The one-off Porsche 911 Speedster in Otto Yellow, created for designer Luca Trazzi through the Sonderwunsch programme.
Credit: Porsche AG
There is Porsche individualisation, and then there is Porsche Sonderwunsch.
The German word translates simply as “special request”, although that slightly undersells what is effectively Porsche’s in-house department for turning extremely ambitious ideas—and occasionally extremely questionable colour combinations—into factory-built reality.
This is not merely a longer options list or another level of Paint to Sample. Sonderwunsch is where owners can work directly with Porsche designers, engineers, upholsterers, body specialists and historians to create something that may never exist again.
The programme’s philosophy is straightforward: “You dream it. We build it.”
Naturally, the size of the dream is expected to bear some relationship to the size of the bank account.
Three different levels of special
Porsche divides Sonderwunsch into three main areas.
Factory Commission allows a new car to receive bespoke colours, materials and details while it is still moving through the original production process. This is the entry point, although “entry level” is doing some fairly heavy lifting here.
Factory Re-Commission is intended for an existing Porsche. The car returns to the factory for a comprehensive technical overhaul, together with a complete redesign of its exterior and interior. Older cars may require a full Porsche Classic restoration as part of the work.
Factory One-Off is the summit. This is where Porsche may design and engineer unique body panels, lighting, trim, aerodynamics or other components specifically for one customer’s car. Provided the request can be made safe, technically credible and road legal, Porsche will at least investigate it.
The customer becomes part of the project team, receives access normally reserved for Porsche employees and follows the car through development. The concept stage alone can take around a year; particularly complicated cars have required almost three years to complete.
There is no handy online price list. Once Porsche understands the request and has inspected any donor vehicle, it works out whether the idea is feasible—and presumably whether the owner is sitting down before presenting the estimate.
The wonderfully yellow 993 Speedster
One of the finest demonstrations of the modern programme is Luca Trazzi’s extraordinarily yellow 911 Speedster.
Trazzi, an Italian architect, designer and committed Speedster collector, owned examples from several Porsche generations. The obvious gap in his collection was a 993 Speedster, principally because Porsche never produced one as a regular production model.
Rather than continue searching for a car that did not exist, he asked Porsche to build it.
The project started with a 1994 993 Carrera Cabriolet and took more than three years. Its unique Speedster body incorporated a shortened windscreen, bespoke rear cover, Turbo-influenced bodywork and several details inspired by earlier generations.
Underneath, Porsche fitted the engine, chassis, steering and brakes from the 993 Carrera RS. The naturally aspirated 3.8-litre flat-six produces approximately 300 horsepower, so this was considerably more than a cosmetic exercise.
Then there is the colour.
The luminous paint was developed specifically for the project and named Otto Yellow, not after a historic racing driver, circuit or obscure shade discovered in the Porsche archive, but after Trazzi’s dog.
Inside, black leather is contrasted by individually hand-cut and hand-sewn yellow-and-black checks. The pattern continues into the luggage compartment, touring bag and car cover. Illuminated door sills glow in Otto Yellow, while a gold “One-Off” plaque confirms that the owner is unlikely to encounter another one in the supermarket car park.
Despite its classic appearance, the car also received Porsche Classic Communication Management with navigation and Apple CarPlay. Even fantasy needs Bluetooth.
Porsche has been entertaining unusual requests for decades
Sonderwunsch may sound like a modern luxury programme, but Porsche has been accommodating determined customers since the 1950s.
In 1955, industrialist Alfried Krupp requested a rear-window wiper for his 356 A Coupé. That sounds laughably ordinary now, but it was sufficiently exotic at the time to require factory experimentation.
When he wanted the arrangement repeated on a later 356 B Carrera 2, the larger rear glass presented a problem. Porsche mechanics reportedly cracked several windows while drilling the required hole before finally succeeding.
Things became more adventurous from there.
A customer’s 1968 911 was transformed for the 16,000-kilometre London–Sydney Marathon with an external protection cage and an exhaust pipe extended to roof height for river crossings.
