My Porsche 996 Turbo Has A New Interior And This Is The Best Day Ever

I just picked up my car from the interior shop, and I'm absolutely giddy. It's been damn near three years since I first sat down with Two Brothers Automotive and Spotlight Customs in northeast Ohio to develop a plan for my 996 Turbo, and today is the culmination of all of that work. I ordered the first parts for this complete aesthetic overhaul back in October of 2023, and a whole lot of crazy stuff has happened since then. What started as a somewhat-haggard, Seal Grey on Graphite Grey, 90,000-mile 2001 Porsche 911 Turbo, is now a vision in Ocean Jade Metallic with a full color-matched leather and wool interior. 

I keep pinching myself, imagining this car will disappear once I wake up from this dream. I was an impressionable 14-year-old car enthusiast when this car debuted. I distinctly remember buying an issue of Evo Magazine in Heathrow Airport on my way to a foreign exchange program in Spain when I was a high-school senior, largely because it had a 9FF-modified 996 Turbo on the cover. This car has worked its way into my psyche in a way that won't ever come loose. I am my 996 Turbo, and my 996 Turbo is me. With all of these custom touches, it's an exact reflection of my desires. It's perfect.

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My intention has always been to drive this car for decades. Miles equal memories, and I suspect this car will connect me with lots of places, people, and memories until I perish, or until gasoline is no longer economically viable; whichever comes first. This new interior reinforces that vision. It has me even more excited to get out there and rack up the miles. Who wants to go for a drive?

Sean, the proprietor of Spotlight, has been assembling custom interiors for twenty years, but he struck out on his own to do this full time around a decade ago. He takes great pride in what he does, and it's obvious in the finished result. During the process, I've been stopping by his shop every few weeks to gab about cars for a bit, adding more work (and more to my bill) every time I stopped in. But the upside was that I got to see Sean as excited about the finished product. 

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I wanted this build to stick to an OEM+ style of modification, and Sean definitely obliged. If it weren't for the three-spoke Momo carbon steering wheel, you might not be able to tell that this car wasn't as-built by Porsche. With the carbon roof installed, Sean and his crew had to devise a new headliner system and delete the overhead console as the car no longer has a sunroof. I also didn't want the rear seats in the car any longer, so Spotlight developed some matching cloth and leather hole plugs for the rear seatbelt mounts (above). 

Between what I spent on the carpet kit, the 991 hardback sport bucket seat, leather, cloth, and labor, I could have probably bought myself a nice Boxster or something. Or, you know, paid down my mortgage or something smart like that. I never said I was smart, but I'll be damned if I'm not happy. This is easily the coolest car I've ever owned, and it's so great to drive something that isn't a beat up junker that constantly needs work for a change. I'm getting closer to forty with every passing day, so I'll just chalk this up to being my midlife crisis car.

I will admit, the anxiety was rising inside of me as I would get text messages from Sean with images like the one above. I kept telling myself that it has to get worse before it gets better, but seeing my pride and joy torn down to a level where I knew I could never put back together myself made my heart race a little. That's not to say I didn't trust Sean to do the job, just that I was a little ball of manic energy, and it didn't take much to get me into a doom spiral. The car turned out great, though, and I'm so happy with the end result. 

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Even better, when I picked up the car, Sean handed over a nice little matching gift for my wife. My giant sheets of green Italian leather ended up leaving a few scraps to work with when the work on the Porsche was done. Sean's wife Dena has her own side gig making jewelry, and turned a couple of those scraps into cute leather leaf earrings. My wife loves them. 

There are still a few more tweaks to the car to get it properly finished. I ordered a set of coilovers to fix a suspension clunk, and I need to order and install the carbon fiber front trunk lid. Then, there's still an airbag light I need to figure out how to make go away. It also needs a nice set of matching floor mats. And now that everything is finished up and clean, I notice the faded brake calipers need a good polishing, and the aged and pitted three-piece wheel hardware could do with replacing. This project is almost done, I promise. But is any project ever truly done?