A Self-Taught Fabricator
MARTY ROBB AND HIS 200 MPH MONA LISA
STORY | Ben Abrams
PHOTOGRAPHY | KARL NOAKES
At the very end of dead-end streets is where you might find the most interesting of people. These are people who want to remain focused on their own projects, who are working on things others may not understand.
When I first heard about Martin “Marty” Robb, it was through Colin Cantrell of Cantrell Motorsports in Bellevue, WA. Colin is a guy who has seen (and built) more than his fair share of racecars. If one stands out in his mind as a story worthy of exploring, it’s as good a lead as there is. And so, I set off to find out what was so special about a car hidden away in a garage deep in the woods of North Bend.
Marty’s car, while occasionally seen around the region’s lapping days, wasn’t ever seen off the track. Marty doesn’t come off as much of a “show” guy, and you’re not going to see this car trailered to the local cars and coffee. Although, the minute I first laid eyes on that immaculate Mexico Blue paint and that giant wing, I knew Marty existed, in his own way, in both “show” and “go” worlds. Once I arrived at Marty’s home, seeing that immaculately built Porsche RSR clone, I knew I had arrived at the end of the dead-end street.
It only takes a second of looking at Marty’s car to realize that there’s something very different about it. It’s entirely too clean to be a seasoned racer. But that’s not all. Purpose-built race cars usually prioritize function over form. Marty’s car represents a never-ending quest to achieve perfect function through perfect form. When you look around inside Marty’s brightly lit, very well organized, yet otherwise unassuming two car garage, you’d never guess that this car’s quest has taken place almost entirely within its four walls and under Marty’s fanatical yet “amateur” care.
“Through the years I built or had my hands in several street cars and hot rods,” says Marty. “Along the way, I grew my skills to include welding, fabrication, fiberglass, body work, and paint.” Marty goes on to say, “I had this project percolating in the back of my mind for quite some time. Knowing this was going to be a total build from scratch I only had two requirements for the car. One, it needed to be rust free or very close, and secondly no sunroof. I was in my forties, and a competition license was the dream. I didn’t want to mess with a sunroof during the build. In short order, a deal was struck and a 1977 white 2.7 was ours.”
As a self-taught fabricator, Marty’s work is impeccable. The attention to detail can’t be overstated. I’ve never seen, and don’t believe I ever will see, a car built with such fastidiousness that wasn’t intended as an award winning, show queen. Not only was this car built as an antithesis to show queens, but Marty is so far away from a “hoity-toity” custom car builder, you may have a difficult time wrapping your head around him being the loose nut behind this beautiful wheel.
It’s hard to know whether Marty has always been a very humble guy or if he’s been humbled by the build. I have a strong hunch it’s mostly the former with a sprinkling of the latter. One of the first things I remember Marty talking about was how much he owed to his wife Marsha. It wasn’t long after Marty bought the 911 that the obsession started, and Marsha had likely seen the writing on the wall. While Marty would come home from a day of work at Boeing and head into the garage, Marsha would leave her job at Virginia Mason Hospital and head to her second shift at Overlake Hospital. Her decision to get a second job was hers alone and it came without his asking. But, without this third job between the two of them, Marty insists he’d never have been able to support “this kind of foolishness.” Marsha must have seen the amount of focus Marty had for every nut and bolt. The amount of forethought and afterthought oozes out of every custom component he’s built. I believe that Marsha quickly caught on to Marty’s impending trip down the rabbit hole, yet instead of fighting against it she decided to embrace the presence of “the other woman.”
After buying the car, Marty spent a couple years familiarizing himself with it, sorting it for reliability purposes, and taking it to DE (Driver’s Education) days. He was soaking up every minute of finally owning a 911 and not yet ready to dip his toes into competitive driving. He also wasn’t quite ready to dive headfirst into the build he had been pondering for years. That was, until the old 2.7 lost oil pressure on a lapping day at PIR.
Marty, when starting to formulate the plan for his build, immediately hit his first obstacle. “With racing as a possible goal, I obtained a copy of the SCCA rule book to ensure my work would be safety compliant. In persuing the different class requirements, I found them to be too restrictive due to one thing or another. I just wanted to build a car to take to the track that I thought was cool and not limited by some set of rules, so I did.”
A Porsche 911 race car, custom built, at the hands of a self-taught guy, confined by no rules, almost entirely in his garage. Do I have your attention yet?
In the summer of 2002, Marty had stripped the car down to its shell, had it media blasted, and coated with an epoxy primer to prevent rust. He had even fabricated a custom dolly to move the body around his garage and on/off a box truck for transport.
First things first, he started in on the suspension, cutting out the front shock towers and adding adjustable camber plates. He also raised the strut towers, allowing a lower ride height while maintaining the full travel of the front shocks. Then to the back, he removed the stock non-adjustable camber boxes and welded in a set of Smart Racing’s rear control arm pivot boxes. The stock suspension rear spring plates found their way to the scrap bin in favor of a set of ERP spring plates and the rear anti-roll bar mounts were reinforced to hold the custom, cockpit adjustable unit made by Hoerr Racing Products.
The suspension was completed using FOX remote reservoir adjustable coil-overs with Eibach springs, an ERP 935 front suspension kit, and a Smart Racing tubular front bar. He replaced the steering rack with a remanufactured unit from Porsche “so it would be fresh” and made the swap to turbo tie-rods. There are no rubber components left in the suspension as all attaching points are now either heim joints or steel monoballs. Marty says, “I had concerns prior to driving the car that it would have a ride quality similar to the early model Conestoga wagons. Much to my relief it rides incredibly smooth and I’ve yet to notice any harshness.”
