The Porsche MOMO 356 RSR Outlaw by Rod Emory and his team is one of the fastest street-legal Porsche 356s anywhere in the world. That said, although the car is officially titled as a 1960 Porsche 356 it’s actually more of a Porsche Greatest Hits Album – all rolling on custom MOMO wheels and Pirelli P Zero Trofeo R tires.
Rod Emory is unquestionably one of the most famous Porsche customizers in the world, he comes from a long line of automotive icons starting with his grandfather Neil Emory at the Valley Custom Shop that started out in Burbank, California in 1948. Neil’s son Gary (Rod’s father) took up the mantle and founded Gary Emory’s Parts Obsolete, becoming one of the most essential Porsche parts shops in the USA and a well-known custom Porsche builder.
Rod Emory took over from his father and he’s grown the concept of the Emory Outlaw from custom Porsches that were hated by the purists to an entirely new species of Porsches that are now typically worth much more than their numbers matching, all original counterparts.
When Rod Emory unveiled the Porsche MOMO 356 RSR Outlaw at the at Luftgekühlt in May of 2019 the reactions were intense to say the least, Rod remembered “People had strong reactions when we debuted the 356 RSR at Luftgekühlt in May. It was too over the top, even for some of the forgiving purists – something we’re used to after being branded Outlaws by the period-correct owners decades ago.”
Over a year later and the Porsche MOMO 356 RSR Outlaw has aged well, the initial shock of its unorthodox appearance has mellowed and the car is now widely respected for its astonishing performance capabilities.
The 356 RSR Outlaw build began when Rod Emory posted a rendering on social media of what an RSR version of the Porsche 356 might look like. The RSR designation has only ever been used by Porsche to denote extreme examples of its racing cars starting with the 911 RSR in 1973, years after the 356 had left the production line, and so there was never an official Porsche 356 RSR. Henrique Cisneros, Chairman of MOMO Automotive Group, saw this rendering and loved it. He contacted Rod and the two men drew up a plan to build the car with distinct MOMO influences.
The donor car was a 1960 Porsche 365B with a solid roof but not a lot else, this didn’t matter to Rod as he knew he was going to need to fabricate a lot of the frame and bodywork. Once the core chassis of the car was complete it included 356 elements, 911 elements, and a significant amount of custom work to withstand the forces that were going to be put through it.
Rod opted to use the suspension pick up points from the Porsche 964 911, with a braking system that uses a combination of Porsche 964 and Brembo callipers and rotors, and a suspension system that uses a blend of Eisenlohr Racing parts with Tarett Engineering sway bars and KW dampers.
The team at Emory Motorsports fabricated a new bespoke aluminum alloy body panels for the car with styling that’s avant-garde whilst still combining good aerodynamics with a wider and longer footprint than the original 356. The engine is a remarkable piece of engineering in itself, I’ve added the official description below from Emory
“The Emory-Rothsport Outlaw-4 is a very special creation. Its concept is simple, based on the 3.6-liter dry-sump engine architecture from the Type 964. We designed an original sand-cast 4-cylinder case that incorporates the best features from three different iterations of the venerable 911 engine. We then designed a proportionally shortened camshaft housing which is machined from 6061 billet. Our custom crankshaft and camshafts mate perfectly with Porsche OEM parts. The twin-plug engine design can be configured with distributor and carburetors or crank-fire/coil-on-plug and EFI with proprietary ITBs.”
In its configuration in the 356 RSR Outlaw the engine has a displacement of 2.4 litres with twin Garrett ball-bearing turbochargers from TurboKraft. There’s a Porsche 935-style boost controller mounted to the dashboard allowing the engine to be adjusted from 325 to 375 hp – all in a sub-2000 lb vehicle.
The car is fitted with a set of wheels that evoke the styling of MOMO’s classic 5-spoke centre lock wheels that were used on the Porsche 935 and 962 race cars of the 1970s and 1980s. The interior of the car was designed to look reminiscent of the Porsche sports racing cars of the 1960s, it has a MOMO Prototipo steering wheel with distressed leather rim on a quick-release MOMO hub. The car also has a Rothsport shift lever to accept a MOMO Heritage Line Targa shift knob, and a set of MOMO pedals that were custom made for the project – machined from aircraft-grade 6061 aluminum.
The car is now for sale into private hands, if you’d like to see more or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing on RM Sotheby’s.
Images: Drew Phillips ©2020 Courtesy of RM Sotheby’s
Articles that Ben has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
