2026 Gunther Werks F-26 | PH Review

Homage to legendary Slantnose has 1,067hp of turbocharged Mezger muscle and a single driven axle. Just imagine

By Sam Sheehan / Wednesday, 15 July 2026 / Loading comments

If 330hp was enough to earn the original rear-drive 911 Turbo the nickname of Widowmaker, what do we call a 1,067hp Gunther Werks F-26? Forget sending you home in a box, as the speedo nudges 170mph before the braking point into Woodcote, this rear-drive turbocharged monster feels like it could send you into orbit. But you expect rocket ship straight-line performance from a four-figure output. The more pertinent question is can a £1.2 million homage to the 930 Turbo Slantnose stop its spurs from jangling with just one driven axle on a wheelbase that’s shorter than a Mk8 Ford Fiesta’s?

Needless to say, Gunther Werks isn’t messing about. This now decade-old Californian firm, headed by Peter Nam, has already staked a claim to greatness by taming monstrous 993 builds with Rothsport Racing-built Mezgers via a line-up of seven-figure price restomods. But the F-26 turns everything up to eleven as arguably the most heavily re-engineered reimagining yet. Everything from that air-cooled 4.0-litre flat-six to the carbon fibre body and fully active suspension is honed for the F-26. Gunther Werks has even given the car an American fighter jet-inspired name, with the number also representing the total volume.

The carbon fibre body has been crafted using fluid dynamics, with its front sporting a 788HS-aping S-duct that adds so much downforce to the nose, the team had to extract more from the rear wing to balance it out. The front you see here, by the way, isn’t in Slantnose spec due to EU headlight regulations - but buyers will get the Slantnose parts with their car should they want to add the proper look and don’t mind giving the MOT man an extra fiver each year. Either way, the body features intakes and scoops designed purely to maximise aerodynamic performance and cooling, with the resulting attractiveness claimed as more of a byproduct. Even the 3D printed titanium door mirrors have been designed to generate downforce like an F1 car’s, although they retain space inside for the original 993 mirror electronics.

This performance-meets-convenience ethos is mirrored (ahem) across the whole car and inside it too. In the cabin you’ll find a carbon fibre dash and bucket seats, but soft leather cushioning and a single-din Porsche infotainment screen. The original 993 dials are there but they’re controlled by modern tech, so, for example, when you use the steering wheel dial to cycle through the three drive modes - Comfort, Sport and Track - the boost gauge flicks up and down to confirm the change. It looks retro but feels 2026-slick. Then there’s the exposed linkages of the six-speed manual gear lever, which are perfectly machined but still discreet, as they're finished in black.

The gearbox, by the way, is a bespoke build based on the 996 GT3's transmission with custom shift mechanisms, which can be had in long- or short-ratio iterations. The latter is what Gunther Werks proposes as a road ‘box, because it lets you use the gears more often at legal speeds. Whereas, somewhat counter-intuitively, the longer-ratio ‘box is the track one that creates a faster car around a circuit, because you spend less time off throttle, changing gears. This car has 750lb ft of torque, so it doesn’t exactly need short ratios.

The bump in muscle versus Gunther Werks’s ‘regular’ Turbo model (which has 850hp and 600lb ft), by the way, has been achieved partly from relocating the Mezger’s two turbos to lower in the engine bay, just ahead of the exhaust tailpipes. This allows for straighter pipes and therefore faster airflow. With 855hp-per-tonne, this 1,247kg car has over 200hp per tonne more than the new McLaren 788HS, or almost twice the anticipated hp/tonne of the next 911 GT2 RS. Although admittedly, the F-26’s peak power is only achievable with E85 fuel. Power is a measly 1,000hp with normal high-octane.

In fact, for PH’s drive during an exotic, multi-million pound cars trackday, it’s closer to 900hp. As a precautionary measure, Gunther Werks is running the car in a lower power setting after its weekend thrashing on the Festival of Speed hillclimb included a ‘mis-shift’ at maximum revs. The team would have been forgiven for packing up and cancelling the media drives after such an incident - but such is the confidence in the mechanical toughness of the motor that PH is let loose on Goodwood Motor Circuit with no instruction to hold back. The only request: don’t floor it past the noise monitor.

