Gunther Werks Kombustion Open House
Huntington Beach, CA
May 20, 2023
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Kombustion 2023 felt like stepping behind the curtain at Gunther Werks’ Huntington Beach headquarters—part open house, part rolling symposium on what a reimagined 993 can be. Held on May 20, 2023, the evening drew owners, fabricators, and the merely obsessed into a space where carbon-weave, billet, and race logic take center stage. In that glow, the cars read less like builds and more like arguments for a philosophy: keep the analog soul, escalate the engineering.
One centerpiece for me was the fully exposed carbon-fiber “Exoskeleton”—a stark, all-business statement of intent. With the bodywork left bare, the weave becomes narrative: structure as style, weight savings as design language. Porsche Club of America has called it Gunther Werks’ one-and-only fully exposed carbon car, and seeing the layers and junctions in person clarified why—it’s both sculpture and systems diagram, an x-ray of how these machines are made to work.
Then there’s the Turbo development mule—the prototype that previews GW’s twin-turbo program. The spec is purpose-built: a Rothsport-developed 4.0-liter flat-six with race-style flat fan, six-speed manual, rear-drive, and numbers that skew outrageous for an air-cooled 993 (around 750 hp in a ~2,700-lb package, depending on tune). I’ve included a short startup clip in this gallery because the mechanical bark says as much as the data does: instant, dense, and unmistakably air-cooled—just pressurized.
Across the lot, details stacked up: carbon panels that catch sodium lights like hammered glass; panel gaps you measure with a breath; cabins trimmed for grip and feel rather than spectacle. Kombustion distilled the Gunther Werks thesis for me—heritage preserved where it matters (steering, pedal feel, the way a 911 loads a corner), with every other variable fair game for improvement. In a single evening, the brand’s arc came into focus: from bare-weave exoskeleton to turbocharged prototype, all of it anchored by a simple idea—make the analog experience sharper, faster, and more durable without sanding off what makes it human.
