From a distance, it’s a pretty ride. The Southern California car scene is packed with Cars-and-Coffee builds that are over-the-top spectacular in both appearance and performance. Since Patrick Long’s Luftgekhült car shows further elevated the status of early air-cooled 911s, SoCal has become a haven for ultra-beautiful resto-mods. One might be excused for walking by the 1972 911S you see here with just a nod and a smile. But when super-car-guy Bruce Meyer climbs out with a grin a mile wide, commenting that this is his favorite driver, the car commands more attention. After all, Meyer’s garage is an arsenal of very special rides, and his opinion sets high expectations for anyone taking a closer look.
If you’re not familiar with Mr. Meyer, he is one of the world’s preeminent collectors of fine and fun automobiles, motorcycles, and boats, with a collection that includes many one-of-ones, race winners, and first-builds of famous marques, not to mention a first-class library of automotive books and collectibles. His personal motto is “Never Lift”. It’s no surprise, then, that he received the 2025 Lorin Tryon Award at the Pebble Beach Concours during Monterey Car Week, recognizing his contributions and achievements in the car world. It’s an honor well-earned.
He’s also one of the most energetic and friendliest people you’ll meet, always eager to share his enthusiasm with anyone close enough for a handshake. His tall, slim stature, topped with his trademark crisp straw cowboy hat, commands attention. Yet his demeanor is always warm and inviting. Besides his own personal collection, Meyer is the founding chairman of the Petersen Automotive Museum and continues to serve on its board as the co-vice chair of the board of directors, as well as being active in many other automotive and charitable organizations in California and around the country. Efficient and commanding in business matters, he’s also one of the most fun people in the car world and enjoys every “toy” in his collection as if he discovered it yesterday. If he talks up a car, you know it’s special.
Delivered from Stuttgart in 1972 as a Signal Orange 911S, our feature car was later repainted white by a previous owner. Blue wheels and a matching Carrera panel logo completed the transformation. That owner also added performance upgrades, including steel fender flares and a duck-tail spoiler—a common practice before originality became prized. For nearly 30 years, it served as an RS clone until Meyer brought it to its current configuration.
Meyer already had an authentic 1973 911 Carrera RS Touring that he enjoyed driving, but as he noted, “the values of those things have gone so high that I’m afraid to drive it around except on very special occasions. So I was looking for something that would perform well, be fun to drive, reliable, and that I wouldn’t worry about as much. It used to be sacrilegious to change anything on a Porsche. But we can thank Singer and Rod Emory for making hot-rodding Porsches a legitimate part of the culture. Sure, there are cars we want to keep purely original, but we can also have cars that we personalize without it being a bad thing.”
From our first walkaround, we notice that its finish—inside and out—is nothing short of faultless, even more beautiful for its subtlety than any of the raucous “custom builds” nearby. Its color is a two-stage Mercedes-Benz Anthracite Grey Metallic, glowing with a subtle aura of menace. A slower look reveals the understated 1973 RS flares surrounding 205/50VR15 front, 225/50VR15 rear Pirelli Cinturato P7 tires, renowned for their excellent handling in both wet and dry conditions. They’re mounted on pristine 15-inch Fuchs wheels, 7.0 inches wide in front and 8.0 inches wide in back. Peering through the spokes, one can’t help but notice the 930-generation 911 Turbo four-piston calipers that grip cross-ventilated discs. The car is stiffly sprung and lowered, refreshed from its previous build with 1974-spec RS bits including Bilstein B6 upgrades, but not uncomfortably. Tony Callas of Callas Rennsport sorted and tuned the suspension. The result is a lower center of gravity and a purposeful stance that seems to quietly whisper, “Drive me.”
This is obviously a car meant to eat up twisty mountain and snaky canyon roads, yet still cruise comfortably on the streets of Los Angeles. Though he doesn’t take it on long trips, Meyer notes that he’d be very comfortable driving it on a multi-day tour. As Callas describes the car, “so many of these resto-mod cars are overdone with too much power, too harsh suspension, flares too wide, and outlandish, unreliable or finicky power bands, but not this one. It’s easy to drive, handles well, and sounds delicious.”
