First Tuthill Porsche 2-litre 911 comes home

We’ve just brought the very first 2-litre 911 ever built by Francis Tuthill home to Wardington, buying it back from America and returning it to our in-house collection. The engine and gearbox have gone off for a rebuild and the chassis is now in our rally shop, having a full check over.

This Silver SWB goes back to the earliest days of Tuthill Porsche, when historic rallying was still in its infancy but the entry lists were packed with some of rallying’s most famous names. One example was the Millers Oils International Historic Rally Leeds 1995, where Ake Andersson and Lars Thorell topped the entry list driving a Porsche 911, one of twelve 911s that had been entered.

This car was also on the entry list, driven by Brian Bell and Tom Watson.  Starting 23rd, it finished tenth overall, with Jimmy McRae and Beatty Crawford winning in another Tuthill Porsche 911. It competed in many rallies though the period until it changed hands a few years after being built and was shipped to America. Now it’s back in the UK, we’ve begun the process of updating the FIA Historic Technical Passport and are preparing it for more competition later this year.

Here’s a rare shot of the car drawn from our archives alongside the 911 we built for the late Björn Waldegård on the 1997 Panama to Alaska Rally. Talk about a blast from the past!