The Story of HANGANG, Part 1 — From a Magazine Dream to My Own 964
Buying, restoring and personalising a 1992 Porsche 964 Carrera 4.
I first fell in love with Porsche through car magazines as a child. The wish stayed with me: one day, I wanted to own one, drive it and build memories with it. Buying a 1992 Porsche 964 Carrera 4 made that dream real. It felt as though I had fulfilled half of it.
The car was not in particularly good condition when I bought it. Both the interior and exterior needed attention, as did its mechanical condition. For those who know HANGANG today, this may be an unfamiliar beginning. Our story began with restoration and change.
The work covered the entire car: the interior and exterior were reworked, the body received a full repaint, and the engine was overhauled. This was about rebuilding the foundations of a car I intended to keep driving.
I also brought my own taste into the project. I chose a 901-style backdate conversion, giving the 1992 Carrera 4 the atmosphere of an earlier Porsche. Photographs of the stripped body and panel work preserve that transformation in progress.
Inside, I added checked fabric for a more classic feel. The personal choices that shaped the exterior continued into the cabin, bringing the atmosphere I liked into the space around the driver.
I made the manual gear lever myself and incorporated a gold-plated LEGENDARY logo. I wanted even this small, hands-on detail to carry my design. If the checked fabric set the tone of the cabin, the gear lever was my personal signature.
HANGANG — Chapter 1 film
Through restoration and backdating, the Porsche I had admired for so long gradually became a car with my own story. Later, it also took me in front of Porsche’s cameras for a Korean owner-story advertisement made around the launch of the 992.
The decision to build an RWB and the long wait through the pandemic came later. HANGANG was the first car Nakai built on site in Korea. Officially, however, it became Korea’s second RWB because another car had already been built in Japan and brought to Korea. That distinction and the build itself belong to a later chapter.
The road trip from Osaka to Tokyo and our recent visit to Gangneung will each have their own chapter, too. Next comes life with my personalised 964 and the experience of appearing in Porsche’s owner story.