When a father, an obsessive collector of Porsches, decides to give his architect daughter a gift, the initial idea transcends the conventional gesture of handing over the keys.
Porsche 964 Targa acquires a more radical and intimate direction: Assaad Raphael, founder of Porsche Centre Lebanon, chooses to purchase a 1990 Porsche 964 Targa and transform it into an entirely personal object. The recipient, Shaha Raphael, is an architect with a refined sensitivity for materials and craftsmanship, until then distant from the automotive world.
The project takes shape through David Raffoul and Nicolas Moussallem of the studio David/Nicolas. From an informal dinner conversation emerges an eight-year collaboration involving the restoration team of Porsche Centre Lebanon and Italian craftsmen in Treviso, in a process where material research, mechanical restoration and design evolve in parallel.
The result is “Shaha”: a Porsche that does not display, but withholds. The deep green bodywork reveals the purity of the 911, while the cabin, lined in Connolly leather, brass, wood and steel, takes on the quality of a fully coherent domestic space. The mechanical restoration, carried out to exacting standards, ensures performance equal to its refinement.
More than a commission, “Shaha” is the outcome of a long and layered professional relationship, where time becomes a design material. A continuous dialogue between client, designers and craftsmen has given life to a car intended not only to be driven, but to endure, like a work built to pass through generations.
