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Video: Half11: The twins ripping up Porsche’s history | Oilstainlab | Goodwood Masters

22nd June 2024
Simon Ostler
Oilstainlab is a manifestation of the dream many of us had when we were younger. Those of us who used to spend hours drawing amazing supercars perhaps dreamed of one day doing that for a living. In the case of Nikita and Iliya Bridan, they’re living the dream.

These Canadian twins set up shop in California in 2019 and established their own car company. Nikita had already built a successful career as a designer for global brands like Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, and General Motors, having a hand in the Innerspace Concept for Cadillac, but moved away from the mainstream to focus on helping smaller start up companies. He eventually teamed up with his brother to launch their own passion project, Oilstainlab.

We went to visit their base to find out more about the work they do, and take a closer look at the car they have built from scratch. It’s called the Half11, and it’s a reinvention of history that pitches the Porsche 911 as the car to overthrow the dominance of the Ford GT40.

It’s a tribute to an era of motorsport from the late 1960s to early ‘70s that delivered some of the most incredible but also frankly terrifying racing cars in history. The pursuit of limitless performance was rife throughout endurance racing, with the likes of Can-Am also developing ever more powerful cars.

The Half11 has been designed to mirror that mindset, it’s a car that is intended to be scary to drive, to be honest it’s scary enough just to look at. Nikita calls it a “slightly more sophisticated Can-Am car”, and having spent time with it we believe him. It’s powered by a savage V8 and treats the driver decidedly poorly, but that feels like a worthy sacrifice to get a drive something as cool as this.

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