A 5.3-liter flat-eight engine, which is air-cooled, has been added to Runge Cars of Minnesota’s lineup. The engine will fit into the engine bay of a 964-generation 911 and also power the Runge R3, a light, mid-engine racecar. Runge is known for creating unique cars that resemble those of the 1950s. More than 300,000 Porsche vehicles were shipped worldwide in 2024. Most of them were crossovers. In business words, that means only good things. One fan says that keeping the lights on so that 911s can be made is at least financially possible. But what if you could find something that was more like the company’s old, air-cooled, built-in tools from a lumberyard? If you do that, please ensure that you know it comes from Minnesota, not Stuttgart or Austria. One of Runge Cars’ newest creations is a loud, flat-eight engine with four valves per cylinder and two sets of overhead cams, cooled by air. It’s like the Jurassic Park method used on the Le Mans leviathans; it has a displacement of 5.3 liters and moves like a monster. It’s designed to power the company’s future R3 supercar, and it can rev as high as 9,000 rpm and as low as 10,000 rpm. It could also be put in the engine bay of a Porsche 911 with a 964 frame. For a good introduction to Runge Cars, let us take a step back. Christopher Runge started the company in 2010. He used to be a professional snowboarder and was working for Burton at the time. Since he was a youngster, Runge has been interested in cars. At first, lucky things seemed to happen all the time. For example, Runge found a collection of old metalworking tools in North Dakota while buying a 1960s Porsche 912. He chose to buy them all. He began creating cars that were more like tributes than exact copies, such as the specials used in endurance racing in the 1950s. He built his name by doing things over and over again, starting in a barn in Minnesota. Actor Gary Oldman is one of Runge Cars’ regular customers. He drives a Runge RS, an ultra-lightweight gull-winged car with a polished aluminum body and a 2.3-liter flat-four engine that makes just under 200 horsepower. The Hetzer, Runge’s new flat-eight engine, is expected to produce approximately 600 horsepower; however, test results have not been made public yet. By today’s supercharged standards, it doesn’t have a lot of power, but hearing a flat-eight engine tear up air molecules at 9000 rpm is sure to get your heart racing. The Hetzer flat-8 will power the Runge R3, a mid-engined racecar that weighs just under 1800 pounds at the curb. Consider a Porsche 908 from the late 1960s, which boasts precise and up-to-date specifications. Although Runge designed it to accommodate the 3.6-liter flat-six engine of an M64 Porsche, there’s no reason it couldn’t also fit in the back of an old 911. Think about how heads will turn when you drive by in a 911 from the 1980s that sounds like the Mulsanne Straight from 1968. How much? Runge offers an upgrade for the M64 flat-six cylinder head, which costs $30,000. As a result, it will be expensive. But in a world full of Macans and Cayennes, this kind of fun is still worth the high price. Custom-made by hand. Expertly put together. Runge Cars might only make a hundred of these engines. It has plans to keep selling everything it has.
