Tag Archives: Tartan

Story

Porsche, Plaid, and the Highlands: How a 911 Turbo Brought Tartan Home

The Porsche 911 Turbo has always balanced on the sharp edge between heritage and horsepower. But this time, the story isn’t just in the flat-six or the boost gauge—it’s in the seats. Specifically, in a Weathered Dress Mackenzie tartan pattern that has taken the Turbo on a pilgrimage straight to its ancestral homeland: the Scottish Highlands.

When the door of the 911 Turbo 50 Years swings open outside Castle Leod, the ancestral seat of Clan Mackenzie, 38-year-old Viscount Tarbat—Colin to his friends—breaks into a grin as wide as the castle’s stone courtyard. “I suppose that means we’re now officially the fastest clan,” he laughs, eyeing the green-and-brown tartan inserts like a proud team captain admiring a new kit.

Behind him stands three-year-old Roddy and John, the 77-year-old Earl of Cromartie and current clan chief. Castle Leod may be one of the oldest continuously inhabited buildings in Scotland, but today it plays host to a brand-new Turbo whose interior points to a surprisingly deep Porsche–Highlands connection.

A Plaid Path to Zuffenhausen

The legend begins not in a castle, but in a design studio. Anatole Lapine, Porsche’s head of design in the early ’70s, walked in one morning wearing Black Watch tartan trousers—Bay City Rollers era, remember—and by lunch the idea had ignited: why not put tartan in a 911?

The 1973 911 Turbo RSR concept arrived first with bold blue, green, and black Black Watch upholstery. A year later, the first roadgoing 911 Turbo, gifted to Louise Piëch for her 70th birthday, appeared wrapped in an even brasher Maclachlan red-and-blue plaid. Porsche was hooked.

Dorothea Müller-Goodwyn, a longtime member of Porsche’s styling team, recalls that the company originally tried to source the fabrics from Scotland. The mills were historic, the patterns iconic—but the materials simply weren’t rugged enough for a sports car’s interior. Sunlight and sliding bolsters are far less forgiving than Highland weather. The company eventually relied on an automotive textile maker in Germany’s Swabian Alps, but the tartans remained unmistakably Scottish in spirit.

By 1975, Turbo buyers could choose from three official tartan upholstery options. One of the most memorable found a home in Ferry Porsche’s own Oak Green Metallic 911 Turbo: Mackenzie tartan—a fabric that returns, in evolved form, in the Turbo 50 Years now parked outside Castle Leod.

A Clan, a Castle, and a Turbo

The backdrop couldn’t be more cinematic. Castle Leod is widely cited as the real-world inspiration for Castle Leoch in Outlander, and today the Mackenzies are less medieval warband and more global family. “We can’t just march down the A9 brandishing swords and muskets anymore,” the Earl says with a smile. “But we can show that we belong to a clan in our tartan. Clans unite people regardless of race, religion, or politics.”

In other words: tartan works a lot like car culture.

The clan counts nearly two million members worldwide, spread across Scotland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and well beyond. “People are looking for something that outlasts the transient,” the Earl says. “Not unlike a Porsche, really.”

The castle’s upkeep is a centuries-long project—“My job is as an explosives consultant, but my destiny has always been to be a slave to a castle,” he jokes—but the sense of continuity is clear. And seeing a Porsche interior stitched in Mackenzie colors? That’s a different kind of heritage coming home.

The Fabric of a Nation

To understand tartan properly, you have to go to Edinburgh. Specifically, to Kinloch Anderson, suppliers to the British royal family since 1903 and something like the Geneva Observatory of tartan authenticity.

John Kinloch Anderson, sixth generation in the family business, explains how early tartans were simply local textiles dyed with whatever roots, leaves, and bark were available. Over time, patterns became linked to the regions—and, eventually, to the clans themselves.

After the Jacobite uprising of 1745, wearing clan tartan was outlawed. But by the 1800s, it was back in royal fashion, codified, catalogued, and woven into Scotland’s identity. Today there are over 2,000 commercially woven tartans and more than 10,000 officially registered ones.

And yes, there’s a decent chance Kinloch Anderson made the very trousers Lapine wore to the Porsche design studio. “It was the ’70s—Rod Stewart, the Bay City Rollers,” Anderson says, smiling. “We exported a hundred thousand tartan skirts a year at one point.”

Now the company is working with Porsche again—this time on notebooks in three historic tartans. From Vivienne Westwood to Ralph Lauren, tartan has had a remarkable afterlife in global design. And now it’s helping celebrate half a century of Porsche’s most iconic turbocharged machine.

