928 “Nebula”
Just when you had to admit Singer Vehicle Designs did in fact, strike gold with their 911 redux, another prototype poses the question if the Porsche 928 is next for a modern do-over. This isn’t the first 928 “restomod” we have covered, but is certainly one of the most interesting. As the latest of a half-dozen collaborations between Arsham and Porsche, the Nebula takes an eighties icon and showers it with “Y2K aesthetics,” that is to say, design cues from a period broadly defined as the years between 1997 and 2004. Unveiled at the Porsche X exhibition at SXSW in Austin, Texas this year, this one-off concept is a fascinating re-contextualization of an old car with later-era cues that also highlights one of Porsche’s lesser-loved models.
Porsche’s water-cooled grand touring legend
The 928 was Porsche’s luxury touring car from 1978 to 1995, and its radical (for Porsche) placement of a water-cooled V-8 engine in front of the driver ushered in the company’s “transaxle era” that also included the four-cylinder 924, 944, and 968. The 928 gradually got faster and better developed through the 1980s and early 1990s, but it also got more expensive, thanks in part to unfavorable exchange rates. As a result of the latter, sales in the U.S. (Porsche’s biggest market) dwindled. The model was discontinued after 1995. It only would have taken a few more years and another refresh, then, for the 928 to have made it into the Y2K era.
Ready for a transformation?
Unlike the 911, which has been a canvas for tuners, customizers, and artists like Arsham for decades, the 928 has remained in the shadows. It’s a car Wall Street guys drove in the ‘80s, and Tom Cruise drove one in Risky Business, but the 928 is not remembered for a whole lot else. “It’s not as popular in the Porsche universe. It’s like a stepchild almost,” said Arsham when sharing why he chose it instead of other, more cherished Porsche models like those used for his other projects.
Y2K Aesthetics
If you don’t exactly know what “Y2K aesthetics” are, you’re not alone. This isn’t exactly a mainstream movement in the car world, but a few quick looks of the Nebula’s details will bring you right back to the days of Apple eMate laptops, metallic-look clothing, hints at futurism and tech optimism in the dot-com age, and Britney Spears.
A central theme on the Nebula both inside and out is “meta-balls,” circles or blobs splitting from each other like cells. The front fog lights and turn signals as well as the lower intakes follow the theme, with a dot-gradient pattern on the fog lights and Arsham’s studio logo outlined in the marker lights. The brake lights and rear signals follow a similar pattern and between them “Nebula” is spelled out in lights with a futuristic font. Just above that is the rear wing, which is reminiscent of another 2000s Porsche – the 996 GT3. The artist 3D scanned an actual GT3 wing and then had it resized to better fit the 928’s proportions. A pair of compact rally car mirrors slim up the shape a bit, while the wheels are the ones from Porsche’s 1989 Panamericana concept car (although they also remind me a bit of wheels from the first-gen Prius). The oh-so-2000s metallic paint looks like a mix between the well-known Porsche factory shades of Cassis Red and Frozen Berry.
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Another 928 reimagined
