Marvia 911: The Bizarre Front-Engine 911 Clone from Indonesia

Marvia 911 is a Porsche 911 clone built on a Mazda chassis and sold in Indonesia in the 1990s with a very bizarre origin story. 

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Perhaps, though, the Marvia 911 is a bit too flattering. If you saw one driving down the street, you wouldn’t think twice about the fact that you had just seen a desirable Porsche. However, you wouldn’t have. Instead, you would have seen a front-engine copy of a 911 that was allegedly born of a deal gone bad between an Indonesian automaker and Porsche.

According to Porsche Club of America, the release date of the Marvia 911 is a bit hazy. Its source, Mobilmotorlama, claims that it was available as early as 1992. What’s even more bizarre, though, is that the manufacturer, Indomobil, was selling them at its own dealership while simultaneously trying to convince Porsche to let them assemble and sell real 911s. Let’s dive into this weird story and the specs of this Porsche pretender.

Where Did These 911 Clones Come From and Why Do They Look so Accurate?

Allegedly, Indomobil reached out to Audi requesting a partnership wherein the company would assemble Audi vehicles in Indonesia for the country’s domestic market. However, legend has it that Audi turned them down. Apparently, the four rings didn’t think Indomobil could build cars that would meet Audi’s standards. Indomobil pushed back, saying that it could not only build acceptable Audis, it could build acceptable Porsches.

The story goes on to report that Indomobil Executive Director Marvy Apandi imported a healthy amount of Porsche spare parts to prepare for necessary repairs. Though unconfirmed, there are even rumors that Porsche sent a couple of 911s to Indomobil to study and prepare for assembly in good faith. This is where things start to get a little inconsistent on the timeline, though. Allegedly, this interaction happened in 1993 while Apandi was silently manufacturing 911 clones via the company he founded; Marvia Graha Motor.

This might lead one to believe that Apandi was importing the parts and components to use in creating these replicas. However, sources claim that the 911 components found on the Marvia clones were fiberglass. Ultimately, PCA could not find any information from either Porsche or Audi about these bizarre potential partnerships. One thing we do know, though, is that they exist!

All the Porsche Show Without the Porsche Go

The Marvia 911 retained the suspension, five-speed manual transmission, and floorplan from the Mazda MR90 donor cars. In addition, it retained the hilariously underpowered carbureted 1.4-liter four-cylinder. So, where you’d expect to find some cargo space in a real 911, you found a hunk of undesirable iron that only put out around 70 horsepower. The chassis was cut and modified to allow the correct length, ride height, and overall appearance of a true 911. However, as one might expect, it doesn’t quite have the legendary handling characteristics of a real 911.

Ultimately, Marvia Graha Motor came to an end before the 1990s did, and had to pay a fine for the blatant 911 clones. Allegedly, Indomobil had struck a deal with Porsche to assembly and sell the upcoming 996 model 911s when Porsche discovered its affiliation with the Marvia clones and pulled the plug. Rumors say they even already had Porsche signage in the dealerships and had to pull it down. In total, only about 50 Marvia 911s ever hit the streets. Allegedly, some of those sales were solely to use the Marvia VIN to cover up illegally-imported real Porsche 911s, since Indonesia has a ban on importing sports cars.

We may never know the full story, but what we do know is that it’s quite fascinating. What’s also fascinating is the fact that folks are taking to modifying the Marvia examples that do exist. This includes a company called Autologi Autoworks, which built a turbo 13B rotary swapped example.

Is it bad that we sort of want to see one in person?

Images: Porsche Club of America