Swiss Tuner Rinspeed Chops the Porsche Cayenne to Create Chopster

Like the name Chopster suggests, the Cayenne has gone through a dramatic "chop", or lowering of the roof. As previously

A Jekyll/Hyde transformation: what started out as a Cayenne Turbo is now the hulking Chopster. (Photo: Rinspeed)

mentioned, this distinctive part of hotrod culture involves dramatically shortening the pillars for the purpose of increasing top speed by lowering drag resistance, which dates back to the common top-speed shootouts held on desert salt flats. Rinspeed's donor Cayenne had its A, B, C and D pillars shortened by a whopping 150 mm (roughly six inches). Compared to the old days of chopping hotrods, modern day safety regulations require intensive structural work to ensure safety, unheard of in the '30s, '40s and '50s when seatbelts didn't even exist in most cars.

With fifteen centimeters of high-tensile steel missing from the Chopster's pillars, Rinspeed realized that the roof and what remained of the pillars wasn't enough to protect its passengers in a collision and maintain standard levels of rigidity, especially in a rollover. In order to compensate for the lost strength, Rinspeed's engineers analyzed the structure finding that the best remedy was to remove the rear doors, and then strengthen the surrounding pillars and window frames. The

The Bedouin was a radical go-anywhere pickup/utility vehicle/sports car based on the 911 Turbo that helped to inspire the Chopster. (Photo: Rinspeed)

conversion from five doors to three restored the loss of stiffness, and gives the Chopster a truly unique appearance.

One look and it's easy to see that the visual modifications didn't just stop at the doors and roof. The original proportions of the Cayenne Turbo were kept intact, including the unmistakable headlamps and general layout of the three-piece front grille, but the SUV's face has been reworked with larger "black out" intakes for the front-mounted intercoolers, which lead off to a valance stretching well below the defined edges of the regular Cayenne. Both front and rear fenders have adopted large extensions which follow the arched contours of the wheel wells before stopping by the vertical running lines of the front door and tailgate.