Doppelgängers

Porsche recently presented its Sportwagenschmiede fünfunddreißig strategy, a name that isn’t exactly helping to spread the word. The idea is to follow the lead of its own followers, like Singer, and make Porsche even more exclusive. They want an invitation to the party.

Under Oliver Blume, the first response was lawyers. The main result was a flood of lengthy legal disclaimers across the websites and social media accounts of tuners offering Porsche conversion programs.

It’s no secret that Rob Dickinson, the former singer of British band Catherine Wheel, started this party. Like any good rockstar, he did it his own way. He founded Singer, an ultra-exclusive brand built around Porsche, which claims to be “reimagining” the classics from Stuttgart.

Maybe I’m wrong, but Singer and Porsche seem to agree to disagree. Singer baked the cake that Porsche and Louis Vuitton now want a piece of. The Stuttgart crowd seems to think that, even if they didn’t bake it, they own it because they own the oven. This is the same Porsche that puts its own crest on the steering wheel, while Singer can replace it with an LV logo.

I can understand why Porsche feels left out of a party held in its own house, with all the food supplied by Porsche itself.

But.

Porsche was too busy, too German, to create this market on its own. Maybe even too classy. It tried to stay classy with EVs, too, which, as we know now, was a pretty bad move. I genuinely admire the people in Zuffenhausen, and I’m pretty pissed off that they’ve ended up in this situation.

Their ideas, heritage and motorsport experience have become part of a creative culture that treats Porsche almost as if it had released everything under a Creative Commons licence.

A couple of years ago, an apparently harmless duo from California created the Half Eleven. Their company name is even more awkward, and it flies well under the posh radar: Oil Stain Lab.

What a wonderfully unpretentious name.

Their prototype travelled the world, including a visit to Ultrace in Poland, wearing a Delphi livery. While that one-off was busy making the rounds, they were working on something far less innocent, the HF-11.

Yes, the number 11 is no coincidence. You know why.

Oil Stain Lab’s tagline says, “The past overtakes the future.” The past in question is clearly Porsche’s heritage, translated into modern engineering and design. The company’s website has a beautiful mood board of 1980s girls in helmets, moustached drivers in aviator shades and shots from the Targa Florio. One image shows a yellow car, something resembling a Porsche 908, chasing an Alfa Romeo. That 908 is an obvious reference for the HF-11.

The same goes for the Mission S, unfortunately.

The Mission S came after the HF-11, yes, but Porsche can do whatever it wants with its own heritage. Apparently, though, it is tired of watching its past become public property, ready to be quoted and reinterpreted by anyone with a good design team.

Personally, I have no problem quoting people who are wiser, smarter or funnier than me. I’m perfectly happy to admit I’m not the smartest person in the room. Porsche would rather do the quoting itself, though playing the wise old professor doesn’t seem to suit the company.

And the HF-11 sounds like a rather loud quote delivered before the original author has had a chance to speak.

It’s hard to imagine the Sportwagenschmiede fünfunddreißig strategy welcoming projects like Oil Stain Lab’s. I’m just wondering. I don’t know.

Oil Stain Lab reportedly wants $1.85 million for its car, which may be bolder than Porsche’s pricing. Then again, we don’t know that pricing yet. Rumours suggest the Porsche will cost around €500,000, which sounds plausible.

Oil Stain Lab also offers an option to swap the combustion engine for an electric motor. It costs somewhere around the price of a whole Mission S.

Their marketing and design are seriously good-looking. Tasty, even sexy. But is that enough to justify charging four times as much as the legend itself?

I’ve never driven a Porsche that handles badly. They simply don’t exist. Even the oddball Panamera is a good car.

Jokes aside, every model has something going for it. The GT3s, with their track-focused character, are absolutely brilliant in just about every goddamn detail.