Test-Driving Theon Design's USA001, A Porsche 911 Restomod For America

Forbes

23-04-2025

Midnight Blue Metallic paint on USA001 only sparkles in direct sunlight.
Just over 18 months ago, I visited England and stopped by the small town of Banbury to drive a fresh Porsche 911 restomod built by a company called Theon Design. At the time, founder Adam Hawley intentionally made waves in the exploding Porsche restomod scene by self-proclaiming Theon the 'Singer of the U.K.' Now, Theon has completed the company's first build for an American client, and this time around Hawley brought the car out to Singer's home turf in Los Angeles for journalists to experience on the Angeles Crest Highway.
Familiar roads always help to accelerate—quite literally—my drive impressions. Especially since the previous build that I tested on the wrong side of the road was, in fact, a left-hand-drive 911 destined for Italy, which explains Theon's name for it: ITA001. The American car, therefore, goes by USA001. Yet despite the instantaneous familiarity of scene and settings, I still took the first few minutes behind the wheel purposefully easy, as Hawley in the passenger seat explained the purpose of the build.
Contrasting interior upholstery paired with a new suite of brushed aluminum trim.
'I've really enjoyed working with the owner,' he remarked. 'He calls the car perfect, for a start. We try and keep it as a 911, but just better in every way. And I think because the chassis is such a good chassis to start with, you can make all this massive bandwidth of a complete touring car, or a complete weekend beast.'
Unleashing the 911's inner beast takes on new form for USA001. Mounted behind the rear axles, in quintessential Porsche fashion, an air-cooled flat-six engine now displaces 4.0 liters and pumps out 405 horsepower. That's no joke in a sports car with carbon-fiber body panels that help to drop the wet weight to just 2,540 pounds. Yet Hawley's client intended from the get-go to drive the car on weekends, as well as potentially on the racetrack, so he wanted a drive-by-wire electronically controlled throttle. Which, in turn, allowed Hawley to program drive modes, selected via a newly developed knob on the steering column.
USA001's rear spoiler extends and retracts at 45 miles per hour.
By about 10 minutes into my drive, I wanted the engine fully enlivened, the adjustable suspension from TracTive similarly dialed in and the exhaust fully opened up. Now, the car was raring and ready to go, as Hawley encouraged my efforts with a wry grin. His clear confidence that a Theon build can survive two full weeks of journalistic flogging only urged me further onward.
The engine rasps and rumbles right up to the tachometer's 7,000-rpm redline—and beyond, in fact, since peak power arrives at 7,500 rpm. But tractable torque delivery of 324 lb-ft, which hits at 5,800 rpm, makes the process of revving and gearshifting an absolute pleasure. Similar to ITA001, this customer specced a six-speed gearbox sourced from a 993-generation Carrera RS. The perfect gear ratios for mountain roads helped me get into a flow, and the single-mass flywheel results in stunning responsiveness, especially to throttle blips while heel-toe downshifting.
Perfect gearshifts from a 993-generation Carrera RS transaxle
The drive-by-wire software even allows for an auto blip function, but where's the fun in that? I'm here for the raw nature of this screamer, the analog experience augmented with just a touch of class and modernity. The air conditioning blows ice-cold, for example, and the mildly assisted power steering makes driving around town at lower speeds a cinch, where a 30-millimeter front-axle lift system also prevents scrapes or driveway concerns. New aluminum trim developed since ITA001 left Theon's shop indicates Hawley's commitment to continued evolution. And the rear decklid spoiler extends and retracts at 45 miles an hour—but that's customizable, as with everything on the car, in the same vein as a 911 restomod from Singer Vehicle Design.
Having driven the fully realized form from both companies now, Theon's vision hews more closely to the original air-cooled experience—for better or worse, depending on personal taste. And USA001's specific breadth of capability, from an effortless elan to incessant eruption, caters to this specific client's wishes as much as anything.
Textures at every touchpoint indicate the truly bespoke nature of Theon's Porsche restomods.
'We can work with all of our customers and completely hone it to their fingerprint, basically,' Hawley told me after I handed him back the keys. 'The drive-by-wire and the switchable maps are absolutely lovely in the car. The fact that you have that ease of being able to drive it up a canyon road or through the city and it's not too intense… In reality, a Porsche is supposed to be an all-round car, you know, and I think the fact that it's such a great car to start with, explains why we don't try and reinvent it.'
Though the modern slate of restomods greatly exceeds the performance of Porsche's efforts from the late-1980s and early-1990s, when the 964-generation 911 donor car debuted, the weight distribution and steering feedback and floor-hinging clutch all bring me straight into that old reverie with ease. Only at a much quicker pace, in more comfort, and with the confidence that every last bit and bob received recent attention throughout the build process.
Porsche decals, Fuchs wheels, and wider haunches amplify USA001's presence.
Would I take a 911 rebuilt by Theon, or Singer for that matter, at even money versus an original Porsche? Well, hard to resist a 993 Carrera RS… But for the customer who can make that choice, personal taste enters the conversation earlier. Personally, I lean toward the more hardcore end of the spectrum, where the raucous wild child of USA001 emerges with all the dials turned up to 11.
Hawley clearly recognized my proclivities and teased a forthcoming project in Theon's brainstorming phase: an R model targeting 550 horsepower and further lightweighting to bring the wet weight down below one metric ton. And if the all-rounder USA001 drives this well, this raw, I can only dream of the fun factor amplified to a whole new level.