The gorgeous 911 reimagined by Singer and Williams: Goodwood FoS 2018

The Goodwood Festival of Speed is one of the best car shows in the world for automotive enthusiasts of all sorts to mingle and celebrate the creme de la creme of motoring. Hosted on the hallow grounds of the Goodwood Estate in the UK, the Festival of Speed or FoS has a 2.5km Hill Climb that for cars and racing machines to hoon about for the crowd and if they want, they can even compete in the timed runs.

But the Goodwood FoS is also a time for certain carmakers to unveil their projects in the metal to the public and one of the highlights from this year is this particular sports coupe from the iconic brand Singer. Renowned for taking Porsche’s 964 series 911s and reworking modern-day engineering into them without damaging its purity as a sports car. What makes this one even more unique is that Singer was inspired by a client to collaborate with Williams Advanced Engineering to build this reimagined 911 as their ‘Dynamics and Lightweighting Study’ or DLS for short.

Engineered with no expenses spared, this 911 Singer DLS is made to be the ultimate air-cooled Porsche sports coupe with the added experience of F1. Since the project was commissioned and announced almost a year ago, Williams has studied the aero on the car intently and optimised each surface, redesigned the front and rear suspension, the brake system, worked on the engine and put it through a thorough development programme. All of which is a step towards seriousness for the California based rock-and-roll Singer boys but it was a challenge that they embraced.

We’ll get to the body and design elements in just a bit, but first, we look at the heart of the matter — a 4.0-litre, air-cooled, naturally aspirated flat-six that revs to over 9,000RPM and produces around 500bhp. This work of art is encased in a body sculpted from magnesium and carbon fibre, with its iconic dovetail spoiler which actually works as an aerodynamic element after Williams made an air channel into the roof to keep the airflow stuck to the car’s rear windscreen. It also has a carbon-fibre diffuser, a carbon front splitter, wider arches to fit the 18-inch deep dish wheels crafted by BBS wearing bespoke Michelin 295 Pilot Sport Cup 2 tyres. The adjustable dampers were sourced from XTC while Hewland worked on the six-speed manual transmission.

The interiors are just as drool-inducing as the sound of the Singer 911 DLS with the bespoke steering wheel from Momo, Recaro seats, gold-trimmed rev-counter and the balsa wood insert in the carbon fibre shift stick. The exposed linkage of the gear mechanism is sure to give you the fizz but it’s not just for aesthetics, there’s a functional reason for it in this lightweight car.

Rob Dickinson is the man behind Singer Vehicle Design and it is his resolute nature to settle for nothing less than perfect which facilitates the existence of automotive wonders like the DLS. Fitting then that his mantra is inscribed on the sill plaque – ‘everything is important’. There is a cost to perfection and the Singer 911 DLS has a starting price of 1.8 million USD with a limited run of 75 units. For those who can afford it and will appreciate it? Worth every cent.

Take a better look at the ultimate 911 reimagined by Singer and Williams in the gallery below. Don’t forget to subscribe to The Auto Loons for plenty more cool car content to come.