Photos: Tiziano Niero
Before a car becomes a car, it is just idea. Simple as. Sometimes it takes shape in metal, other times it stays trapped in drawings and test pieces. Porsche’s earliest work was like this. Experiments hammered out in a sawmill. Prototypes that looked half finished but carried the weight of possibility. They were not meant to be perfect. They were meant to point forward, to suggest what could exist if someone was willing to see it through. That current has never really gone away. Underneath the veneer of an overwrought 911 product line, the desire to innovate and prototype still runs strong.
Drew Hafner found himself drawn to it. He grew up with tools in his hands, sketchbooks on the table, and the influence of parents who lived in both the mechanical and creative worlds. His father was a body man who always had projects in the garage. His mother encouraged the same curiosity in art, filling the house with sketches and sculpture. Between the two, Drew learned how things go together and what it feels like to make something from nothing. “Some of my earliest memories as a kid were being out in the garage with my dad and learning how to fix anything mechanical really, whether it be cars, motorcycles, BMX bikes, or even my skateboard,” he says. “I’d spend days making sketches and building sculptures out of any materials I could get my hands on.”
Cars became the natural outlet. Porsche in particular. The moment it clicked came when he was in eighth grade, riding shotgun with his dad in a 911 that had just been finished in the shop. “We hopped in and jammed at about 120 mph down some country roads. At the intersection, we whipped a left turn and did some donuts in the car and then drove back home,” he remembers. “From that point I just instantly fell in love with the Porsche brand and knew what these cars were capable of.”
Working on 356s every day only deepened the obsession. He kept turning over the same thought: what if he could take the honesty of a 356 and wrap it in the form of an early 911 or 912. Not to build a replica. Not to chase lap times. To create a prototype special that felt like it could have rolled out of Stuttgart in the late 1960s. “I’ve always had the crazy idea of building a prototype Porsche special of some sort,” he says. “My main goal was to make all of the custom modifications that I did almost undetectable… and really just chase that prototype early 912 look.”
The canvas arrived in the shape of a tired 912. The car had been left outside for years, rust eating away at every panel. Someone had already cut it apart, the body reduced to a shell with no future. That made it easier. “I didn’t feel guilty about sacrificing this car to a one of a kind prototype special,” he says. With the title in his name, the real work began. The chassis was rebuilt from the ground up. Heater tubes, suspension points, floors, everything that gave the structure its integrity was cut out and made right.
The inspiration from the 356 shows in the details. A decklid scaled up from the proportions of the earlier car. Rain gutters shaved away. Rails and bumper trim deleted. Door edges and corners radiused until they looked natural. A custom roll bar tucked inside. “Really just went over the whole car and chased simplicity throughout the whole build,” Drew says. The point was not to make a car that shouted at you, but one that rewarded a longer look.
The heart of the car is as unique as the bodywork. It is a 2.1 liter four that began as a 911 six. In the 1980s, Chuck Beck cut the center two cylinders out of a flat six, welded the case back together, and rebuilt it with a custom cam and crank. The result was a one off prototype motor, bored to 2100cc, built to power his own 550 Spyder replica.
Beck’s name carries weight. His replicas of the 550 are legendary, but his willingness to experiment is just as important. This engine is proof. It is not a part you can buy or a variation Porsche ever offered. It is an outlaw experiment, a private vision made real in metal.
When the motor resurfaced years later in the hands of Drew’s father in law, it was waiting for the right home. The 912 project provided it. “It being such a special and unique prototype engine and the car that I was building, it was really the perfect match for the two,” Drew says.
The result is not the fastest or most modern 911 derivative, but that was never the point. “There’s no modern billet parts on the car. There’s no electronic components that control any of that stuff on the vehicle,” he says. “It may not be the most modern driving experience, but there’s something so raw that teleports you back in time. If I was living back in the late 60s and had an early Porsche and took it home and did all my customizations and modifications to it, I would do exactly this.”
Driving it is the reward. A steering wheel, pedals, and nothing between you and the road. “Being able to get inside the car and go for a drive and experience the work that you’ve created, all of the mechanical components working just as you intended them to,” Drew says. “There’s something really special about that to me.”
Even now he sees the project as unfinished. There are upgrades in the back of his mind, changes he might make with time. Air conditioning, better handling, different gauges. Evolution rather than replacement. “This car to me will forever be an ongoing project,” he says. “I love the point that it’s at, and it’s been so special to me being able to bring that to life. But who knows if it’s always going to stay the same.”
What matters is that it exists. A forgotten shell, a prototype engine, and years of work turned into a car that feels both familiar and new. Drew calls it powerful. The feeling comes from the act itself. Taking raw material and an idea and making it real. “I think there’s something extremely rewarding about taking raw materials or taking a car that has been forgotten about, and using your hands and your ideas and bringing that to life,” he says. “Getting inside of a vehicle that you’ve dreamt up for years and you’ve been working on for years, there’s something so powerful about that.”
