Petersen Automotive Museum: The Magnus Walker Collection

Reviewed & Edited by Rex McAfee

Only in SoCal: The Urban Outlaw

Last year, to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the release of the short film Urban Outlaw, Walker was invited by the Petersen Automotive Museum to display 10 of his most prized Porsche’s within the facility’s highly exclusive Vault. “From that kid who wrote a letter to Porsche, here I am 45 years later, more passionate about it than ever,” says Walker, who is also showcasing some of his most notable collaborations with the likes of Hot Wheels and Nike. “I wanted to bring my environment into this space, share what it is I’m about and have people leave more inspired than when they walked in. For those who can make it for the final week, here’s some of what you’ll see.

1965 PORSCHE 911

This is a very early example of Porsche’s iconic sportscar – it is the 310th 911 ever made. Originally delivered to the famous Brumos Porsche shop in Jacksonville, Fla., it has a sport-purpose-built 2.0-liter motor, 901 5-speed transmission, early leather Schell bucket seats, 15 x 6-inch Fuchs wheels, and a gentleman’s racer exterior livery in silver, burgundy, slate gray and gold.

1976 PORSCHE 930 TURBO

This is the first Turbo sold in the USA-documented by the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart. Cars numbered 11-14 were press demonstrators, this one is vin #15 and a life-long LA car. Originally delivered to Bob Smith Porsche in Hollywood and rumored to have been ordered by actor Robert Redford, who never took delivery of the car. Walker’s friend Marty Mehterian worked on it for its two owners for 30 years prior to Walker’s ownership. “It’s the type of car that was driven hard and put away wet, re-sprayed a few times, used but not abused, it’s a piece of Porsche history.” – Magnus Walker

1967 PORSCHE 911 SRT

An R-inspired sport-purpose build commenced in 2010, this car appears in Urban Outlaw painted in primer with a black hood and orange bumper as Walker discusses the finer points of the build. The first Porsche 911 ever to bear hand-stamped louvers on the front fenders, it has a 2.5-liter custom twin-plug engine built by Wicked Sixes in Hamburg, Germany. The SRT boasts 271-horsepower and weighs just 2,050 pounds, with a custom close-ratio 901 transmission with straight-cut gears and a limited-slip differential. It rolls on Walker’s signature 15×7-inch Outlaw wheels. The interior is stripped bare, with exposed sheet-metal panels and floors. It has Walker’s punk-rock tartan seat inserts and tartan door-pull straps, along with a bolt-in rollbar. The car was painted in Long Beach, Calif., by Matt J. Bown in Walker’s favorite Porsche shade of iridium silver metallic, slate gray, and minerva blue.

1971 PORSCHE 911 T#277

The most famous Magnus Walker car, 277 started its life as a gold 911 T before Walker bought it at the Pomona Swap Meet in 1999 and transformed it into his signature streetable race car originally based on the iconic 1973 Porsche Carrera RS. It has a 2.8-liter twin-plug engine, a 915 transmission, and rolls on 15 x 7- and 8-inch Outlaw wheels. It also weighs just 2,250 pounds, all of which helped Walker race to victory during his hundreds of track days as part of the Porsche Owners Club circa 2002-2007. Since then, 277 has spawned its own Nike SB Dunk signature shoe, eight different Hot Wheels models, a character in the Need for Speed video game, and countless tributes.

1973 PORSCHE 914

This stock 1.7-liter 914 rolling on 15×7-inch Outlaw wheels debuted at the Mobil1 booth at SEMA in 2019. The goal: Showcase what anyone can do with a few cans of spray paint and a creative mind. Made without photoshop or computer graphics, Walker and fellow collaborator, the artist Felix Holst, who had sold Walker the 914, used sharpies, duct tape, and post-it notes to hand-apply the design and then hand-distress it in three days. They wanted to make the 914 look like it had been an old race car buried under a tarp in the desert for decades, which had  just been recovered, revealing its many different paint jobs and liveries. Creaked on a $500 budget, the little teener stood out among the many shiny high-dollar builds with its punk-rock, DIY attitude.

