Rod Emory’s parents brought him home from the hospital in a hot-rodded short wheelbase 911, which says all you need to know about the influence cars had in his childhood.

Growing up in a household that was very well-versed in custom automobiles (especially Porsches), Rod proved that he didn’t fall far from the familial tree when he started modifying examples of the company’s first sports car at just 14 years old—to the chagrin of purists and delight of everyone else.

The work that followed would more or less define what an Outlaw 356 should aspire to, and now, decades later, Rod, his wife Amy, and the rest of the team at Emory Motorsports have created their magnum opus: They call it the 356 RSR. A far cry from a quaint and cute factory-spec 356, this one is blended with a 964 chassis and packs a 2.4L twin-turbo flat-four that provides the featherweight package with a few horsepower shy of 400.

Join the ride as Rod takes us through his story and makes good use of that excellent power-to-weight ratio in the mountains outside of Los Angeles.