple of years. This is now painted and in rolling chassis form. Looks absolutely stunning in its pristine "Blood Orange" paintwork. Last year we took this car down to both the Early Porsche gathering at Hedingham and to the Porsche Festival at Ragley Hall, and it attracted a huge amount of interest.

 

Customers sometimes come to us looking to find a specific vehicle, and Gantspeed is now able to offer advice and sourcing of top quality cars for customers.

 

We've been busy this year with engine and transmission rebuilds, including 3.3 Turbo, 2.7RS and 2.9RS, and 356 and 912.

 

As usual, we are also kept busy by general Servicing and Repairs of customers cars.

 

Spring is here, so perhaps now is the time for consideration of your needs for the coming  year, whether it be for Competition or just enjoying your Porsche on the roads of the UK and Europe. Give us a call to discuss what you may have in mind to be carried out over the next few months.