THE OIL barons and Middle East nobility have different problems to you and I, and different ways of solving them. When one kept getting blown off the drag strip by a Bugatti Veyron, he didn't just concede defeat, he took his Porsche Carrera GT to the good folks at 9ff and asked them to make it faster. Much faster, writes NICK HALL
The end result waited for me at 9ff’s Dortmund headquarters, a twin-turbo Carrera GT-T900 with 900bhp and enough straight-line pace to blow the Veyron clean off the road. We weren’t just there to drive one of the most ostentatious, money-no-object hypercars on the road; we were there to find out just how a car and a company like this fits in to a world struck down by recession.
Jan Fatthauer launched 9ff in 2001 with a clear (and omnipresent) vision. He wanted to make the world’s fastest cars, Porsches to be precise, and he has taken a record each and every year, ranging from the world’s fastest Cabriolet to, for a fleeting moment, the world’s fastest street legal car with its own GT9 supercar.
As I pull in to his facility that sits a stone’s throw from Dortmund Aiport there are a brace of 750bhp Porsche Cayennes, a 1,000bhp GT3 and a plethora of high-power Turbos with pipework that looks like it came from a nuclear reactor. Some quick maths reveals that about 10,000 horsepower and around €1.5 million of metal sits in the workshop at any one time.
And this small selection is just the tip of the iceberg – for every major conversion that happens back at the factory, there used to be hundreds of wheels and exhausts flying out the gates. A network of dealers can handle these bolt-on parts, and this is the bread and butter for a tuning firm. These halo cars, as with the top manufacturers, are there to generate business, rather than sustain it.
Inevitably, though, business is down. Porsche is struggling to sell cars, and while sales figures have pulled out of their terminal nose-dive, most of the good news has come at the bottom end thanks to scrappage bonuses. The premium end of the car market is still thrashing round as if it might stop breathing, and if no top-end cars are leaving the showroom, then logic dictates there are far fewer cars for the likes of 9ff to tune.
“Definitely, we have felt the effects of the crisis,” explains Rafael Colov, 9ff’s marketing manager. “Before, things were much easier, and we have noticed that a lot of the smaller tuning, the lighter work like the wheels and exhausts, that has reduced.
“But in these times we focus on the big customers, the ones that want the crazy conversions and can still pay for it. We are doing less of the smaller conversions, but we are doing more of the big ones, and that means the end result is the same.”
Almost on cue, a devastatingly attractive Greek woman who has spent as much on her own bodywork as she is about to spend on a car arrives for a test drive of the company’s most expensive 911 – a Turbo fitted with the 1,100bhp GT9R engine. We don’t talk exact figures, but her bill will almost certainly top €250,000 and, if needs be, that one order is enough for 9ff to keep on rolling for another month.
That’s because 9ff has less than a dozen employees in the factory. All are craftsmen, but there isn’t a huge RD department, an electronics section and a wind-tunnel. Extra help is brought in when required and the overheads are kept to a sensible level, so while car companies are putting staff on short time and trimming the fat to cope with recession, 9ff had little fat to cut.
Then there is the Carrera GT, the result of a year’s hard work and serious investment from Fatthauer. Just one customer came to him with the budget to create this monster and Fatthauer set about turning an already violent car into a world beater.
Porsche’s showpiece was more than a virtual racing car, it really was destined for the track until budgets were reshuffled and Porsche’s engineers were left with a thoroughbred racer without a cause. So the car was re-engineered and given licence plates, as well as a production run of 1,300 units. Hardcore drivers from around the world were invited to put down their €350,000-plus for a carbon-fibre chassis and a highly-strung 5.7-litre V10 with 612bhp. It was more than enough car for most people, but then Fatthauer doesn’t cater to most people. He caters to a special group of customers who can never have too much power or too much speed, and with the entire Porsche arsenal cranked up to 11, it was only a matter of time before he tweaked the Carrera GT.
Of course, it isn’t easy messing with this much power. As well as the twin turbos, Fatthauer also had to fit an ambitious cooling system that involves more than 18 metres of tubing, a new exhaust and revised aerodynamics that include that big wing on the back.
His wheels are there for aesthetic effect, but the engineering within was 100 per cent essential. Quite how far 9ff has taken the car is shown by the smoke pouring from the open crankcase of the gearbox as the car sits idling, which is a normal side effect but a disconcerting one nonetheless.
He was messing with the unknown, too – while the figures stacked up, there was no way of knowing what would happen in the real world when the engine suddenly gained 50 per cent more power. “The first time we put everything together and fired it up was on the dyno,” explains Fatthauer. “I didn’t sleep the night before.”
Nor did I. The thought of driving a car with way more power than the factory intended was enough for a fitful night’s sleep and I arrived to take the helm of €500,000 of metal and carbon-fibre with no small amount of trepidation – especially as it was due to be shipped out to the customer in Abu Dhabi the day after, and people like that might not take too kindly to me crashing their Veyron-slayer.
And this wasn’t the easiest to drive, either. 9ff has replaced the notoriously fragile ceramic clutch with a twin-plate racing clutch that makes it easier to get off the line, but it doesn’t like low revs – it grumbles, vibrates and jerks at low speed.
“This car either likes to go or stop, there is no between,” explains Fatthauer. Well that’s fine when you’re drag racing, but not so fine when you’re driving behind a VW bus at 50km/h for tracking photography.
Still, given its head, this car is incredible, in a different league to the Carrera GT that stole all the plaudits just a few years ago. 9ff has slashed a massive 0.5 seconds off its 0-100km/h time to 3.2 seconds, and it will keep going through 200km/h in just 8.5 seconds and 300km/h in 17. Independent tests show the Veyron hits 300km/h in 18.5 seconds, and the 9ff slaughters other rear-drive cars such as the Ferrari Enzo, McLaren Mercedes SLR and Lamborghini Murcielago LP640, with a top speed in excess of 380km/h. Theoretically, the Veyron will close it down and pass in the end, but that could take several kilometres of flat-out running.
It’s sheer violence to drive and feels like being tied to the end of snapped elastic. The traction control can’t hope to contain the power, and it would take real skill to keep this car on the road around bends. But that’s not what it’s wanted for.
It’s a car with a specific purpose in mind – one that was worth more then €150,000 just for the conversion. And though Fatthauer hasn’t lost money, it will take more than one conversion to clear a handsome profit. “I am hoping for at least a few more customers,” he explains. “Others have tried to achieve this, and we are the only ones to succeed.”
And he explains that it almost makes economic sense for Carrera GT owners, as once the Porsche is out of warranty, a blown engine could cost as much as €100,000 to replace. 9ff’s work comes with a two-year warranty, so a 300bhp power boost and a near insanely powerful Carrera GT could actually work out a bargain, if you look at it that way.
But that is a world away from the recession-hit everyman, for people with very different problems to you and me.
Factfile 9ff Carrera GT-T900
Engine:5.7-litre V10 Twin Turbo, 900bhp @ 8,000rpm, 937Nm @ 6,900rpm
0-100km/h:3.2 seconds
Top speed:380km/h
Price:€500,000