Lanzante’s F1-Powered Porsche 930 TAG Turbo Will Be An Engineering Marvel

Few projects have grasped our attention as hard as Lanzante’s Porsche 930 TAG Turbo, which will feature an actual turbocharged engine from an 1980s F1 car.

Despite the global attention, Lanzante has kept most the details away from the public but Pistonheads had the chance to visit their workshop and find out more about this very exciting project.

The inspiration behind Lanzante’s latest creation was of course the original Porsche 930 TAG Turbo, a prototype created by McLaren to reportedly test the 1.5-liter TAG-Porsche Turbo V6 engine that powered its F1 cars in the mid-80s.

Thanks to Lanzante’s strong ties with McLaren, the British specialist was able to secure 11 of these engines to pay tribute to the original car. Each of the 11 provided engines have actually competed in F1 races, with nine of them being podium finishers and one winning the 1984 British Grand Prix at Brands Hatch with Niki Lauda behind the wheel. If that’s not special, we don’t know what is.

Dropping a race engine into a road car is of course a challenge, with Lanzante partnering with Cosworth to redevelop the TAG-Porsche V6 unit. The goal was to make the highly-strung engine more usable on the road and of course more reliable, even if that means less power than the 1,000hp+ they used to make in qualifying spec.

The reworked engines will deliver 503hp (510PS) and 310lb-ft (420Nm) of torque but will still rev up to 9,000rpm, making them the highest revving turbocharged powertrains used in a road-legal car. Cosworth’s work includes smaller turbos, a new crankcase and the necessary adjustment to the fuel-air mixture. Boost pressure has been decreased by 25 percent, to 3 bar (43.5psi). Porsche’s G50/20 six-speed manual transmission will join the F1 engine, complete with bespoke ratios and a limited-slip differential.

One of the Lanzante’s biggest challenges was to design an all-new water cooling system for the 930, a car with no existing plumbing. The radiator is mounted at the front while the fog-light mountings on the bumper are now air-intakes for the oil coolers.

The chassis features coilover suspension and rides on the original 17-inch wheels, which are wrapped with modern Pirelli P-Zeros -225s at the front and 255s at the rear.

Lanzante estimates that the 930 TAG Turbo will weight around 1,100kg (2,425lbs), which is about 235kg (518lbs) lighter than an original 930 Turbo. The engine is already 100kg lighter than the air-cooled 3.3-liter Turbo but Lanzante also added a carbon bonnet and engine cover, as well as aluminum door skins. Power to weight ratio is set at 457hp per tonne.

The price of each of the 11 F1-powered 930 TAG Turbo cars is set at $1.45 million before taxes (£1,095,000) and potential customers will be handpicked by Lanzante.