Currently reading: Gunther Werks F-26: 1067bhp 911 'Slantnose' bids for Goodwood hill record

Race-honed, £1.2m recreation of a Porsche legend will go for gold in the hillclimb shoot-out this week

Californian Porsche tuner Gunther Weeks will bid for class victory on the Goodwood Festival of Speed hillclimb next week, with a 1000bhp-plus reimagining of the iconic Porsche 911 Slantnose.

Project F-26 – numbered for the amount of examples that will be built, at around £1.2m apiece – is a fighter jet-inspired recreation of the distinctive 935 Slantnose of the 1970s, based on the 993-generation 911.

It is powered by a twin-turbocharged (but still traditionally air-cooler) 4.0-litre Mezger flat six, co-developed with a racing firm to produce a colossal 1067bhp – a little more than the Ferrari 849 Testarossa, for reference – and some 750lb ft of torque.

Those outrageous reserves are sent through a six-speed manual gearbox and limited-slip differential to the rear axle, and should be good for true supercar performance figures given the carbon-bodied F-26 only weighs 1225kg dry - less than a Lotus Emira

Gunther Works is hoping it will take the fastest time in its class when it runs up the hill at the Sussex festival next weekend, with ex-F1 and Nascar driver Scott Speed at the helm.

The company is likely to field the F-26 in the production road car category, the fastest of which at 2025's event was the Koenigsegg Sadair's Spear, which ascended the 1.16-mile climb in just 47.14 seconds.

The outright hillclimb record is still held by Gloucestershire-based McMurtry, whose 1000bhp electric fan car, the Spéirling, went from bottom to top in 39.08 seconds in 2023 - a record that is unlikely to be broken for some time.

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Felix Page

Felix Page
Title: Deputy editor

Felix is Autocar's deputy editor, responsible for leading the brand's agenda-shaping coverage across all facets of the global automotive industry - both in print and online.

He has interviewed the most powerful and widely respected people in motoring, covered the reveals and launches of today's most important cars, and broken some of the biggest automotive stories of the last few years.