A Line That Never Breaks

The 911 Turbo has always been about lineage—linking the past to the present with a whoosh of boost and a whiplash of acceleration. But tartan interiors tell a quieter story: of heritage that refuses to fade, whether on the battlefield, in the fashion world, or stitched into the bolsters of a 911.

As the Turbo 50 Years idles beneath Castle Leod’s ancient stone walls, you can’t help but feel the symmetry. A clan pattern reimagined in a German supercar. A castle that has stood since long before the first internal-combustion engine. And a fabric that, like Porsche itself, has never stopped evolving.

It turns out heritage isn’t just something you inherit. Sometimes, it’s something you drive.

Source: Porsche

News

Porsche Digs Into Its Archives to Revive Iconic Interior Fabrics—Pepita, Pasha, Tartan, and More Are Back

Porsche has always understood that design doesn’t stop at the sheetmetal. Yes, the Stuttgart brand’s silhouette work—long hoods, fastback roofs, the unmistakable 911 profile—gets much of the glory. But inside, Porsche has spent decades building a second, quieter legacy: textiles. Pepita, Pasha, tartan, pinstripes—patterns that became as much a part of the Porsche identity as air-cooled flat-sixes and whale tails.

Now, those storied fabrics are making a comeback.

“By reissuing these fabrics we are closing a gap,” says Ulrike Lutz, Director Classic at Porsche. With many owners eager to return their classic or young-timer Porsches to exact factory specification, the brand saw demand for authentic upholstery rise sharply. The problem? The market was flooded with look-alike materials—patterns that resembled the originals but didn’t hold up to the quality standard Porsche demands. “We want to offer our customers a tested original alternative again,” Lutz adds.

Authenticity, Down to the Last Thread

These aren’t mere tribute reprints. Porsche dug into its company archives, retrieving original samples and specifications to ensure the new runs match not only the look, but the feel, durability, and color accuracy of the factory materials. Because often restorers aren’t redoing an entire interior—just one heavily worn seat bolster, a faded insert, or a single sun-bleached door card.

“Often, the upholsterer only has to reupholster the driver’s seat,” explains product manager Lukas Werginz. Matching a 40- or 50-year-old passenger seat requires ruthless precision, particularly with complex patterns. To that end, Porsche subjects the revived fabrics to a battery of durability tests: fire resistance, abrasion resistance, and light and color fastness. The new materials are sold as Porsche Genuine Parts in 1.5-by-2-meter sheets, ready for everything from seat centers to side panels.

The lengths Porsche went for accuracy are almost archaeological. In the U.S., the Classic team uncovered a pristine, unused 911 seat from 1975—still wearing immaculate green tartan upholstery. “Stored in a light-proof cupboard, and therefore perfectly preserved, this new-old-stock item was gold dust for us,” Werginz recalls.

Pepita: The Checkered Icon Returns

Pepita—its checked pattern linked by diagonal stripes—first appeared in the 356 in 1963, then in the early 911 two years later. The name traces back to 19th-century Spanish dancer Pepita de Oliva, but the pattern’s fashion fame came courtesy of Christian Dior. In Porsche lore, Pepita is synonymous with the brand’s early years: light, simple, and classically European.

Tartan: Turbo-Era Attitude

Tartan carries a different energy: heritage, confidence, and a bit of rebellious flair. Porsche offered three distinct tartans in the 1974 911 Turbo, expanding availability to the standard 911 lineup shortly after. It even appeared in concept form at the 1973 Frankfurt IAA on a 911 RSR Turbo study trimmed in Black Watch tartan.

Perhaps the most famous tartan Porsche ever delivered belonged to Louise Piëch—daughter of Ferdinand Porsche and mother of Ferdinand Piëch—whose silver “No. 1” 911 Turbo featured deep red leather and McLaughlan tartan inserts. It doesn’t get more Porsche-family-royalty than that.

Pasha: The Lounge-Racer Statement Piece

And then there’s Pasha—the most divisive, unmistakable Porsche textile ever created. Inspired by racing chequered flags and conceived under the wild design team of Anatole “Tony” Lapine and Vlasta Hatter, Pasha is a hypnotic grid of expanding and contracting rectangles that seems to pulse with movement.

First shown in a 928 in 1977 and later offered in the 911, 924, and 944, Pasha became the unofficial interior of Porsche’s late-’70s and early-’80s aesthetic. Its name was meant to evoke an Ottoman sultan lounging on luxurious cushions. Subtle, it was not—but unforgettable, absolutely.

Today, Porsche has revived Pasha not only for restorations but for new vehicles as well, debuting the pattern in the 911 Spirit 70 special edition. It’s a bold callback to a time when Porsche interiors weren’t afraid to swing for the fences.

Source: Porsche