But Marty wasn’t interested in a sleeper, he knew he wanted to build something that looked the part. So, he started to cut into the body. He cut out the sides and front of the body leaving the floor section. He reinforced it using 1” square tubing and re-skinned it with sheet metal. He goes on, “I knew the fenders would need to all be fiberglass and removable, so the stock rear fenders were next to go. I cut them off starting behind the doors and up along the tops to the rear of the car. I then boxed in the entire cut edge into the chassis and body-worked it for a nice smooth transition. Except for the roof section, the rest of the bodywork is all fiberglass and removable for easy access. I looked around for a one-piece liftoff front section but could not find one so I made my own. I purchased two front fiberglass fenders along with the hood and bonded them all together into one piece. It’s reinforced underneath and includes a smaller lift-out section in the hood for the front oil cooler vent and easy access to the larger 17-gallonfuel cell.”
Marty says that the car’s interior has a “nice, finished look.” I think he’s being a bit modest. When asked to expand he says, “aesthetics are very important to me particularly with a race car. It’s the ultimate form of art and, like a painting, both are things that solely exist for our pleasure. I see a race car as a 200 mph Mona Lisa.”
In my own words, Marty’s interior looks like a combination of a space shuttle and a surgeon’s operating table. And it’s where you can tell that this is not your typical “ridden hard and put away wet” kind of race car.
He says, “I started in the interior by totally cutting out the stock dash and fabricating one from three sections of sheet metal butt welded and bent to shape. I then formed a small dash pod from fiberglass to house the speedo and oil gauges. I’m old school so I went with analog Auto-Meter’s for all the gauges. Next the stock seat mounting brackets were removed and I added my own brackets lower in the wells. This allowed a much lower seating position and additional headroom however it slightly offset the seating position to the left of the steering wheel. After two seconds of stepping on the custom overhung Tilton pedal assembly, you stop noticing things like this and you start to notice the carbon-fiber headliner surrounded by the custom trim. I bit the weight bullet and added aluminum floorboards that have all been powder coated like the rest of the panels for ease of maintenance.”
Custom sheet metal body skin, custom fiberglass panels, aluminum floorboards...you know just your typical backyard garage fabrication. Marty’s level of involvement with every square inch of the car permeates from the garage. It’s as if he birthed it, and it birthed a new version of him in the process.
And what a process it was. Five years flew by, and Marty found himself ready for a roll cage. This was one area he didn’t want to do himself but had seemingly hit a wall when the first shop he asked responded with an astronomical quote. As Marty was “pouting” in response to this latest obstacle, Marsha sprang into action. Marsha took it upon herself to call around asking for recommendations on who could build Marty’s cage for him. She was led to Colin Cantrell, who after meeting Marty couldn’t help but agree to join Marty in his rabbit hole.
In fact, Colin had more to offer than a custom roll cage. He also had a worn out 3.6 engine from a 964 RS that was looking for a new home. And coincidentally, Marty was also looking for a new “lump”. Colin suggested Peter Dawe of Dawe Motorsports was the man to rebuild it and make it worthy of the Marty Mona Lisa. After nine months and “custom machining invoices totaling more than our first house,” Marty’s new lump was returned to Cantrell ready to be installed. It was sporting 3.8 Mahle pistons and cylinders, a GT3R oil pump, RS intake and exhaust valves, Elgin custom grind camshafts, TWM throttle bodies, Motec M600 engine management system and custom harness, Pauter connecting rods, ARP hardware, and S-Car-Go headers modified to Dawe’s spec by Cantrell.
To create a lightweight yet race-worthy 915 transmission, Colin sourced a magnesium gearbox out of a 912 then added a custom gear set, internal spray bar, 8.31 ring and pinion, custom flywheel, and plumbing for the external oil pump and cooler. It also has a Stabuli quick disconnect on the hydraulic clutch line that makes it simpler to remove the engine and transmission from the car.
While the engine and transmission were being created, Marty decided he had to finish the car off with a paint job. Yes, Marty decided to paint the car himself, in his backyard, using a custom-built paint booth built by “me and my buddy Greg.” Undaunted, since this was the fourth car Marty has painted in his lifetime, he was ready to jump in head-first.
“Painting is just a big chemistry experiment, it’s very time and temperature sensitive. Much of a modern paint job is in the preparation, getting the surface ready to receive the paint. Much of that work entails sanding, sanding, some sanding, and sanding. I like to paint every piece separately off the car that way you can get at all sides and the back. It’s a pain this way but worth it. The blue and black are what’s called base coat/clear coat. Meaning you spray on several coats of color. Then, after a period of drying, you spray on several coats of clear. By the time you’ve done this you have painted each piece eight or nine times! But wait there’s more. The clear coat must be wet sanded several times with different grits of paper and then power buffed using compound to bring the finish to a high gloss. This whole process took the entire summer.”
After engine and transmission install and chassis setup and corner balance at Cantrell, Marty’s car was finally ready to be put on the track.
“In July 2014, 14 years after I’d bought the car, we were on track for the first time at Pacific Raceways. Initially I thought the car had it in for me but that was just my inexperience with the Hoosiers. After several stints and heat cycles they scrubbed in and the car was nice to drive from then on. The sound sitting inside coming from the engine and tranny right behind your shoulder at 7,500 rpm is a beautiful thing.”
Nice to drive. A beautiful thing. It’s just like Marty to understate. Which is quite ironic considering this overstated thing that is his 200 mph Mona Lisa. Marty, what you and Marsha have done together, is truly a fantastically crazy, beautiful “thing.” Thank you for sharing it with us. And let this be a lesson to you readers, next time you find yourself on a dead-end road, you should know that the unassuming garage at the very end may hold something amazing inside.
