Kit Car

718 RSK -- Feature Article -- Kitcar Magazine

So Strange, It's Wonderful!

By Eric Geisert

What is old is new again. If you squint a little when you look at a 2006 Porsche 911's nose, you might easily see a Porsche design from its distant past. Although it can be argued that Porsche has never made huge leaps and bounds through the years when it comes to overall design concept--the word evolution doesn't really have any meaning when discussing decades of Porsche history--there have been a few bumps along the way. Unlike Ferrari, Porsche didn't intend to build sports cars when it started in '48, but they soon realized that's what people were doing with them, so they entered the game. Serious, competitive racing that started with the 356 body design (referred to as the bathtub because of its shape) moved to the more aerodynamic, aluminum-bodied 550 in late '53.

By '55 the 550RS (RS for Rennsport or, in English, racing) was available for customers, and the Type 645, raced in '56, was the first Porsche racer with headlight fairings and a new, sloping, rounded nose. Yet another revision saw a radical change in the chassis design that would, when looking at the suspension from the front, look like the letter K laying on its side--thus the RSK was born. Further refinements were made to the factory racers in '57 when, determining the car was a bit skittish around the race course, large, square-looking wings were attached on top of the rear fender bulges to help straighten things out. The 718 RSK only raced a few hillclimbs in Germany with the new body configuration, when Porsche figured out the wings really didn't help the car's performance like the four-cam engines and other suspension upgrades would.

The 718s were used for a few more years before Porsche refined their design even further, but still never far from the look of the original 550 from '53. Through the next four decades, street-driven Porsches would follow the original 356 idea of having an upright headlight at the front of a large, bulbous fender, up until streamlining (and fuel efficiency) came back in style in the late '90s, with the headlights becoming more swept back and again under a fairing. The 718 RSK's design so affected one person, Indiana resident Brian Setters, that he went on the Internet to find someone who offered this car as a kit, because he just had to have one. Since a young age, Setters has always been into Porsches. Just out of high school (he's 45 years old now), he bought his first: a 914 he reconditioned and sold for a profit. Over the years, he believes he's owned 15 914s, and that's in addition to a handful of other Porsches (an '80 911 SC and a few late-model Boxsters).

But a 718 is different--really different. Brian liked the long, sleek lines, and was especially drawn to the ill-fated hillclimb cars of '57, with their vertical wings and fenderskirts. Since the 718's shape is a little more quirky than the more obvious Porsche 356 or 550 clones, the Internet hunt for a builder didn't take long. Thunder Ranch, located in El Cajon, California, and run by Tom McBurnie (yes, the same Ferrari-fighting kit builder you've read about in those law review books), has carved a niche for itself in the Porsche replicar market in the past few years. Alongside some non-Porsche heritage cars, it offers a 356 roadster, a 550 Spyder, and recently, a 718 RSK (basic kits start at about $14,000).

Brian called Tom on July 18 (get it? 7/18) and told McBurnie what he was looking for, and the two began some correspondence. Tom's mind started to crank out a slew of ideas to go along with Brian's want of wings and fenderskirts and, after the two worked out what the car should look like, Tom went to work, converting one of his "standard" 718 RSKs into this one-off. He started with his 3-inch tubular chassis, which features seven crossmembers for strength. Standard VW-type spring plates are used for suspension out back, and four trailing arms with torsion leafs are used up front. On each corner, Thunder Ranch's three-piece aluminum 16-inch wheels (sixes up front, sevens in the rear) were wrapped with Falken 451 tires (205/60-16 front, 225/55-16 rear) for better gription.

A car's rep can't be backed up unless it a has a stout powerplant, so McBurnie developed a unique 2.8L flat-four engine that uses Vanagon watercooled heads and an electric water pump to keep them cool. A pair of 48 IDA Weber carbs feed the monster motor, while a 911-style center-mount alternator/fan shroud setup looks period-correct. Gearing comes by way of a four-speed VW transmission tweaked by Transworks. The body is the main course on this car, and McBurnie bonds them to their chassis for added strength and rigidity. The stabilizing fins were hand-fabricated by Thunder Ranch's Marco Blass, as were the fenderskirts. Thunder Ranch typically offers their RSKs with a 550-style windshield, but for this car, McBurnie fab'd a Plexiglas wraparound that looks race-inspired. A dual-bump headrest (single-bumps were fairly common on the original race cars, though no one knows for sure if they helped) was also made, and a chrome three-point roll bar was installed.

After the appropriate amount of bodywork, Thunder Ranch's Norm Steigert sprayed the car with DuPont Chroma Base and clear to produce a gray/blue color not seen on any other car. McBurnie turned to Armondo's (Santee, California) for the vehicle's leather needs, having them stitch the material on the Speedster-style bucket seats. Autopower four-point seatbelts assure Brian's safety, and the simple interior is capped off by a wood-trimmed Nardi steering wheel that sits in front of three VDO/Porsche repro gauges (though there is a hidden Alpine CD head unit under the dash).

With the car's completion, it rolled into KIT CAR's photo studio and, the very next day, went to California Speedway in Fontana for some grueling testing (see accompanying story). Some might think this car almost too nice to drive, but that is not the way Brian Setters sees it. He believes cars are meant to be driven, and driven hard.

Setters fully intends to race his car when his local weather gets better, possibly running at some SCCA or NASA-organized events (and maybe a trip to the next Run & Gun in October). He feels he needs a few training classes first, though, so enrollment in a Bondurant school is on the list of things to do. After some racing, Brian might enter the car in a few shows, but for now he is content to drive the car around in his hometown.

Since no original 718s made it into private hands when they were campaigned, seeing a 718 RSK rolling down the road might even turn a few heads in New York City or Los Angeles. But considering Brian lives in Carmel, a 40,000-person town in the middle of Indiana, you can believe people stop what they're doing and watch mouth agape when Brian drives by!