As Rob said in his recent 964 Carrera 4 Widebody post, the flared variants of the middle generation 911 can be polarizing. Even more polarizing are the extra-widebody Nakai-san Rauh-Welt Begriff creations. That Akira Nakai is an artist is unquestioned, but whether his creations are genius or blasphemous depend on your definition of art I would suppose. Nakai takes the stock 911 and turns it up to 11, with custom molded, hand crafted flares and widening the lines of the 911 to outrageous proportions. Fitted with giant wheels, lowered suspensions and custom front and rear bumpers, they are the embodiment of the Japanese tuning scene but with a decidedly European feel. Indeed, you don’t need to look far into Porsche’s own developments to find the inspiration for these models from Stuttgart’s own work. Indeed, many of Nakai’s works look a lot like the 964 Turbo S Le Mans racer and later 993 GT2 race car, with their giant gold BBS wheels, huge spoiler, vents and wide flares. Personally, I think that Nakai does an exceptional job mimicking the best of the 911 race car design whilst simultaneously introducing his own style. That becomes more obvious when you see a non-Coupe RWB such as today’s Targa model – I believe the first open-air RWB I’ve seen:
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The sudden impact and influence of Nakai-san’s hand-crafted Porsche creations is both impressive and perhaps unprecedented. In part, that’s thanks to the proliferation of new media sources; go back to the 1980s, and no matter how cool his cars were it would have been much more difficult for him to become a name that most enthusiasts seem to know these days. We also live in a world which both is losing hand-crafted expertise but also celebrates it as the incredible skill it is. The cars he creates are racing inspired – a whole culture that exists in Japan but is undoubtedly taken to a much higher level by RWB. Stretched and slammed, the RWB cars are each unique but share heritage that resembles the racing 911 Turbo and GT2 models. They’re beyond replicas of race cars, though, defining their own unique identity. Not everyone likes the look, but nearly all can appreciate the attention to detail and incredible craftsmanship that goes into these cars:
CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1995 Porsche 911 RWB on eBay
5 CommentsFew tuners have popped into the Porsche scene with as much of a splash as Rauh-WELT Begriff. Starting with basically stock bodied 911s, Nakai-san hand…
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