Tim Gregorio yells at me to shift a moment after the needle sweeps past 7,000 rpm. Gregorio is Singer Vehicle Design’s man in charge of client relations; I trust his judgment. And even though my size-14s take up 97 percent of the pedal box, I click off the best 2-3 shift of my life. Click. Click. Boom. Like cycling the pump action of a Remington 870. The throttle, the clutch, the shifter, the steering—every one of the controls feels fluid and pure, the epitome of mechanical sympathy. It's taken, oh, nine seconds behind the wheel, puttering down an access road and onto the highway, to know there's something to the Singer myth: the weight of the controls, the feel of the materials, the inexplicable familiarity of it all. I'm driving a car literally made for someone else, yet everything about it feels purely for me. Singer has made a name for itself by restoring vehicles for folks who crave cars like this. Since 2009, the company has delivered dozens of bespoke air-cooled 911s, stripping vintage Porsches down to their bones and reconstructing them with the finest materials and the utmost pride. It’s become so successful, the company’s name has become synonymous with the pinnacle of automotive restoration-slash customization.

And as a result, the company’s customized 911s have grown almost to the status of legend. I'm in Ketchum, Idaho to find out if there's any truth to the stories of Singer’s greatness. The air is thin up here, more than a mile above sea level, yet the 911 doesn't seem to care. Tim swears he can feel the difference in the naturally-aspirated 4.0-liter six, but for someone without his frame of reference, the car pulls like it's powered by the dreams of a million Porschephiles. In this era of computer-controlled powertrain perfection, speed like that comes cheap. Acceleration isn’t the car’s greatest trick; no, that would be the sounds it makes as it goes about its good work. Wind through the tach’s travel, and the engine’s growl turns to a yell, the yell to a scream, and the scream to a howl. You can play the car like an instrument, the throttle changing pitch and volume in linear harmony. Put simply: this 911 customized by Singer sings.