In 1975, drinks magnate Count Gregorio Rossi asked Porsche to convert a 620 PS 917 racing car for public-road use. Indicators, mirrors and a silencer were fitted, and the resulting machine was registered in Alabama before being driven from Stuttgart to Paris. Apparently, even in the 1970s, American registration authorities could occasionally be persuaded to take a relaxed view of things.
The 1983 Porsche 935 “Street”, created for businessman Mansour Ojjeh, combined a slantnose body with Candy Apple paint, Creme Caramel leather and wood trim. It was the 1980s distilled into one very fast object.
Then came seven specially built Porsche 959s for a member of Qatar’s ruling family. These featured unique colours, matching buffalo-leather interiors, personal family crests and exhaust outlets plated in 24-carat gold.
Credit: Porsche AG
Gold-plated exhausts may not improve gas flow, but when ordering seven 959s, ordinary stainless steel could reasonably be considered a little pedestrian.
The new Flachbau RS shows how serious it has become
The latest evidence of Sonderwunsch’s engineering capabilities is the Flachbau RS, unveiled during Monterey Car Week in August 2026.
Based on an almost-new 2018 911 GT2 RS with the Weissach Package, the car was developed by Porsche Sonderwunsch with Style Porsche, Weissach engineers, Porsche Motorsport and Manthey.
Its flattened front wings and stacked LED lights reinterpret the appearance of the legendary Porsche 935/78 “Moby Dick”. The bodywork, front bumper, fuel-filler arrangement and lighting all required redevelopment rather than superficial alteration.
Credit: Porsche AG
Credit: Gooding & Company
Porsche created three test vehicles and subjected the design to crash simulation, aerodynamic analysis, wind-tunnel development, lighting tests, endurance work and more than 50 laps of the Nürburgring Nordschleife.
The redesigned rear wing sits on distinctive S-shaped supports and can produce approximately 554 kilograms of rear-axle downforce at high track speed. Lightweight alterations also removed nearly 32 kilograms from a car that was hardly burdened with unnecessary furniture to begin with.
This is the important distinction. A Sonderwunsch one-off is not simply a modified Porsche carrying an official badge. It can be engineered, tested and documented with the same seriousness Porsche applies to a production vehicle.
Even the Cayenne gets invited
The programme is not restricted to valuable air-cooled 911s and unobtainable supercars.
In 2025, Porsche completed its first Factory Re-Commission of a first-generation Cayenne. The starting point was a 2009 Cayenne GTS with approximately 50,000 miles—not a forgotten prototype or museum piece, but a used SUV.
Credit: Porsche AG
It emerged in Blackolive with matt-black lower bodywork, off-road tyres, a thoroughly retrimmed interior and an American-style towbar. Its owner planned to use it to pull an Airstream caravan through the Rub al-Khali desert.
That may be the most revealing Sonderwunsch project of them all. The programme is not solely about increasing a collection’s value. At its best, it allows someone to take a car they already enjoy and turn it into the precise Porsche they wish had existed.
A Carrera GT has received similarly comprehensive treatment, being stripped, mechanically overhauled and refinished in the red-and-white Salzburg racing design of the 1970 Le Mans-winning Porsche 917.
Credit: Porsche AG
Porsche documented it as being returned to “zero-kilometre” condition, although its owner fully intends to use it on the roads of Puerto Rico.
Good. Cars deserve stories, not just climate-controlled storage.
Inspired individuality—or factory-approved madness?
Not every Sonderwunsch creation will appeal to everybody. That is rather the point.
A one-off designed by committee to avoid offending anyone would merely become another production specification. These cars reflect individual people, memories, passions and, occasionally, dogs.
Some results are elegant. Others are gloriously loud. A few will undoubtedly make Porsche purists reach urgently for the smelling salts.
Nevertheless, the craftsmanship and engineering behind them are difficult to dismiss. Sonderwunsch occupies an unusual space between factory production, restoration, coachbuilding and the modern restomod movement. The difference is that Porsche itself is holding the spanners, searching its archive and signing off the finished vehicle.
For those with the imagination, patience and financial firepower, the configurator is apparently only the beginning.