1970 Porsche 911E: the Canyon Carver Set
A Custom Dial Set, Designed from Scratch
A full set of custom dials designed from a blank sheet and built into a running car, from the first mock-up to the finished gauges in the dash.
The Collaboration
This set was built with Evan Sawyer, the Canyon Carver, for his 1970 911E.
Evan came to us wanting his Canyon Carver logo on the tachometer, and perhaps the double yellow lines that run down the middle of every road. We sent back a number of mock-ups, and the one he chose had a road running through the center of the dial.
That opened up the idea the whole set is built on. Evan is known for the canyons he drives, so rather than one road, every gauge carries a topographical map of a road he actually drives.
The fuel and oil gauge carries Latigo. The temperature and pressure gauge carries Los Flores. The tachometer carries the Mulholland snake. The speedometer carries Stunt Road. And the clock carries a topographical pattern with the double yellow lines, and his own line along the bottom.
How the Dials Were Made
Every dial was screened new: black background, gray topographical lines, and the double yellow running through to show the road. The tachometer took his logo at top center.
We design these in vector software, and the customer has full control of what goes on the dial. People often ask us what we would do, and we are always happy to help make decisions and suggest design alterations, but you know your car best, and you know better than anyone what you want to be looking at every day. We keep that in mind throughout.
Once the artwork is settled, the gauges are blasted, painted, and then put through the screening process that lays the artwork down on the dial. There is more on how a job like this runs on our custom gauge dials page.
What Arrived
The instruments were in the condition you would expect for the year and the make.
The clock was not working. The tachometer was swinging wildly. The speedometer had been serviced at some point before Evan bought the car, and whoever did it had calibrated it across a band of about thirty miles an hour, from roughly 40 to 70. Everywhere else on the dial it was guessing.
The Mechanical Work
The tachometer. Stripped down, with a dampening silicone applied to stop the wild swing, and a new circuit board fitted. The new board does something useful beyond the repair: it lets Evan remove the tach adapter that was in the car and wire the tachometer straight off the negative side of the coil.
The clock. These movements fail as a matter of course, so rather than nurse it we fitted a new quartz movement, the choice that lasts.
The combination gauges. Most of them were reading well, but Evan mentioned the pressure gauge was swinging, and the bench confirmed it. A new coil went in, it was calibrated, and a new sender supplied with it.
The speedometer. Disassembled, a new brass bushing fitted, re-lubricated, and a new hairspring installed. It is now calibrated from zero all the way to 150, rather than across the thirty-mile band it arrived with. That part of the job is ordinary restoration work, done on the same bench as everything else.
The Finish
New bezels and new glass throughout. The pointers painted bright fluorescent red-orange. The chrome polished.
Where It Is Now
The set lives in Evan’s car, and because he films with Ray-Ban Meta glasses, the gauges turn up on camera more or less constantly. You can see them in the car here.
It was also shown at the 2026 Works Reunion, in the Sierra Madre Collection tent.
The other car on this site with a set built the same way is a 1993 964 backdated to an early 911S, where the badging itself lights up at night.
This is one of the jobs that has come through our bench. More on how we approach this work: how we design and screen custom gauge dials. You can also see more of our Porsche instrument work, or send us an inquiry about your own gauges.