‘Million-Mile’ Matt Farah Battles L.A. Traffic in Custom 911
Known for his podcast and a certain Lexus, Matt Farah’s daily driver is an ’87 Carrera 3.2 inspired by Leh Keen’s own Safari 911.
Los Angeles is both a place and no place for a 911 (or any Porsche) to roll upon. On the one hand, the “City of Angels” is a haven for car culture. Hot rodding and the National Hot Rod Association both started in L.A. The Petersen Automotive Museum serves as the center of automotive history. The Los Angeles Auto Show presents the world another look at the latest and greatest. And of course, we live here, too.
At the same time, though, the sprawl only gives people more room to crowd up. As for the roads, they’re pretty rough on one and all. One man, though, has found a solution for these drawbacks. Porsche recently did a great profile on, and photo shoot with, the “million-mile man” himself, Matt Farah, and his daily custom 911.
â€Although we are blessed with places like the Angeles Forest and Malibu Canyons, two of the finest places on Earth to drive a sports car, the city itself is a nightmare,†Farah said. “The infrastructure is crumbling, repairs are rarely thorough, the freeway expansion joints are a sports car owner’s worst nightmare, and for a city as ‘spread out’ as LA is, it’s awfully crowded all the time. It can be a real challenge in low, modern sports cars.â€
His original solution was a Ford Raptor, whose off-road suspension and thick tires mitigated most of the problems he found. Alas, the Raptor is also a big truck, one not suitable for tighter spaces. Thus, he looked to a fellow Porsche fan (and two-time Rolex Sports Car Series GT champion) Leh Keen for the right-sized solution.
“The Keen Project” takes any G-model 911 from 1979 to 1989, and transforms it into a street-legal rally car, dubbed the Safari. Farah drove the first-ever Safari a few years ago, and immediately found the car for his daily life. Thus, he sourced an ’87 3.2 Carrera in Cassis Red for the transformation.
“The color was actually a bit of a controversy,” said Farah. “I had originally planned to paint any car I found Dalmatian Blue, which is probably my favourite Porsche colour of all time. I was just looking for any clean coupe with a G50 gearbox and straight body. As luck would have it, the guy I bought the car from was not exactly Annie Leibovitz, and photographed the car at high noon, which makes Cassis Red look horrific; like Cyndi Lauper’s lip gloss.”
Upon seeing Cassis Red in person, though, he fell so in love, he had the original paint wrapped in color-matching vinyl for protection. From there, Keen went to work on transforming the 911 into a rallying machine, including the same off-road rubber as his Raptor, and cloth inserts derived from L.A.’s public buses for the seats.
“It is literally my daily driver,” said Farah. “I recently loaded three bushels of firewood behind the rear seats. I mean – it’s not meant for attacking the canyons or going to the racetrack, it’s meant for going to the shops, driving to my office, running errands and then taking to the dirt for some fun. It really is the best parts of a Baja truck, and the best parts of an air-cooled 911.â€
Photos: Porsche/Larry Chen
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