Shape Shifter 912

Some people have way to much time on there hands as we can see from our ‘good old boy’ Karl Gaskins efforts with his Porsche 912.

Karl bought his then-beige Porsche 912 new in 1966, trading off a 1953 Studebaker Starlight Coupe and a splitwindow Beetle to acquire Porsche’s flatfour special. The 912 is frequently praised for its handling given that it’s lighter and less tail-happy than the flat-six flagship 911 that the 912 shares its great-looking body style with, but Karl soon grew to dislike that slow four-cylinder engine. The flat-four wouldn’t hold a tune, perpetually leaked from its valve cover gaskets and pushrod tube seals, plus the heater kept putting an oily haze on the inside of the windshield. “The worst part was that a Toyota Corolla could outrun it,” Gaskins wrote. Ouch!

So, he set about fixing that the best way he could: by getting rid of that Porsche flat-four. Its first replacement was a Corvair engine, which was also aircooled and horizontally-opposed but the end result was not to his liking and proved to be too much for the 912 clutch. So Karl stopped driving his 912 in 1978 with the intention of making the car exactly like he wanted it next time.

He revived his 912 project in the early nineties purchasing a Cadillac Eldorado for its 500ci engine and transaxle, but never quite figured out how to make a decent rear suspension with this setup. He still wasn’t happy with the big, obsolete Caddy engine, either. The next idea for the 912 came courtesy of Patrick Motorsports in Arizona. They were flipping the ring and pinion on Porsche 930 transaxles to stuff small block V8 engines into mid-engine Porsche 914s. Never mind that the 914 was the entry-level successor to the 912 which used a completely different drivetrain layout: Gaskins now wanted to convert his rear-engine car to mid-engine. So in 1995, Gaskins bought a limited-slip, four-speed 930 transaxle with a custom shifter and cable assembly for the 912, along with an adapter to use a small block Chevy V8 with it.

Gaskins extensively modeled his project, adding meaty fender flares and removing the bumpers in favor of flat, streamlined panels. Instead of extensively bending the metal to create the wheel arches, Gaskins used a series of flat aluminum pieces bolted together in a fan shape to make the more complicated parts of the body. Originally, Gaskins tried to make the rear fenders out of four pieces of aluminum, but Karl’s attempt to make those curve around the fenders resulted in deformed metal that wasn’t going to hold its shape well.

Karl added a new metal firewall to move the engine forward. It featured a removable panel to allow easier access to the front of the engine. The original 912 rear window and rear quarter-windows were removed in favor of a new rear window over the new firewall as well. the suspension, steering, and brake components to those of a wider 1981 Porsche 911 SC. Another 911 SC was the donor of a rear torsion bar tube with all the mounting points for the SC swing axle and brake assemblies. Karl welded his new 911 SC torsion bar tube to the subframe 12.5 inches back from its original location, and cut out the center of the tube between the subframe rails so the new engine block and oil pan would fit. This is what ultimately stretched the wheelbase of the car.

Life got in the way of finishing the car at the time as the Gaskins family built a house and put two sons through college— but the project 912 certainly wasn’t forgotten. About eighteen years later, Karl revived his hilarious franken-build. By then, the GM LS engines were all over the place, and he switched to a junkyard 6.2 Escalade V8. Clearly, this was the answer to Karl’s power problem. The 912 would have twice the number of cylinders and nearly four times the displacement it did when it was stock. The Escalade’s L92 engine also made upwards of 550 horsepower—nearly five and a half times what the stock 912 engine made on a good day.

Gaskins’ finished car weighs only around 2,400 lbs, and he says he only spent around $15,000 over the life of the car to get it done. Best of all, he proved that you can completely rework a Porsche at home, on a budget, such that you can still have fun with it afterwards and not feel like you’re ruining the car (really!!!! Ed).