THE DETAILS · VOLUME 25
THE COURAGE TO SUBTRACT
ETEREA IPERLEGGERA and the search for mechanical honesty
- WORDS
- JACEK DUDASZ
- IMAGES
- DEGLER STUDIO @DEGLER_STUDIO
Automotive progress is usually measured by addition. More power, larger screens, another layer of software between the driver and the road. The figures have become extraordinary, though the experience does not always move forward with them. At Milano AutoClassica 2025, a small Italian project offered a different answer. It had no digital ecosystem or autonomous functions, and did not attempt to be the fastest car in the hall. Its priorities were weight, craftsmanship and direct mechanical response.
The car is called IPERLEGGERA. It comes from ETEREA, a new brand founded by automotive designer Andrea Di Buduo, and uses the Porsche 964 as its foundation. Describing it simply as a restomod does not quite explain where it came from. The project began with paintings. During his years inside large automotive organisations, Di Buduo spent much of his time translating other people’s ideas into production designs. The work was collaborative and shaped by the practical demands of a global industry. Painting gave him a space without those limits.
“Painting was the first time I was building something entirely mine,” he recalls.
Familiar competition Porsches began appearing on the canvases: 911s, 935s and 917s. One remained particularly persistent, the 1974 Porsche 911 RSR Turbo, with its wide bodywork, oversized tyres and uncompromising proportions. Di Buduo began wondering how that idea might have developed in another direction. What would have happened if the RSR had evolved into a Speedster during the 1970s? IPERLEGGERA grew from that question.
“I stopped asking what would sell and started asking what I truly wanted to build.”
The first attempt came eight years earlier, when he created a digital CAS model reinterpreting the RSR. Practicality won at the time, and he built a conventional 1974 RSR Group 4 replica instead. The COVID period brought the original idea back into focus. “I stopped asking what would sell,” he says, “and started asking what I truly wanted to build.” His RSR replica had already become a test bed. Di Buduo redesigned lighting systems, refined components and explored details that later developed into AURA-X, a separate venture producing bespoke parts for classic Porsche owners. The larger project, however, remained unfinished.
A suitable donor appeared in 2024: a Porsche 964 that had previously been converted to 993 specification. Its structure was sound, while the altered exterior left fewer reasons to preserve the car as it stood.
By the summer of 2025, Di Buduo had booked a 100-square-metre display space at Milano AutoClassica. The commitment left little room for delay. The car was stripped that same week. Over the past decade, the restomod market has developed into an established industry. Specialists across Europe and the United States rebuild familiar cars with stronger engines, improved materials and carefully reworked interiors. The quality can be exceptional.
Di Buduo nevertheless saw a weakness in the formula. “There are beautiful restomods,” he says. “But many are catalogue assemblies. Beautiful parts bolted to beautiful parts.” ETEREA describes its own approach as a “neolog”: a new interpretation rather than a restoration of the past. For IPERLEGGERA, the practical method was subtraction. Aluminium and carbon-fibre bodywork helped bring the finished prototype down to 990 kilograms, alongside the removal of equipment Di Buduo considered unnecessary.
Some areas of the 911 were left alone. The bonnet and front-fender architecture remain unchanged. “Those lines are the 911’s DNA,” he explains. “Touch them, and you’ve built a different car.” Fuchs wheels, a Momo steering wheel and Recaro seats were also retained as references to the racing 911s of the 1970s. Beyond those points, the design was open to revision. The rear haunches became wider and more pronounced. At the front, the conventional fascia gave way to a cleaner surface incorporating ETEREA’s HALO 4 carbon headlight system. The changes are substantial, though the underlying 911 profile remains clear.
“Those lines are the 911’s DNA. Touch them, and you’ve built a different car.”
Choosing the 964 was equally deliberate. Introduced with ABS and greater structural rigidity than earlier 911s, it brought useful improvements without the electronic systems that would increasingly define later generations. Steering, braking and throttle response remain largely mechanical. Earlier cars lacked the structure required for a conversion of this scale. Newer models carried more weight and electronic intervention. The 964 occupied the useful middle ground.
Di Buduo’s preference for lightness also comes from his experience with his own RSR, which weighs around 900 kilograms and produces roughly 300 horsepower. “I always felt orphaned by the loss of Lotus thinking,” he says. Those figures appear modest beside current performance cars, but they work differently on a narrow mountain road. With less mass to manage, braking zones shorten, direction changes happen quickly and the steering has less work to hide.
The first IPERLEGGERA prototype follows the same logic. Its naturally aspirated, air-cooled flat-six produces around 300 horsepower. Combined with the 990-kilogram weight, that gives it a power-to-weight ratio comparable with many much newer sports cars. Future versions are planned with engines up to 4.3 litres and outputs above 400 horsepower. Power, however, was deliberately limited in the prototype while the team studied the behaviour of the modified chassis. Modern performance now operates at another scale. Electric hypercars produce thousands of horsepower, while vehicles weighing close to two tonnes can reach 100 km/h in less than two seconds. IPERLEGGERA was developed around a different type of speed.
