I’m rocking a vintage 911 roadster on Angeles Crest Highway, a fantasy road that winds like a lasso through dry-gulch canyons north of Los Angeles. But something strange is happening. Instead of the battle cry of a flat-six engine resounding off steep rock walls and into the top-down cabin, the Porsche barely whispers. This 911 is electric, a creation of New York-based Sacrilege Motors.
A squeeze of the throttle sends a torrent of instant torque to the rear wheels in a stealthy body that onlookers would swear was a conventional, wide-body 964-gen 911. But there’s nothing conventional about a dash to 60 mph in 3.4 seconds or a dashboard switch—the one with the exclamation point—that dials up an even-Steven 500 horsepower and 500 pound-feet of torque via Sport mode. That compares favorably with today’s partially electrified 911 GTS, which makes 532 horsepower and 449 pound-feet—but also weighs up to 700 pounds more than this test car.
So whose idea—stupid or sublime, depending on your Porsche perspective—was this? Meet Phil Wagenheim and his formerly skeptical co-founder, Bobby Singh. Wagenheim was fed up with pricey repairs for his 993-generation 1996 911 Turbo. When the COVID pandemic hit, leaving Wagenheim stuck at home with an oil-spewing Porsche, he recruited Singh with a bright idea: Why not convert it to electricity?
Singh, a no-nonsense Porsche guru who’d spent decades rebuilding, restoring, and race-prepping everything from 911s to 959s and 917s, offered a reply that’s become part of company lore.
“He said, ‘Phil, you’re an a-hole.’” Wagenheim recalls. “‘This is the last of the air-cooled cars, and I’m not doing it.’”
Wagenheim, a finance man who’s taken many companies public—including Jamba Juice and American Apparel—wouldn’t be denied. Within weeks, he was buying potential donor cars and sending them to Singh.
“You can’t say ‘no’ to this guy,” Singh says.
Wagenheim then had a run-in with a potential steel supplier, whose (over)reaction to the idea of an electric 911 ended up inspiring the company name.
“There must have been about 30 ‘Sacrileges’ in his long rant,” says Wagenheim, who decided to own it rather than run from it.
The alluring, wide-body 911 America Roadster, which saw just 250 copies built for U.S. customers in 1992, became the template for the Sacrilege “Blackbird” I’m spurring through these cinematic canyons. Out went the original 3.6-liter engine and transmission. In went a modified motor from a Tesla Model S, and 63 kilowatt-hours of prismatic battery cells divvied between front and rear. The Blackbird made its debut on the Concept Lawn at the Pebble Beach Concours weekend in 2023. A second Sacrilege Motors car, the Enigma coupe, followed it to Monterey in 2024.
Sliding into the convertible’s cabin, surrounded by black leather and suede in a basket-weave pattern, I dial the ignition key to the right. A whimsical message appears in the gauge cluster: “Crank it, baby.” You bet I will! The five gauges combine familiar Porsche fonts with all-new info: Kilowatt output instead of a tachometer and readouts including state-of-charge and battery temperature. I slot the shifter rod, topped with ebony Macassar wood, into Drive.
Within minutes, we’re flying up Big Tujunga Road. Already, I’m impressed. Loss of aural sensation aside—admittedly, a big loss—the Blackbird drives a lot like a classic 911, muscled-up for modern competitive tastes. It feels impressively rigid for an old-school convertible, a testament to Singh’s chassis-honing skills.
Singh’s standing in the Porsche community helped bring Penske Racing onboard to develop dampers exclusively for this application: Not a track car, but a weekend charmer corner-carver. Aside from those dampers, precise monoball shock mounts, LED headlamp projectors, and a carbon-fiber whale tail, virtually every component hails from the Porsche factory; from its trailing-arm rear suspension to a head unit that integrates Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. There are no airbags, no nannies in the form of traction, and no stability control.
“We wanted to keep the car pure, fun-to-drive, and not overly complicated,” Singh says.
