Professional racing driver Romain Monti has spent two decades driving some of the fastest cars on the planet. So when he decided to build a road car just for himself, the choice said a lot about his career and his taste. He picked a Porsche 996, bought it cheap, built it up piece by piece, using parts from Design911.

A Career Built on Porsche

Monti’s route into motorsport is the classic one. He raced karts as a kid, then moved to single-seaters at 14 in the Peugeot Spyder Cup. Strong results there put him on Porsche’s radar.

“At the time, with my results in the Peugeot Spyder Cup category, Porsche was looking for what they called young talent,” Monti explains. That call-up led to four years in the Porsche Carrera Cup France, a series that has launched countless factory GT drivers.

From there, his career moved through Maserati and Lamborghini. He won the Trofeo Maserati road series in 2015. He took a class win at the 24 Hours of Spa in 2018 with Lamborghini. This season he raced in the Alpine Cup’s European Championship and finished third overall, winning his class.

It’s a résumé built almost entirely on GT3 and GT4 machinery. But Monti is quick to point out that racing looks a lot glossier from the outside than it feels from the inside. “When you’re a driver, on TV you just see the beautiful things. But people don’t really see all the background work. It’s a massive job — being prepared, testing, practising, learning the car and your teammates. Mainly, though, it’s about finding the budget to race. That’s one of the most important things.”

The Car That Started the Project

The idea for his own 996 wasn’t born in a workshop. It was born on an oval track in Canada. A team invited Monti to drive the 24 Hours of Daytona Classic in a 996 GT3 Cup car, and the experience stuck with him.

“It was a really nice, naturally aspirated flat six, with a sound that was just insane. We were doing the revs down the oval at night, with a massive manual gearbox — the car was hitting around 270 km/h down the straight. It was a massive memory. I told myself: when I go back to France, I’m not hesitating anymore. I’m buying one.”

Monti feels the 996 never got the respect it deserved. The car carries a reputation problem, mostly down to its headlight design. He thinks that reputation masks how good the car actually is underneath. “People don’t know that it’s a good car. It’s really fun to drive. For me, it’s completely undervalued. The 996 was the 911 of my generation. For me, it’s a proper 911.”

He found one for around €20,000. He deliberately chose the cheapest example in France, saving his budget for upgrades rather than the purchase. “The idea was to buy the cheapest one, then add upgrades and build the 911 of my dreams. This is just the beginning of the project. It will keep evolving. I want it to be exactly what I want it to be, in the end.”

Building It With VOB Automobiles and Design911

VOB Automobiles, the Porsche specialist workshop and showroom near Paris, is handling the mechanical work. For parts, Monti turned to Design911.

“Working with Design911 was just the perfect match. It helped me find a lot of the pieces I needed for the car, to replace parts worn from age and mileage. I found a lot of parts in OE match.”

The service and suspension work leaned heavily on that OE-match range. The team fitted OE-match control arms and suspension components, and replaced the bushes, joints, and silent blocks from the same catalogue.

Alongside the mechanical refresh came the visual changes. These mark the car out as a build, not a standard 996: a retro-style ducktail spoiler, a coilover setup that drops the ride height, and a set of EBC brake discs and pads for sharper, more consistent stopping power.

For a build running across Europe, logistics mattered as much as the parts themselves. “Design911 was a perfect partner. It helped me find the pieces I needed and get fast delivery. With the warehouse in the Netherlands, we avoid extra import fees on the parts. In the end, it was just perfect.”

What’s Next

The car already looks close to what Monti pictured on that Daytona oval. But the project isn’t finished yet. Next on the list: new stitching throughout the cabin, a refurbished headliner, and a final decision on paint colour.

“It’s starting to be my dream 911. We still have some work to do – the colour, the interior. We’re going to add some nice stitching and refurbish the headliner. We’ll work on everything. When it’s finished, it’ll be my dream 911.”

Follow the build on Romain Monti’s Instagram. VOB Automobiles is building the car, with parts sourced from Design911.