- PROTOTYPE WEIGHT
- 990 KG
- NATURALLY ASPIRATED FLAT-SIX
- ~300 HP
- WHEEL SIZE
- 17 IN
- ITALIAN SPECIALIST WORKSHOPS
- 5
- EXPECTED ENGINE RANGE
- 3.6–4.3 L
- PLANNED OUTPUT FOR LARGER FUTURE VERSIONS
- >400 HP
There are no screens in the cockpit and no selectable driving modes shaping the response. The main controls are the clutch, gearbox, steering and brakes, accompanied by the sound of the flat-six. “The most entertaining thing I do with my life is drive,” Di Buduo says. “Actually drive.” Building the body required a similarly direct process. Rather than relying on stamped panels, the project used aluminium sheets formed by hand. Craftsmen worked the metal until the curves and reflections matched the design, checking the surface by sight and touch as well as measurement.
“The most entertaining thing I do with my life is drive. Actually drive.”
“We are living through the last chapter of a tradition,” Di Buduo says. “The people who understand form through their hands are still here. But their skills are slowly disappearing.” Five Italian specialist workshops contributed to the prototype: Antonicar, AURA[X], Mabert, Officine Guidi and Sifral Classic. Their work covered prototyping, restoration, fabrication and finishing. Coordination mattered because each stage depended on the one before it. A change made by one workshop could affect the fit, paint or finish handled by another. The completed body reads as a single design rather than a collection of separately produced components.
“The people who understand form through their hands are still here. But their skills are slowly disappearing.”
Its origins were considerably less practical. Di Buduo’s first sketch showed a single-seat barchetta with no windscreen and one continuous curve running from the nose to the rear. Homologating such a car would have been extremely difficult, but the drawing remained the reference throughout development. “The temptation is always to recreate what moved you,” he explains. “The discipline is to extract the emotion instead.” That meant studying the proportions of historic racing cars without reproducing their forms directly. Tyre width, body tension and the relationship between the wheels and bodywork were treated as starting points.
“The temptation is always to recreate what moved you. The discipline is to extract the emotion instead.”
Wheel size became one of the clearest examples. While many current performance cars use 19- or 20-inch wheels, IPERLEGGERA sits on 17-inch wheels. Finding suitable tyres was harder, but larger wheels disrupted the proportions of the body. “If a car looks right on small wheels, it will look even better as they grow,” says Di Buduo. The size also refers quietly to the 1993 Porsche 964 Speedster, which used 17-inch wheels. Weight reduction brought less subtle decisions. IPERLEGGERA has no roof and no side windows. Its windscreen frame was cut down and rebuilt to accept a lower Speedster-style screen.
These alterations affected the structure as well as the appearance. Removing each component changed the mass, balance and stiffness of the car. The team had to consider how the open chassis would respond under braking, cornering and acceleration before increasing engine output. That caution explains the specification of the prototype. Convertible bodies are inherently less rigid than coupés, and adding maximum power before understanding the chassis would have worked against the development process.
HISTORICAL / PROJECT MARKERS
1974
The Porsche 911 RSR Turbo becomes a central visual reference for Di Buduo’s idea. In the earlier phase of the project he also built a conventional 1974 RSR Group 4 replica.
1993
The Porsche 964 Speedster used 17-inch wheels — a quiet historical reference echoed by IPERLEGGERA.
2024
A suitable Porsche 964 donor appeared. It had previously been converted to 993 specification.
SUMMER 2025
Di Buduo booked a 100-square-metre display space at Milano AutoClassica. The car was stripped that same week.
DETAIL INDEX
- NEOLOG
- ETEREA’s term in the article for “a new interpretation rather than a restoration of the past.”
- CAS MODEL
- The earlier digital reinterpretation of the RSR mentioned in the project history.
- HALO 4
- ETEREA’s carbon headlight system incorporated into the revised front fascia.
- AURA-X / AURA[X]
- A separate venture producing bespoke parts for classic Porsche owners.
- 964
- The Porsche generation selected as the foundation for IPERLEGGERA, valued in the article for its structural rigidity and largely mechanical responses.
- RSR GROUP 4
- The conventional 1974 replica Di Buduo built during the earlier stage of the idea.
- FUCHS · MOMO · RECARO
- Elements retained as references to racing 911s of the 1970s.
Engine options are expected to range from 3.6 to 4.3 litres. The larger units may produce over 400 horsepower, but only after the behaviour of the lighter body and open structure has been properly assessed. None of this follows the easiest commercial route. IPERLEGGERA is expensive to produce, gives up several everyday conveniences and does not try to compete with modern cars through acceleration figures. “This car has no reason to exist by modern logic,” Di Buduo says. “It exists so you can admire the shapes, hear the noise, feel the wind on your face and be completely alive for as long as the road lasts.”
The likely customer already understands the history of the 911 and values the physical involvement of earlier cars. Ownership of a classic Porsche is not a requirement. ETEREA also sees IPERLEGGERA as an entry into analogue driving for people coming from newer machinery.
Each example can be developed with its owner from the initial sketch, although Di Buduo keeps some control over what is technically and visually possible. “Total freedom,” he says with a smile. “Except when someone shows up with an AI-generated image that cannot exist.” For now, IPERLEGGERA remains a prototype. A coupé version is being studied, and the same development method could eventually be applied beyond the Porsche 911 platform.
“It exists so you can admire the shapes, hear the noise, feel the wind on your face and be completely alive for as long as the road lasts.”
Before any expansion, the team wants people to drive the car. Di Buduo believes the response from behind the wheel will determine what the project becomes next.
