Tacos Not Included: Teleporting Luftgekühlt 6 To Mexico
The Point Of No Return

Some people have compared it to a sort of religious pilgrimage for all types of car enthusiasts throughout the world, and I wouldn’t argue with them.

As you might have seen in my first story from Luftgekühlt, last weekend thousands of air-cooled Porsche fans flocked to Universal Studios in Hollywood to attend the sixth iteration (excluding two European shows) of the event.

Tacos Not Included - Luftgekühlt 6 - Keiron Berndt - Speedhunters
Tacos Not Included - Luftgekühlt 6 - Keiron Berndt - Speedhunters

For the team behind Luftgekühlt, one of the many benefits of using the stages and sets of Universal Studios’ backlot was the ability to create scenes that visually teleported attendees to various locations.

Tacos Not Included - Luftgekühlt 6 - Keiron Berndt - Speedhunters

While many of the buildings were empty and simply served as power sources for movie equipment, all of them were extremely realistic and well built, fiberglass or not.

One of my favourite backlot neighborhoods was ‘Old Mexico’ where many of Luftgekühlt 6’s safari and rally cars were set in the Baja-style environment.

Tacos Not Included - Luftgekühlt 6 - Keiron Berndt - Speedhunters
Point of No Return

I don’t consider myself a purist and it warms my heart when I see people fulfilling their own vision when it comes to building a car. Then there are safari cars…

Tacos Not Included - Luftgekühlt 6 - Keiron Berndt - Speedhunters

I would absolutely love to thrash on one for an afternoon or two, but I am not too sure if I would do it to my personal 911. If I had a lot of them or a ‘spare’ car, I’d certainly be giving Leh Keen a call and getting mine sorted.

Tacos Not Included - Luftgekühlt 6 - Keiron Berndt - Speedhunters
Tacos Not Included - Luftgekühlt 6 - Keiron Berndt - Speedhunters

To me, it almost feels like I would need to reach a breaking point or point of no return in order to dive head-first into cutting up wheel wells on a classic 911.

996 or 997? Sure, bring me a Sawzall and some rally-spec Bilsteins and we’ll go to town.

Tacos Not Included - Luftgekühlt 6 - Keiron Berndt - Speedhunters

I get it, though. As someone who has hacked up a car or two in the past for the sake of ground clearance, I really do.

Tacos Not Included - Luftgekühlt 6 - Keiron Berndt - Speedhunters

That being said, I have the utmost respect for those brave souls who dare do such things and don’t mind a shrapnel-coating of stone chips.

Tacos Not Included - Luftgekühlt 6 - Keiron Berndt - Speedhunters
Keeping It ‘G’ (Get It? It’s A G-Body…)

One of those brave people is automotive journalist Matt Farah. Some of you may be familiar with Matt from The Smoking Tire podcast and his YouTube channel.

Tacos Not Included - Luftgekühlt 6 - Keiron Berndt - Speedhunters

While I’ll let Dave get into the details of this car in the full feature we have coming, Matt opted for a Leh Keen special after many years of mobbing a Ford Raptor around city streets.

Tacos Not Included - Luftgekühlt 6 - Keiron Berndt - Speedhunters

However, it wasn’t a straight jump into a 911. First up was a Ford Focus RS, which ended up having rally car power but proved hard and expensive to modify when it came to the suspension.

Tacos Not Included - Luftgekühlt 6 - Keiron Berndt - Speedhunters

Building such a car makes sense if you’re looking to conquer any city street, including the sinkholes and ditches that many North American roads seem to feature as standard.

Tacos Not Included - Luftgekühlt 6 - Keiron Berndt - Speedhunters

After a few weeks of the Leh Keen treatment, Matt’s 911 was back in Los Angeles and tearing up the road, and he says that it drives better than anything he’s driven off-road.

Tacos Not Included - Luftgekühlt 6 - Keiron Berndt - Speedhunters
Time & Place

Before you all light your torches, grab your pitchforks and line up in the comments to tell me how wrong I am or to point out long lists of purpose-built race cars that started the safari trend, I will say that I appreciate purpose-built race cars regardless of how much cutting went into them.

Tacos Not Included - Luftgekühlt 6 - Keiron Berndt - Speedhunters

Take Jeff Zwart’s street-registered 964 rally car for example.

Tacos Not Included - Luftgekühlt 6 - Keiron Berndt - Speedhunters

Not only does it have a rich racing history including Jeff’s first Pikes Peak win, but it’s also quite modified under the skin with a torque-splitting transmission out of Dakar 959 just for starters.

Tacos Not Included - Luftgekühlt 6 - Keiron Berndt - Speedhunters

Other proper race cars like this race-winning 911 from France are more than okay in my books, too. But then again, different strokes for different folks.

Still, my heart yearns for a safari car of any sort. If it happened to be a 911, great, however, it won’t be until I have an abundance of them.

Then again, don’t be surprised if you at least see me in the driver’s seat of one in the near future.

Keiron Berndt
Instagram: keiron_berndt

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1
Rafał Szulejko

Zwart's 964 is just perfect. If you could properly feature it one day, I'd love to see that.
By the way, has M's Cayman GT3 feature been already released? The photos were on the website in "coming soon" section probably a year ago or more and that's what I was told "soon" then ;)

Author2

I'll get right on it!

3

That rally 964 is just perfect
It stole my heart

4

We need more rally Porsches!

5

Porsche + Targa + flatnose + tracks in the rear + ski's in front + popup headlights, only give it a satin or flat white paint and I'd like to take it to the South Pole.

Author6

Heck yes, can I tag along?

7

I think a navigator can be useful, I think.

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