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I spend a lot of time with fellow R Gruppe buddies in the USA over the course of a year, travelling with my friend and car photographer Jamie Lipman. Jamie and I catch up with the latest must-see Porsche 911 hot rods, and shoot and write stories about them.

Through my Stateside trips, I’ve met some great people. Fuchs expert Harvey Weidman is one, Arizona desert resident and Martini RSR/Kremer ST builder Gib Bosworth another. This year I met yet another 911 addict: Sam Gassel, from Virginia Beach. These three guys have all played a part in building one of the coolest 911s to come out of the USA for some time.

Bosworth is fast becoming a legend in race replica circles. His much-admired Martini RSR homage now lives in the UK, with R Grupper Mike Moore. Mike’s been building it up into an FIA-approved recreation of the 1973 Targa Florio car, which won the event at the hands of TwinSpark Racing’s sponsor, Gijs van Lennep. Mike will be running the car at the Targa Florio anniversary: I see some sweet TwinSpark road trip synergy here.

Weidman needs no introduction to Fuchs fans. Harvey’s wheels grace some of the best 911s in the world. Sam has already proven himself a talented car builder, too. His sweet Viper Green ’72 911 E  and drop dead gorgeous ’70 T in Pacific Blue are both beautiful cars. Now the trio have had a hand in building another honey.

I remember when Gib emailed me a few years ago with pictures of the Dalmatian Blue widebody 911 roller project, seen above. He’d just bought the car from an estate, on the proviso that the car be finished as it was started.

Gib planned to build it into a replica of the ’73 Penske RSR, painted in similar Sunoco colours, raced by Mark Donohue in the Daytona 24 hours of that year (above). However, his Kremer ST project took longer than expected to finish, and the Light Yellow ST that came along in the middle took a little enthusiasm away from the Penske car, so Gib decided to pass it on to a Grupper with the energy and drive to see it through. That man was Sam Gassel.

After some top-notch work by Sam and his trusty Virginia helpers, the Sunoco RSR is almost finished. And what a work of art it is! I can’t wait to get myself out to Virginia and take a look at the car in the metal. The  pics here should give you an idea of the level we’re talking about.

TwinSpark are assembling RSR kits where fans of the ST and RSR looks will be able to buy complete kits of suspension, brake, engine and transmission parts to build PROPER recreations like Gib and Sam’s cars. Watch this space and the TwinSpark Racing Porsche Parts homepage for more news of this exciting development.