The Porsche 911 Has An LS V8 Now, And It’s In The Wrong Place

An LS V8 in a Porsche 911 isn’t exactly new territory. People have been swapping American V8s into 911s for years. But Gary Reid has taken the idea somewhere Porsche definitely never planned for it: he has put an LS in the front of a 996-generation 911.

Reid runs ShowTime, an Australian company better known for building wild drift and stunt cars for appearances at selected Supercars Championship events. This 911 is one of its biggest projects yet. It has already taken more than 1,800 hours of work, and the car still isn’t finished.

The original 996 has also been almost completely reshaped. ShowTime built a new body around it, borrowing some of the visual language from the 997. The headlights, front bumper, splitter, and canards are all custom, while the front and rear fenders have been widened and hand-formed from aluminum.

Then there’s the part that makes this 911 genuinely strange. The engine is no longer behind the rear axle. ShowTime reworked the front structure, fitted suspension and brakes from a 911 Cup Car, added a new firewall, and fabricated a custom cross-member to make room for the LS V8. Reid says it’s the first front-engined V8 911 ever built.

The engine itself is still something of a mystery. Reid hasn’t said which LS he started with or how large it is, but it won’t stay stock. Two turbochargers are being added, with the finished engine sending its power through the rear wheels. Exactly how much power it will make is still unknown, but the setup should put it a long way beyond the performance of the original 996.

There’s a funny story behind the whole thing. Reid had originally listed the car for sale when someone messaged him and said he couldn’t fit an LS into it. Apparently, that was all the encouragement he needed. Instead of selling the 911, he decided to prove the guy wrong - and turned a fairly ordinary 996 into something Porsche never made.