Every August, car enthusiasts, engineers, and connoisseurs gather on the Monterey Peninsula for ten days to revel in exceptional automotive design. The Quail is one part of that event, offering an exquisite selection of motorcars and conceptual vehicles on display. If you love cars, it’s your chance to see some truly wondrous things, and this year, a retro-inspired Porsche based on the 959 made a huge debut — the Kalmar Automotive 9×9. With its gorgeous carbon-fiber body, 930-horsepower turbocharged rear engine, and cutting-edge technical innovations, it certainly took the scene by storm. Here to talk a bit more about that experience and the Kalmar 9×9 is Jan Kalmar from Kalmar Automotive — the company’s founder and self-proclaimed petrolhead.
So, take a seat, get buckled in, and let’s go.
Under the hood of an icon: Kalmar’s 9×9
Dubbed “The Retro Hypercar” and hailed as the peak of automotive haute couture, the Kalmar Automotive 9×9 is a tribute to “the greatest road-going Porsche of all time.” Based on the original Porsche 959, the 9×9 has been modernized uniquely and innovatively. For instance, the driver’s instrument cluster features a solid balance of analog rev-counter options and digital screens to give it both a retro and contemporary feel. But screens and instruments hardly classify as innovative. It’s the sum of its parts, or everything else crammed into the 9×9, that makes it so glorious.
Talking about the original model, Kalmar explains they really didn’t have to update as much as you’d think:
“I think the original that we pay tribute to was one of the most significant spokes cast that the world has ever seen. Back in 1986, it had adaptive 4-wheel drive and adaptive turbo, like variable turbo. It had tire pressure control in 1986… it [had] things you only see…the last couple of years. That car had that so, for me… that car is so super nerdy that there was nothing else to do but to try and enhance [it]; [it has] quite a lot of resemblance with the original.”
“And [yes] you can do seven minutes with [our] car, but you can also go shopping in it because we are not there to build race cars.”
He also delves into the updates on the 9×9, or more specifically, the elements that haven’t been changed from the original because it was so incredible.
“Personally, I don’t believe in inventing the wheel again,” Kalmar says. “For instance, with our engineering company, we more or less [consider] what is the best rear axle or rear suspension you can find out there where money is more or less not in question, and it just was so clear that the 912RE axle is delivering what we were looking for. So why go out and totally re-engineer something that our engineering company knows very, very well? That specific axle, in many regards — bulletproof. And the same thing with the engine. You can do all sorts of fancy stuff with engines, but you won’t get effortless 930 horsepower as we have done.”
So, the updates are there, just perhaps not as sweeping as you might expect when it comes to performance and power.
“And, believe it or not, we haven’t had to open the engine Like we have an engine on the dyno doing 1,300 horsepower. Now there, we had to open the engine. But up until just under four-digit number, it keeps pushing more out on the dyno and saying, ‘Is that all you have to throw against us?’ The engine is so strong, and we’ve changed things around the engine. But inside, it’s mega strong,” he says.
“And the same thing with the gearbox. It’s almost [blasphemous] at the moment to do a non-manual car. That’s why we do both manual and PDK. I think, when you look at the lap times… they all set with PDK for a reason. Yes, it weighs 30 kilos more, but the gains on lap time, it’s just there because it shifts so fast, and you’re always in the right gear,” he says.
Shifting Gears: The Kalmar vision
When asked to explain the philosophy behind Kalmar Automotive and this 9×9 release, Jan Kalmar touches on the customization aspect they provide customers. Each Kalmar Automotive conversion, including the 9×9, is made to customer specifications. That also means no two vehicles from the brand will ever have the same design or the same driving characteristics.
“Because we want to be modern coachbuilders, we sign with every customer that there will never be two identical cars. So not just [the] color interior, but…we go into extreme also with our normally aspirated engine, and discuss with the customer how they want the power delivery,” he explains. “If they want camshafts that are low and high end, if they want tall horsepower, the stiffness of the bushes, if not going all the way to metal or steel mono balls. So, it’s this tailor-made idea that the customer is basically invited into the designer studio and into the engineering studio.”
“It is the process leading to a very individualized and bespoke product.”
He continues, “Obviously, we have customers that cannot speak engineering, but they can say what it is that they are that they are looking for. Then, we, with our team, try to change it from Danish, English, German, Swiss, or whatever to engineering so that the engineers can create it in a cat or a simulation or whatever. And that goes for all our cars.”
It’s certainly not something that every automotive manufacturer out there is doing, but doing it this way, as Kalmar says, results in something truly special: “It is the process leading to a very individualized and bespoke product.”
But make no mistake about it—the 9×9 is no slouch. It is powerful in all three variants: the Kalmar 9×9, 9×9 “Sport,” and 9×9 “Leichtbau.”
To design the vehicle in terms of performance and power, the Kalmar team approached it with a simple concept: How fast can it go? “So, there were many different things that [led] up to why we did what we did and how we did it.”
“We have set a time. We want to do a seven-minute lap time, for instance. I’m not sure that there are any hypercars except the 918 Spider that has done seven minutes. We’re quite confident that we can do seven minutes with our car. And [yes] you can do seven minutes with [our] car, but you can also go shopping in it because we are not there to build race cars.”
In other words, it is a fast car, but racing wasn’t necessarily the focus. At the end of the day, these are supercars that customers will buy and drive, like any other.
“We are there to build cars that you go in.”
Time to take some supercars for a joy ride
It’s clear by the end of the interview that Jan Kalmar truly believes even the most beautiful of vehicles out there deserve to be driven as you would any other car. In his own words: “Cars are meant to be used.”
When discussing common misconceptions about hypercars, Kalmar mentions that we don’t see many real-life performance details about them because they aren’t driven. “I think a lot of hypercars have not been tested enough. So they’ve become garage Queens.”
Interviewer Dan Gaul agrees: “Yeah, a lot of people want to buy them and use them kind of like a piece of art, right?”
“Yeah, but I have several customers that have extremely valuable cars and even though their pockets are extremely deep, they still say I don’t want to drive it,” Kalmar says.
Both sides of this discussion make good points. Take an expensive car out onto the streets, and it could get damaged or even worse. But at the same time, it’s not doing the car any good sitting for long periods either. It’s an age-old dilemma that, just perhaps, will never be clearly defined. What do you say, dear reader? Would you drive a supercar if you had one? Do you have one?
As always, I recommend watching the full interview. It’s a great time, and Gaul and Kalmar discuss a lot more than you read about here.