A slower walk around reveals one thing unexpected for those not familiar with the 1972 vintage 911s: a small flap on the right-rear quarter panel, located just behind the passenger door. Since there’s already a fuel-filler on the left-front fender, this must be the oil-filler flap door. Keep looking, and don’t overlook the number on the rear grill, which reads 3.0 instead of the usual 2.4! That’s a number not available to the general public until 1974. Its finespun statement is quiet, yet bold. This car is a sleeper of the best sort; the kind that makes you wonder if it really is what you think you’re seeing.
Receipts show that the upgrade was originally done by none other than the legendary Andial shop founded by Arnold Wagner, Dieter Inzenhofer, and Alwin Springer; the shop known for building winning 935 and 962 engines for IMSA’s golden era of the late 1970s and 1980s, not to mention builder of some monster street-car-based engines. If you weren’t already impressed, wait—as the Ginsu knives commercial exclaimed—there’s more. Much more.
Peering through the windows or the open sunroof, one can’t help but be struck by the simple yet elegant interior done by Robert Aubrey. He also did the paint, decor features, factory sport seats, and a four-point roll bar, RS America-type door panels, and a rear-seat delete in favor of a luggage shelf, complete with compartments and securing straps. All upholstery is beautifully fitted with Carrera Red leather perfectly complementing the anthracite-hued exterior, with a period-correct Blaupunkt AM/FM radio peeking through the dashboard. The leather in the seat center panels and covering the luggage shelf is exquisitely quilted, giving it a look and feel one usually only finds in Italian sports cars.
The steering wheel is simple, covered in gray leather matching the exterior, with the instrument cluster neatly finished in black. The carpet perfectly matches the leather, providing a unified field of color. Viewed as a unit, it is purposeful, simple, yet elegant, setting the car’s overall appearance miles above any pretenders deigning to park close enough for comparison. As Meyer says, “ It’s one of my favorite color combinations. If I were to order a Porsche today, this is what it would be.”
Popping open the trunk lid, one finds a clean gray exterior-matching carpet, revealing only the shock-tower cross brace. In back, the engine compartment is businesslike, all Porsche; there’s no chrome or cleverly-painted fan shrouds. Though the stickers say the engine is 2.7 liters, we know it’s more. Matching numbers show its engine case to be original to the car, now bored and stroked to its current capacity.
The twin-plug, air-cooled 3.0-liter flat-six conservatively produces 240 horsepower, a substantial 50 hp gain over a standard 1972 911S. Anyone who has been around the car remarks that it has a unique sound; deeper, throatier, meaner than a typical ’70s-era 911, but with an air of refinement that only drops away under hard acceleration as it starts to come on song. As it turns out, the car carries stock sport mufflers, but with fewer baffles, giving it a sound more reminiscent of the original 911 RSR racers.
Though we didn’t do measured performance tests during our time with the car, to say its acceleration is strong when called upon is a stark understatement. Callas says the car has “monster torque.” Or, as Meyer claims, “the 3.0-liter engine makes it easy to drive. Unlike most high-performance Porsches of that era that have a high-revving, narrow power band, this car has enough torque at the low end to make it easy to drive in just about any circumstance. It’s extremely fast, reliable, and enjoyable.”
We were lucky enough to photograph the car before the devastating fires that enveloped much of the Hollywood Hills area in early 2025, so our photos reach back to that time before the devastation and we express our sympathies to those who suffered and are still dealing with the aftermath. We hope our photos can be a reminder of better times without being insensitive.
We started from downtown Beverly Hills, then toured up through the stately Mexican Fan palms lining North Beverly Drive. Even in a neighborhood in which nice cars are the norm, Meyer’s car was a head-turner. Eventually, we wound our way into the hills of the Mulholland Drive overlook, winding our way through the twisty roads as the car came into its own.
Even through a camera lens, this 911S’s crisp handling is obvious: it attacks each corner with precision, flowing effortlessly through apexes and exits. As Meyer describes it, “This car not only talks the talk, but walks the walk. It’s just so entertaining to drive. It defines what I like. It really is the most fun car I own.” It showed.
