Nostalgia has never been a more powerful influence on our culture. Though these days it might just be staged or even AI-generated, the Instagram feeds of content makers the world over show scenes of 1970s Land Rovers rolling the Serengeti, mud-caked Dakar dirt bikes huddled around a crackling campfire and classic air-cooled Porsche 911s idling on a California coast and surfboards mounted promisingly on roof racks. The last image is perhaps the most powerful, and though it might exist mainly in this dreamlike social-media state, Porsche and California shapers Almond Surfboards have now collaborated to help make it a reality.
Their collection, dubbed “Single Fins & Air Cooled Engines,” takes inspiration from that never-to-be-repeated moment when the introduction of the air-cooled Porsche 911 in 1963 collided like a barrel wave into the exploding surf culture of Southern California. To celebrate this timeless era, the Costa Mesa-based surfboard makers at Almond are incorporating iconic 1960s-Porsche livery aesthetics into the design of their cult-classic single-fin boards, and it’s really making waves. Enthusiasts can choose between a “Surf Thumps” longboard or midsized “Cash-Yew” glider, both handcrafted every step of the way in Almond’s northern Orange County shop using foam and basswood stringers wrapped in fiberglass, with twin layers of 6-ounce cloth on the deck and the bottom. The accompanying single fin, meanwhile, is hand-foiled from 36 layers of 6-ounce fiberglass cloth. They even include a sleek wooden wall bracket so you can proudly show off your Single Fins & Air Cooled Engines stick in your garage or den when not in use.
What really makes these boards pop, though, is the livery. After reviewing original paint samples from the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, Almond selected classic Porsche colors Bahama Yellow, Irish Green and Polo Red, as well as a fourth option, which pays homage to the Porsche Pink Pig racing livery, that takes the proverbial cake. The iconic colorway was born in 1971, when Porsche designer Anatole Lapine opted to swap out the banal plain white livery of his 917/20 Le Mans prototype for something considerably more splashy. So he bathed the voluptuous, low-slung 240-mph race car in a soft pink hue and used dotted butcher lines to label each section of the car with their comparable pork cuts.
Needless to say, the Porsche 917 Pink Pig livery quickly became a thing of motorsports legend. Each board will be individually numbered and also features a racing number that can be custom-painted on one side. Along with the quartet of boards, Porsche x Almond are also offering a slew of Single Fins & Air Cooled Engines merch to fill out the capsule collection. These items include apparel and accessories like caps, a keychain and an iron-on patch. Apparently this collaboration is only the first to unite Porsche with the Golden State, as the partnership with Almond is the inaugural collection in the legendary German marque’s new “Made in California” initiative. We cannot wait to see what they come up with next.
