This full-fat, stanced Porsche Panamera has been cut up and dumped to perfection. In more ways than one…
Apart from the almighty pound note and a penchant for a pint of Stella with no silly head, what makes the British different to the rest of Europe is that there’s very little pride in the national car brands.
Now don’t get me wrong – it’s a good thing. Only the extremely well off can afford an Aston or Jag and 4x4s are for footballers and Chelsea socialites. So if us normal people had to stick with the traditional British beef we’d all still be tooling around in Rover 400s and MG Maestros. In that case even I’d have to consider buying a Triumph motorbike.
No, instead of keeping these national brands on the road the UK has taken a path of extreme diversity. Asian, European and even the odd Yank are common on our little
island and that’s just the way we like it. No one’s gonna turn their nose up here if you drive a motor from another country, because not being able to choose decent home-grown cars means we now have even more choice than anyone else – the world, you might say, is our lobster.
Across the Channel, however, you can’t underestimate the power of national pride. If you’re lucky enough to travel across the Continent you can pretty much tell when you’ve crossed a border simply by the cars on the road. The whizzy little Citroëns in France give way to the BMW and Audi autobahn- cruisers in ze Fatherland. Saabs and Volvos rule the roost in Scandinavia, SEATs down the bottom, Skodas to the east and everything from Fiats to Ferraris racing round the Coliseum blasting their horns and scaring the shit out of the tourists. It’s the same story with Nissans and Toyotas in Japan, or Fords and Chevys in the States. There always seems to be a national preference and, if you happen to manufacture half-decent motors, why not?
Now, many have said that Germany is the most nationalistic when it comes to cars, the only time you see a Renault drive through there is if it’s on French plates and trying to get home. And you can’t really blame ’em because the Germans make some of the best cars on the planet.
Of course this does come with a major pitfall, not least for professional modifiers who want to show off their company skills. Because looking unpatriotic is, quite frankly, bad for business. There’s also the added bonus that when choice is limited, most things have been done before, so trying to be different isn’t exactly the easiest of tasks either. And Marcus Prösch, Director of Dumped, is all about being different.
As you can probably guess Marcus and his firm specialise in slamming cars. It’s also pretty obvious that them chopping a Golf or even a 911 could be seen as a little too easy. Given that direct-fit air-ride kits come off the shelf for those, my Nan could probably do that, and she’s not even German. So, when you’re a pro you really have to up your game, and Marcus has chosen to do just that with one of the most unusual German cars out there. The Porsche Panamera.
Now admittedly there’s a few reasons why the big Porkers are a little unconventional on the sports car front and even more so in the modified world. In all honesty, one of these in the pages of FC is so unusual that I can’t actually spell Panamera without looking it up. Or Porsche for that matter.
For a start they come in at mega money. Then they have two more doors than you’d expect. They’re even available in both diesel and hybrid versions and, sadly, just the fact that they’re not a 911 seems to piss on their bonfire every time. It shouldn’t. The Panamera is a stunning bit of kit in its own right. But it just does. Fact of life.
So with that in mind you have to admire the balls of the guy, not just for taking this project on, but for building what has to be one of the craziest luxury motors we’ve ever seen. He’s embraced it, and he’s done something no one has done before – take the fattest of Porkers, and make it even fatter.
It’s plain to see that, apart from the super-plush boot build, the emphasis is very much on how it looks on the outside. Let’s not forget that this is an uber-luxury car as standard. Trying to improve the interior would be as pointless as giving the Mona Lisa bigger knockers. Some might even call it distasteful.
There’s not too many worries on the performance front either. The 4.8-litre twin-turbo lump is already on the naughty side of 500bhp and will propel the big ol’ beast to 60mph in 3.7-seconds and onto 188mph. Even when you’ve got no speed limits, that’s still pretty bloody tasty.
The outside though is a radical shift from the factory spec. It can’t have been an easy job to finish but it must have been even harder to get started. I mean, would you have the bollocks to take a grinder to your Porsche?
Happily the result is flawless. Those custom metal arches look so good it’s almost like it could have come out of the factory that way. Not an easy trick to pull off, especially in the clinical and thoroughly Germanic way it’s been done.
Speaking of Germanic precision and all that national pride stuff, notice that most of the key mods are German too. The air-ride system (specially customised by Dumped) comes from HP Drivetech. The car’s centrepiece, those crazy low-offset, 21-inch Messer rims, are as German as a bratwurst sarnie served in a beer stein. Shit, even the paint comes from the Audi colour chart – Marcus couldn’t be more patriotic if he had Chancellor Merkel tattooed on his arse! (And we have been unable to confirm this either way.)
What’s equally impressive, if unsurprising, is that Marcus and the rest of the boys had the whole job done in just a couple of months. It must have taken some serious graft and meticulous planning to accomplish, but then the Germans are not exactly known for messing about when it comes to work either. It’s just this sort of efficiency that Marcus promises to all his customers. Unfortunately for his crew, I guess it’s only the car that gets to spend all day sitting on its arse.
OWNER: MARCUS PROSCH
TECH SPEC: 4.8 TURBO
EXTERIOR:
GPoint widebody conversion; carbon mirrors; splitter; vents and rear wing; black headlights; red rear lights; tinted windows; resprayed Audi Rivera blue.
CHASSIS:
11 and 12.5x21in forged Messer ME-10 wheels; Falken 452 255/30×21 (front) and 295/25×21 (rear) tyres; custom HP Drivetech suspension by Dumped; AccuAir e-level management.
INTERIOR:
Custom Burmester sound system and custom air ride install.
THANKS
Dumped; David from Form and Function; Messer Wheels; AccuAir; and HP Drivetech.
Words Midge Photos Kevve.Be
