Ever looked at a Porsche 911 GT2 RS and thought, “Lovely, but could it be a bit more like a Le Mans racing car?” Well, someone did. And Porsche, rather wonderfully, said yes.

Meet the Flachbau RS, a one-off 911 GT2 RS transformed by Porsche’s Sonderwunsch department with help from Manthey. The brief was simple: make it faster, give it a proper slantnose and fit a rear wing inspired by the frankly enormous aero furniture of the 911 GT3 R rennsport.

The result is a modern-day nod to the legendary 935/78 “Moby Dick”, complete with flatter front wings, ultra-slim stacked LED headlights and a dramatic U-shaped bonnet graphic. Finished in Grand Prix White, with black and exposed carbon-fibre detailing, it looks less like a road car and more like something that escaped from a particularly well-funded racing team.

There’s plenty of engineering underneath the theatre, too. Porsche has managed to remove 31.6kg, while the new S-mounted rear wing can generate up to 554kg of rear-axle downforce at 340km/h.

The interior has gone on a diet as well. Infotainment, audio equipment, much of the sound insulation and other luxuries have been binned in favour of carbon fibre and exposed wiring.

Three test cars, 50 Nürburgring laps and almost three years of development later, Porsche has created what might be the ultimate factory one-off: gloriously excessive, properly engineered and unmistakably Moby Dick.