The Marc Philip Gemballa Marsien GT is an 830hp Porsche 959 for the 2020s

Porsche isn’t building a true supercar right now. There’s an unsightly gap where the successor to the 918 Spyder should be. Into that vacuum, Porsche-adjacent companies are VERY happy to pour their idea of a 911-ish supercar. There’s the Kalmar 9X9. The Tuthill GT-One. The RML GTH. And the Singer DLS-T.

And now there’s Marc Philip Gemballa’s take: the new Marsien GT.

The brainchild of late Porsche tuner Uwe Gemballa’s actual child, the Marc Philip Gemballa Marisen GT is the road-focused version of the Marisen off-road supercar which TopGear.com exclusively drove (and jumped…) back in 2024.

The easy thing to do would be snip the suspension, fit lower profile tyres and say ‘job done.’ But no. Marc Philip Gemballa says the only panels the cars share are the doors and roof – which is now home to a huge intercooler-feeding scoop.

The all-carbon bodywork now features a central-bonnet fuel filler, square-jawed 911 GT2 RS-style front intakes, reprofiled flanks and an aggressive diffuser. As well as new wheels and tyres and completely bespoke lower suspension (still with a 100mm nose lift) the GT also gets a quad-exhaust system from Akrapovic instead of twin pipes.

Does that mean more power? Heck yeah. Marc tells TopGear.com that every single buyer of the Marsien ticked the box to upgrade the RUF-tuned twin-turbo flat-six from 750 to 830hp. So the standard output for the GT is – you guessed it – 830hp. In the works is an upgrade to the upgrade which takes the GT beyond 900hp. Wonder how many of the 30 buyers will tick that?

MPG claims 0-62mph in 2.4 seconds and 205mph flat out. There’s no heady downforce claim or promise of a Nürburgring-munching lap time because somewhat refreshingly, this machine is intended as a useable road car, not a track-attack quasi-racer.

To create this new-age Porsche 959 complete with pumped-out tracks and huge hooped rear wing, Marc Philip Gemballa converts a 992.1 Turbo donor car: ideally a Turbo S, strictly a coupe, and not the current Turbo S with complicated e-turbos. That also means you get some features inside we miss in the current Turbo S. Things like a physical rev counter, and a twisty engine starter.

Twisting the drive mode toggle on the steering wheel pops up the active aero flaps in the front wing and on the main spoiler – think AMG One hedgehog mode. A fun party piece, but the details don’t stop there.

Look at the centre console. Not only is it angled more steeply than a standard 911 to pay homage to the central ‘bridges’ in the Porsche Carrera GT and 918 Spyder, the PDK gear selector is replaced with a manual-esque lever that looks very Carrera GT-ish. Nice.

MPG also adds more suede trim to the console to cover up Porsche’s tiresome use of cheap piano-black plastic. The Marisen GT even bins Porsche’s disliked pop-out door handles, much like Porsche’s own GT department does on the GT3 RS and 911 S/T.

But then you’d hope it looks and feels expensive, because the Marisen GT costs five times more than a new 911 Turbo S. Here’s how that breaks down.

The ‘GT’ conversion fee is €770,000, or about £650k. Plus taxes. Plus a donor car. Plus options. Now, donor 992 Turbo S coupes currently start at around £120,000. The average spend for options on the 40 off-roading Marsiens has been €227,000. All in, you’re looking at a cool million in pretty much whatever currency you’re trading in.

In our current crazy world of hypercars and Porsche-based project cars, that’s actually towards the reasonable end of the market. And besides, Porsche doesn’t appear to have any immediate plans to build a new hypercar…