The Best Retro-Inspired Cars of 2018

It’s the Porsche 935, and it takes only a small amount of historic motorsport knowledge to understand it riffs off the gobsmacking 935/78 racecar, better known as Moby Dick.

Revealed at the Rennsport Reunion at Laguna Seca as a 70th birthday present from Porsche to itself, it’s unsurprisingly track-only, so you won’t be rocking up to your local cars and coffee meeting in it. But, being non-homologated, you might also be struggling to find a race series for it. Instead, Porsche says it’s “geared towards clubsport events and private training on racetracks”.

Yet it’s not a brutal racecar beneath. In fact, it’s the current-gen 911 GT2 RS, with its 690bhp 3.8-litre twin-turbo flat-six engine driving the rear wheels via a seven-speed PDK paddleshift gearbox. Which makes it about 150bhp shy of Moby Dick.

Making it look altogether different from the GT2 RS is the carbon-reinforced plastic bodykit, which apes the swooping shapes of the 935/78 and lengthens the car significantly at the rear. You can’t miss the new wing, either, which makes the standard GT2 RS’s spoiler look – for the first time – rather meek. The 935 even has LED lights incorporated into the front spoiler, like the Porsche 919 Le Mans car.

There are nerdy racing nods all over the 935, in fact. A wooden gearknob is a knowing wink at the 917. The side mirrors are nicked wholesale from the current 911 RSR endurance racer. The protruding shotgun tailpipes are inspired by the 908.

The interior is vastly different to the one you’ll find in a GT2 RS, with just the one seat (below a handy escape hatch), a welded-in cage, a Cosworth-supplied data logger and a complex motorsport wheel. But if all of that makes it seem intimidating, there’s still comforting things like stability control, ABS and air-conditioning fitted.

Which also means the 935 weighs 1,380kg. That may be 90kg less than the GT2 RS, but it’s almost 200kg more than a McLaren Senna, about the only car that presents itself as a potential rival in terms of price, power and intention. There’s less personalisation here, mind; all 935s come in Agate Grey with the Martini livery optional. You’d probably be a fool to not tick that box.

Ferrari Monza