Motoring / Cars and Bikes

Paris-based bespoke car maker Ateliers Diva is Making Better Porsche 964s than Porsche

Parisian bespoke automotive artisans, Ateliers Diva, is making a name for themselves building classic Porsche 964 better than the original makers themselves. #CompromiseIsNotAnOption

Aug 14, 2019 | By Jonathan Ho

Composed of 2 generations of Porsches’ racers and collectors, Paris-based Ateliers Diva is  passionate and experimental team of Porsche addicts who have dedicated their whole life to perfecting Porsches. Ironically, their unique, bespoke Porsche creations end up better than what the original makers of Porsche envisioned.

Operating with a philosophy of “Compromise is not an option”, Team Diva consider themselves “car tailors” with a deep knowledge of Porsche heritage and an eye for elegance. Long time veterans, individual members have either been racing, maintaining or designing some of the world’s most famous Porsche legendary classic models or prototypes.

 

Paris-based bespoke car maker Ateliers Diva is Making Better Porsche 964s than Porsche

Though Ateliers Diva is really a family of automotive specialists in their respective niches, the core team is really three talented artisans and one veteran racer: Sébastien Crubilé has worked in the family workshop preparing, optimising, and fine tuning some of automotive history’s most legendary race cars. A race driver himself, Crubilé adds real life experience to Team Diva in the creation of their most advanced Porsche yet, the 964.

Hermidas Atabeyki is the team’s designer and founder of D3 Studio, the most prestigious French prototyping studio. Atabeyki’s knowledges and skills contributed greatly to Diva’s classic Porsche 964.

Rounding out Team Diva is Tristan Auer, a next generation interior design leader. From fitting out the houses of rock-stars to his latest achievement, the Rosewood Crillon hotel, Tristan combines a love for French heritage with a passion for modernity, and blends it into a heady cocktail of excellence in craft and a strong attention to details.

As Maison & Objet 2017’s designer of the year, Auer, a car enthusiast and Porsche 930 driver himself, provides Ateliers Diva’s Porsche 964 with the some of the most exquisitely refined car interiors that owners of factory-stock Porsches have never seen.

These in-house talents strip down donor cars, conceptualise and then create brand new creations with high-performance engines and competition inspired chassis, and carbon-fibre bodies combined with refined leather interiors for that ultimate blend of motoring performance and undeniable luxury.

State-of-the-art Crubilé Sport facilities on the fringes of Paris see a congregation of some of most skilled French artisans and the most-advanced equipment to build Ateliers-Diva cars : Power bench, 8 posts lifts, 3-D printers, a dedicated engine room, paint booth etc. All engines are fully built, prepared and tested by Team Diva in concert with specialists for carbon-body work, sound-system equipment, bespoke dials, leather stitching, etc; as a result each Ateliers Diva custom Porsche is a truly bespoke work of automotive art.

Each bespoke interior that reflects Team Diva’s taste for refinement and elegance. Ateliers Diva is building 25 each of Porsche’s 964 — coupe, Targa, and Safari —  with either a 4.0 ot 4.2 litre race-prepped flat-six 400 horsepower power-plant with 5 speed gearbox or 6 speed for 4WD,  the only limitation is the imagination of the client. These air-cooled Porsche 964 both in 2WD or 4WD, are either sourced by the Atelier or provided by their clients, the classic Porsches are then disassembled, treated by the best specialists in UK and France and then re-assembled in France with an all new carbon-body.

An anonymous gentleman driver, then takes these prototypes out for at least 15,000 miles in all conditions from city life to track days. Team Diva is tight-lipped on who their mystery test pilot is, only saying that he is someone who has raced the most legendary Porsches. His dream was to get the ultimate classic Porsche that he could drive on track and then head home in comfort with good music without being exhausted.

In short, a classic car that his kids or wife could drive whatever the weather or road conditions, and one that would also be a pleasure to sit in for hours in traffic jams or for a long drive to a favourite ski resort.

Each Atelier Divas Porsche 964 comes with unique specs such as special-size Fuchs wheels, and a “magic” button for snow & gravel, rain, race and street driving positions. The first Ateliers Diva Porsche 964 will be presented at Salon Privé this September.

 


 
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