If someone told you they were building a half-scale Porsche 917 in their garage, would you believe them? That’s exactly what artist Jonny Ambrose is doing over in the British Midlands. Well, okay, so it isn’t a functional re-creation of the legendary Porsche race car, but it is a somewhat abstract sculptural representation. And that’s just one of the incredibly cool pieces that Ambrose is working on.
On the walls of his workspace hang dozens of three dimensional artworks depicting classic Porsche road and race cars in silhouette and detail. Some of these designs are much more closely related visually to their real world counterparts than others, but they are all distinctly Porsche in design and inspiration. Ambrose got a degree in Fine Art at Nottingham University in the early 1990s, but his Porsche passion has been life long. In these display pieces the two can meld.
Porsche had this to say about his style:
His design language today celebrates the elegant, organic shapes created by race car designers, using a mix of media from solid woods and aluminium to resin and carbon fiber, often gently exaggerating their aerodynamic forms to create a visceral sense of speed.
Aside from the massive spindly sculptures of thin stick, Ambrose is also working on a series of smaller scale Porsche designs created with additive manufacturing. He’s also working on a re-creation of the original 935 Moby Dick in hand-cut carbon fiber. The artist works with a number of different media, including various metals and woods, as well as 3D-printed plastics.
“For decades, the rich racing history of Porsche has been a constant source of inspiration for me,” Ambrose says. “Their race cars are sculptural forms, and there’s such variety, from the sleek ad beautiful 908 through the 917s, the often-overlooked 936, the radical step change to the 956 right up to the 919 today. They’re all so different, and all such bold and expressive designs.”
Ambrose has already done the 917, so next time he says he’ll probably move on to the dominant turbo terror 956.
“My ambition this time is to do a full-scale model in the same vein as the 917,” he says, “hopefully as a centre piece of an exhibition or show. Porsche celebrates the 40th anniversary of the 956 next year, which creates a fascinating if challenging proposition for me. It’s another beautiful and unmistakable form with another extraordinary backstory. I can’t wait to see how it evolves.”