1978 PORSCHE 911 SC HOT ROD

The budget-build, sport-purpose hot rod comes with a stock 3.0-liter SC motor and is lowered on 16×7-inch Fuchs wheels. Completed in 2014, Walker’s first three-liter SC shows that a sport- purpose streetable 911 built on a budget can be an exciting, capable track car. The seats were purchased used for $500 and then re-covered with Walker’s favorite punk rock tartan inserts; the roll-bar came from the back of the spare parts bin in Walker’s garage. Wearing a set of fiber-glass narrow.bodied IROC bumpers painted burgundy along with a fiber-glass RS ducktail and hood painted flat black, the car represents a total project investment of just $20,000.

1980 PORSCHE 924 CARRERA GT

One of just 406 built, this 924 Carrera GT comes with a two-tone paint exterior of silver and minerva blue and a factory pinstripe velour interior, while rolling on 16×8 – and 9-inch Outlaw wheels. But its journey into Walker’s collection is what makes it truly special. Walker purchased it in 2015 after a fellow Porsche-phile in Sydney, Australia, fandomly emailed him insisting he had a car Walker should own. The 924 GT had come by way of Tokyo before stopping in Sydney and eventually finding its way to Walker’s garage in LA.

1990 PORSCHE 964

Completed in 2015, this is Walker’s most performance-oriented build to date. The goal here was not to back-date or wide-body the iconic 964 chassis. Instead, the car gained design cues and inspiration from the Porsche 356 to the RUF Yellowbird, with a dash of sport classic thrown in for good measure. First, the car maintains its stealth narrow-bodied silhouette, original bumpers and the majority of its original sheet metal. Then Walker added his signature louvered fenders and fender-mounted gas-cap filler, a channeled roof and hood, and a custom early three-liter whale tail. Walker deleted the rain gutter drip rails on the roof and added R-inspired integrated turn signals and plexi quarter-windows. Inside the cabin you’ll find a race-inspired stripped interior, a roll-bar, and, as a first for any 964, manual-crank windows from a 1965 Porsche 912. Mechanically, the 964 has a BBI-built 993 3.8 RS-spec motor, Brembo club race brakes, and KW coil-overs. It is rolling on 17×8- and 9-inch Outlaw wheels and weighs just 2,560 pounds. A notable departure from Walker’s famous color-blocked liveries, this car goes stealth in a bespoke Outlaw slate gray exterior paint executed by Matt J. Bown in Walker’s downtown LA chop-shop.

1995 PORSCHE 993 RS LOOK

A model Walker often described as “the Cadillac of 911s,” the 993 was far from the top of his P-car wish-list. This example came to him by accident as it was owned by his friend, Robert Angelo, an LA-based filmmaker and producer, who suggested Walker borrow it for a few days to see how he liked it. Much to Walker’s surprise, the car arrived wrapped in blue vinyl; it was not love at first sight. But the more Walker drove it, the more he liked it. And it quickly ignited his imagination as a potential art car, even though Walker often stated he would only paint, never wrap, his cars. After experimenting with paper tape graphics on the car, Walker settled on a vinyl strobe-like color-block application over the wrap, which was applied by Gino at Vader Werks in LA.

2004 PORSCHE 996 GT3

Often quoted as saying “we need both air and water to survive,” Walker took his own advice and purchased his first watercooled 911 in 2016. The 2004 Porsche 996.2 GT3 is one of Walker’s all-time favorite Porsche cars that he has ever owned. A modern interpretation of his favorite car, 277, the 996 remains analog in driving feel while representing a quantum leap in useable, streetable performance. The car comes with a livery inspired by the famous Brumos stripe design but twisted with two shades of blue on the stripes, a flat black hood, orange bumper accents, the iconic Porsche IROC rocker script, and a white racing meatball insignia to complete the motorsports-inspired look. Now Walker jokes that 2016 is the year the garage sprung a water leak.