Red Bull Advanced Technologies joins forces with Singer

Red Bull Advanced Technologies, the high-performance engineering arm of Red Bull Technology Group, joins forces with Singer, renowned for highly personalized restorations of air-cooled Porsche 911s, to design a strategy for increasing the torsional stiffness of Type 964 Cabriolets and Targas reimagined through Singer’s Classic Turbo services.

Founded in California in 2009, Singer represents a philosophy simply expressed as “A Relentless Pursuit of Excellence”, an ethos that is emulated at Red Bull Advanced Technologies with its expert engineering capabilities.

Singer’s work begins when the owner of a 964-generation Porsche 911 Cabriolet or Targa sends their car to them with the request to carry out a personalised restoration through Singer’s Classic Turbo services. Originally manufactured by Porsche more than thirty years ago, these sports cars have been on the road ever since.

The first step of the restoration involves the owner’s car being carefully disassembled. The interior is removed, as are the exterior bodywork and all mechanical components, until the steel monocoque (chassis) is revealed. The chassis is painstakingly assessed, cleaned, and prepared so that it is in optimal condition for the next stages of restoration.

On behalf of their clients, Singer asked Red Bull Advanced Technologies to deploy their world-class capabilities in simulation and structural analysis. The Porsche 964 chassis was digitally modelled using scanned data and manual measurements. Finite Element Analysis (FEA) software was then used to calculate the torsional stiffness of the different variants of the car (with and without a roof). The FEA model was then refined until the predicted stiffness values matched those recorded in physical tests.

Having correlated the model, Red Bull Advanced Technologies was able to use it to assess which parts of the open-roof structure were working the hardest to resist the applied torsion, primarily through looking at the strain energy. Using this insight, a formation of 13 carbon fibre structures were then designed to reinforce these parts, whilst still respecting the need to preserve the original Type 964 chassis and accommodate packaging requirements. The reinforcing structures were then built into the correlated FEA model, and tuned to give the required torsional stiffness level.  A prototype vehicle featuring the reinforcing structures was then tested as a final validation of the analysis work.

The 13 carbon fibre reinforcing structures developed by Red Bull Advanced Technologies are bonded to the 964 monocoque during the restoration process. Overall, torsional rigidity is increased by 175%. This increased chassis rigidity benefits handling, braking and overall refinement, with the driving experience of the open-roofed cars now matching that of the coupe.

Rob Gray, Technical Director of Red Bull Advanced Technologies said: “Our expertise is derived from relentless competition and success at the very highest levels of motorsport. We apply that expertise to engineering challenges across a wide variety of projects and industries. The challenge from Singer was to increase the stiffness of the open-roof Type 964, giving it the same dynamic performance as the coupe whilst minimizing additional weight. The careful balancing of performance against weight is extremely familiar to us and we’re delighted to have been able to support Singer and their clients with this solution.”

Mazen Fawaz, Chief Strategy Officer at Singer said: “Our clients are some of the most discerning drivers in the world. To achieve the standards they have come to expect, we work only with the best, and our search for expertise in this area led us to Red Bull Advanced Technologies. Since 2009 our approach has brought heritage together with cutting edge engineering, and Red Bull’s mastery of advanced materials, simulation and structural analysis perfectly exemplifies this approach. The results underline the extraordinary lengths we go to in our relentless pursuit of excellence”.

Singer’s Classic Turbo services allow owners to restore their cars taking inspiration from the original 911 Turbo, launched in 1974. Owners can choose to restore coupe, cabriolet or Targa body styles.

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