Forget what you may have heard about overweight EVs. With its 3.6-liter engine, transmission, and internal combustion accessories removed, the Blackbird weighs a svelte 3,009 pounds, about 200 fewer than the factory original. At 3,280 pounds, the Enigma coupe is about 170 pounds heavier. As a consolation, it doubles the original’s 247 horsepower.
Voluptuous, Turbo-look rear fenders—which will be a signature of every Sacrilege car—clear room for 18-inch Fiske forged wheels. With up to 500 horses pounding the pavement, Sacrilege wanted every millimeter of tire patch it could get, including Michelin Pilot Sports in a grippy 295/35ZR-18 size at the rear.
Porsche is protective of its trademarks, and Sacrilege has looked to play nicely with the company to avoid bruised feelings or litigious wrath. Porsche judged Sacrilege’s original, four-quadrant logo as uncomfortably close to its own. The new logo is the engineering symbol for “battery,” surrounded by dots that represent electrons filling the cell.
That Blackbird’s modest-size battery pack limits range to about 200 miles, “If you drive it like Miss Daisy,” Wagenheim says. Call it closer to 150 or 170 miles in more aggressive hands. A fast detour on Big Tujunga Canyon Road reveals the 500-hp Sport mode as a glutton for battery power. Here, the EV 911 sprints like the cartoon Road Runner—it’s here, then gone—but you can practically watch the needle drop on the battery level. Wagenheim, who has helped put 18,000 miles on the Blackbird, says Sport mode is mainly good for blowing away cars and drivers who underestimate this seemingly standard vintage 911. I dial back to “Chill” mode, whose 350 horsepower and 350 pound-feet of torque are ample. And another hat tip to Mr. Singh: Smooth throttle tip-in avoids jerky reactions at stoplights or around town.
The Blackbird’s electrohydraulic steering rack is robustly weighted, though it could benefit from more tactile feedback as g-forces increase. Regenerative brakes are ideally tuned for spirited driving, including useful simulations of engine braking. Charging downhill into cliffside turns, a throttle lift smoothly slows the car without my having to touch the brake pedal. Sport mode markedly dials back the regen level. The physical pedal itself links to Brembo stoppers, including six-piston calipers up front. I’d prefer more initial bite from those brakes, but the founders say the tuning aims to please a more typical driver.
A single-speed EV transmission connects a simple black console rod to a cueball knob made from ebony Macassar wood. To me, the biggest performance bummer is a 911 you can never shift, even if it’s steering-wheel paddles and a PDK. The loss of that engaging pastime, along with the nostalgic tune of an air-cooled flat-six, may be a bridge too far for some potential customers.
But the Sacrilege partners aren’t looking for people who want some museum-level, all-original classic. Porsche itself is looking to educate and convert owners to electrification, a little at a time. On a more exclusive scale, Sacrilege just needs its own early adopters, iconoclasts, and free thinkers who see intriguing upsides to an electric sports car.
To wit: “There’s no hassle, almost
no maintenance, and no gasoline,” Wagenheim says, and a two-year, bumper-to-bumper warranty. Sacrilege currently has six cars in production at its facility near Lime Rock Park Raceway in Connecticut. Order one today, and the company figures it can deliver in about one year.
A final run on the roller-coaster of Angeles Crest finds battery level holding dead-steady over 15 miles—an electric freebie, thanks to energy recapture over our thrilling descent of several thousand feet. With about 35 miles of remaining range, we set course for a Pasadena parking garage and an oasis of Electrify America fast chargers. Here, Sacrilege’s petite battery becomes a plus, refilling from 30 percent to 80 percent in 20 minutes and to 95 percent in 35 minutes. The best part? Drivers go goggle-eyed at the sight of a “classic” Porsche squeezing in for a fill-up between Mercedes EQS’ and other EVs.
Even as other entrepreneurs seek to convert Porsches to electric drive, a Sacrilege Motors car is bound to be a surpassingly rare sight. If one does pull up alongside you, even a Porsche fanatic might have no idea what it is…until the stoplight turns green.
