This drowned Porsche was resurrected and transformed into a track legend
- This Porsche 911 spent five years underwater
- It was hauled out and given a full restoration
- Now it’s back on the road and looks better than ever
Published on May 04, 2025 at 9:39 AM (UTC+4)
by Claire Reid
Last updated on May 01, 2025 at 2:21 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Emma Matthews
This Porsche 911 spent five years submerged in a river before being hauled out and given a complete RSR racecar tribute rebuild to get it back on the road.
Italian Porsche enthusiast Paolo Lacometti rescued the classic car from a river in just outside of Tuscany.
As you can imagine, with so much time under water the Porsche was in terrible shape when it was hoisted out onto dry land.
But it’s since been given a complete ‘Limoncella’ makeover and the incredible 993 is back on the road.
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The Porsche 911 spent years underwater before it was rescued
For a car enthusiast, there’s something extremely special about seeing an abandoned classic car getting a worthwhile restoration.
For instance, this Toyota Celica GT-Four that was revived by its new owner, and this barn find Ferrari 512BBi that was brought back to life after 17 years off the road
And over in Italy, car lover Paolo Lacometti decided to go the extra mile to repair this absolutely destroyed Porsche 911.
The poor old Porsche had ended up at the bottom of a river for years before it was pulled out.
But while most folks would probably think the car wasn’t even fit for scrap, Paolo had other ideas.
He spent years carefully restoring and rebuilding the vehicle, turning it into a ‘lemon yellow 993 RS tribute’ with the help of a local specialist workshop.
To start the ambitious Limoncella Projekt, which Paolo documented on the limoncellaprojekt Instagram page, the Porsche had to be completely disassembled and then rebuilt.
It’s now back on the road and looking better than ever
The finished vehicle is a mix of new parts, an RSR-spec seam-welded chassis, and some of the original components that had survived their time underwater.
The Porsche racecar tribute was also given a fresh lick of paint – in an eye-catching shade of yellow.
Recent posts on the limoncellaprojekt show the car is now back on the road and looks every bit as good as the day it rolled off the production line.
As for the man behind the restoration, he believes that if you put in the hard work you can achieve great things.
“There is a space where possible and impossible don’t exist, it is the space where potential becomes action, and it is in that space that magic happens,” he wrote in a recent post.
Very well said.
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Claire Reid is a journalist who hails from the UK but is now living in New Zealand. She began her career after graduating with a degree in Journalism from Liverpool John Moore’s University and has more than a decade of experience, writing for both local newspapers and national news sites. Claire covers a wide variety of topics, with a special focus on cars, technology, planes, cryptocurrency, and luxury.