Aside from the astonishingly explosive way the F-26 piles on the speed as soon as we exit the pits, the first thing that stands out is how light the controls are. The pedals are still placed inboard of the foot well, so you sit with your torso twisted like in all 993s. But the throttle pedal and clutch have that familiar springy Porsche feeling, meaning you can be perfectly accurate with pedal inputs and rev-matching as you slice up and down ratios via a slick gear lever, which feels lighter and more positive through the gate with its new mechanism. This might be the longer-ratio ‘box, but the burst of power from 2,000rpm to 8,000rpm is so rapid that you’re still regularly forced to get that right hand grabbing for the wooden gearknob. Wait too long and there’s a hard rev-limiter waiting for you.

Pap-pap-pap. This motor sounds exactly like an old race 911’s as the fuel’s cut. Off throttle, it crackles and pops authentically through the tailpipes, but with none of the silly bangs that remapped road cars produce. Open the throttle, and wow. The boost does little to hinder the air-cooled, flat-six note; it’s a silkier, wilder tone than the bassier sound of water-cooled stuff at low revs, with a familiarly high pitch building as the revs rise. And rise quickly they will, because at track speed there is zero sensation of turbo lag, yet you are rewarded if you rev the motor out with epic thrust. Apparently, if they rev it over 8,000rpm, the Mezger can produce 1,100hp.

Big Brembo brakes and a pedal that’s progressive and full of feel mean the shedding of speed you’ve piled on can be race car effective, especially if you give the throttle a prod of heel-and-toe revs to maximise engine braking. This 4.0-litre spins up so freely that you can tug the gear lever back down the ratios in quick succession. And with fully adaptive, dynamic suspension that can adjust the damping 1,000 times per second, nose dive and squat is kept to a minimum even at maximum deceleration, albeit with some weight transfer to let you ‘read’ the grip. Roll into a corner and a hint of rear-engined understeer as per 993 tradition is present, but use those anchors as you apply lock and the F-26 darts towards the apex like its name’s inspiration, chatty steering keeping you confident about the chosen path.

This agility is aided by the extreme geo employed by the chassis, which includes -3 degrees of front camber and -2.5 at the back. Caster shifts the front axle forwards a bit too, while magnesium wheels wrapped in fully slick rubber ensure the mechanical loadings on a hot track are sky high. Yet the suspension maintains composure over Goodwood’s bumps and kerbs with some informative roll, while beyond that initial lean, there’s rock-solid body control. With this aero, damping and geo setup, the F-26 has a balance that feels more mid-engined than rear, rotating on request but never threatening to turn that 4.0-litre into a lethal pendulum.

Traction is, despite the evident power, phenomenal. With the slicks up to temp, full throttle exits are totally possible and you can even chase the loud pedal with some lock on if you’re feeling brave. Heck, if you’re clumsy and clout an inside kerb with a trailed brake, the car doesn’t fight back. It rotates a few degrees, lifts and bobs its inside wheel in a typical 993 way, but doesn’t stop you from firing onto the next straight with its arse squatting on the outside rear. The limits are ridiculously high, although even when you’re short of them, there’s so much energy and character to the way the F-26 goes about its business, it’s like an A110 in fast forward. At one point during our drive there’s even a 918 Spyder to overtake. After all, you’ve got a 180hp/tonne advantage.

Roll into the pits, dip the light clutch and you can move the car back to the paddock as if it were a standard 911. The F-26 might drive like a race car, but it retains a road car’s ease of use: pulling away and reversing with a slipped clutch is honestly a doddle. I’m even told that the suspension can be softened off so far in comfort mode that the F-26 rides on the road better than a modern Turbo S. Moreover, the team took it upon themselves to eliminate the low-speed scrub caused by the negative camber, so much so that it’s said to be better on full lock than a standard 993. And because the 993 is small by modern standards, it needn’t be an issue to park.

If you’ve got £1.2 million (and probably a bit more, once import costs are factored in) burning a hole in your pocket and you're after not only the ultimate in 993 restomods but also the ultimate turbocharged experience, period, then we’d look no further. A Widowmaker it is definitely not. So what do we call it then? A pussycat? A 1,000hp A110 in a very (very) exotic frock? No. Let’s call it what it is: the fastest, most exciting way to own an air-cooled, boosted 911 that doesn’t want to kill you. The Pacemaker, perhaps.

Specification | Gunther Werks F-26

Engine: 3,996cc, twin-turbo air-cooled flat-six
Transmission: 6-speed manual, rear-wheel drive with limited-slip diff
Power (hp): 1,067@7,600rpm (on E85)
Torque (lb ft): 750@5,600rpm
0-62mph: est. 3.0sec
Top speed: est. 230mph
Weight: 1,247kg
MPG: N/A
CO2: N/A
Price: £1.16 million