by John Glynn | Dec 21, 2013 | Classic Porsche Blog, Market & Prices
Just reading an (unpublished) draft post from a few years back on my Classic Porsche Blog, where I spotted a perfectly-preserved 1977 911S Targa in the corner of Tuthill’s yard and mused on how the 2.7 S Targa was once the runt of the 911 line – I mean the absolute worst car you could possibly aspire to – but now would be valued at £30k+ for insurance. Anyone who thinks a 2.5 Boxster Tip will never go up in value should remember the 911S. Porsche may have built thousands, but one day there won’t be so many.
Over breakfast, BBC 6 Music played a 1977 Peel session track from The Jam, introducing it with a BBC interview with the band from the same year. “Are you punks?” asked the interviewer. “This time last year, everyone under 20 who played music was a punk,” said Bruce Foxton with a very deft negative. “If you tell me what punk is, I’ll tell you if we fit,” said Weller with another. “We just want to play, to keep getting better, and not be shoved in a bracket. You can already hear music that’s going to last coming out of the movement.”
The trio’s music has certainly lasted. I’ve still got a 6-disc CD changer in my Cayenne (albeit about to go), and one of those discs is The Jam’s “In the City“. Still a visceral listening experience, it’s an electric ropeladder of escape from three guys who know their music has to reach out and be real. Reviewing the album for Record Mirror (who remembers that?!), Barry Cain wrote: “armed and extremely dangerous, The Jam stalk the decrepit grooves. If you don’t like them, hard luck: they’re going to be around for a long time. Seldom do albums actually reflect pre-20 delusions, but this one does.”
The best new music of 1977 continues to engage new listeners. I’m thinking The Jam, Donna Summer/Giorgio Moroder, Sex Pistols, or Billy Joel’s The Stranger (instantly wish I was in New York every time). In such lofty aural company, flat six sounds from a 911 Targa seem to sit just right. No wonder values are rising for cars this classic.
by John Glynn | Dec 18, 2013 | Classic Porsche Blog, Market & Prices
Had a good chat with Robert this morning about an insurance valuation for his Porsche 911 SC. Robert has owned this Porsche 911 SC since it was a year old! The car is now thirty-three years old, so Robert has owned it thirty two years: absolutely brilliant.
Many classic Porschers dream of achieving long term ownership: the joy of a bond stretching through a significant proportion of life and its experiences. Owning a car thirty years through raising kids and maybe starting a business, building a house, owning a succession of faithful dogs and so on – it can make an old Porsche harder to part with.
Thing is, older cars get harder to live with as age creeps in. Ongoing injuries make unassisted steering a pain to live with. Low seat height plays havoc with the hips, and cramped cabins put strain on the knees in undignified egress. We can all come up with our own aches and pains.
Churchill said: “To improve is to change. To be perfect is to change often.” If you’ve had your Porsche for less than thirty years and feel the need to own something different (perhaps more modern), don’t feel bad. Chase Churchill perfection, move on and enjoy life!
Share stories of your lengthy Porsche ownership with us via email: I’d love to document a few long term Porsche stories in Ferdinand Magazine.
Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support the blog or engage with me in other ways, you can:
by John Glynn | Dec 13, 2013 | Classic Porsche Blog, Project Cars
Oxfordshire roads are dry and there’s lots of winter sun around at the minute. It was shining down on Tuthill Porsche when I stopped by this week, and spotted a line of classic 911s at Tuthill’s Wardington workshops for servicing.
Porsche 911 Winter Driving
It’s always good to see older 911s on the road in December. Some rightly take advantage of the workshop availability and service discounts to be found at some Porsche specialists in the slower months of winter, as they just can’t bear to be without their cars. I can totally understand this.
Winter is all about “to use or not to use” for classic Porsche enthusiasts. Do you keep the car taxed and ready to go, and catch a few dry days through December and January, or does it come off the road at the end of September, and go back on the road at the start of April?
There’s a lot to be said for keeping the car ready to run all year around. Parking a car for six months at a time is no good for anything, and the cost of keeping it taxed is minimal compared to the joy of driving on empty roads over Christmas and New Year. Whenever they are working, I keep my cars taxed year-round.
No one with some Porsche blood flowing in their veins would refuse to pay £30 for a drive of their classic Porsche, to escape visiting relations on Boxing Day. Five of those drives and the tax is paid. Tuthill Porsche can steam clean the underside of a classic Porsche on their outside car lift, before protecting it with waxoyl to remove all worries of corrosion. On the worst days with salt on the roads, you just leave it in the garage.
Where the weather allows, I think keep the Porsche ready to rock over winter. Early 911s spent many winters ploughing through snow and ice, living the life of a daily driver. I’m not saying make it suffer through winter, but no sense locking it away for half the year, either.
by John Glynn | Dec 11, 2013 | Classic Porsche Blog, Race and Rally
A number of projects have been enforcing wee-hours Internet trawls for material from the 2013 Safari Rally. This was the first year for a while that I didn’t follow the rally as it happened, so going back through Youtube videos and enthusiast coverage unveils a more human story.
What continues to stand out about the rally is the whitespace. Whitespace on a page is space for the content to spread, unfold, stand on its own and filter into your grey cells. The Ferdinand website runs a ton of whitespace, as that is how I like to read. Whitespace on Safari is fresh air, big landscapes and beautiful light.
Whitespace on a road trip allows room for the tendrils of the experience to wind through the windscreen, into the cracks and crevices of our psyche to massage our imaginations. The greatest journeys take us on a metaphorical learning curve of self: no one comes back from a road trip less resolved than how they departed.
Essentially a competitive road trip, rallying offers similar spirituality – don’t be scared off by the word – in a more challenging context. Testing their stamina, ambition and resourcefulness, the competitors scrape another layer off their ultimate capability. Putting the body and mind under extreme duress is part of the thrill of existence: and is there a better way to have existence fully envelope a consciousness, than fighting for victory on one of the great marathon rallies?
Porsches and philosophy on a misty Wednesday morning: you’re welcome. Anyone who wants to stay up late drinking whiskey and potentially talking this stuff in a remote Alpine ski lodge next June should find a way onto the Twinspark Racing Bergmeister Tour. In the morning, the philosophically less interested take off to drive legendary mountain passes and we hang back, mentally drifting off piste and doing our own thing. The best times await us when we just let them come.
Tuthill Porsche ran an amazing sixteen 911s on this year’s Safari Rally, which must make Richard Tuthill the most philosophical of all of us: he is certainly an inspiring person to work with. Though he will vehemently deny this, his reponsibility for so many epic past projects tells a different story. If you’re looking for the ultimate Porsche Road Trip, then Safari is your thing.
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by John Glynn | Dec 3, 2013 | Classic Porsche Blog, Porsche News
The Porsche Museum has a special Rennsport exhibition running until March 17, 2014, celebrating “60 Years of Super Sports Cars”.
Porsche Museum Rennsport Exhibition
Some rare birds can be seen in the exhibition, including this beautiful 550: the first Spyder ever bought by a private individual. I don’t know the chassis number, but the colour scheme is perfect for a privately owned car. I’ll try to get a few more details.
Also in the show is Herbert von Karajan’s unique lightweight RS-bodied 911 Turbo: a factory special for the famous German conductor, which featured on the cover of his Famous Overtures album, recorded with the Berlin Philharmonic. Porsche 911 Turbo is classic rock ‘n’ roll!
The Porsche Museum is open Tuesday to Sunday, 9.00 to 18.00. Entry is €8 for adults and UK readers can fly to Stuttgart return from £120 (Flybe out of Birmingham for a January weekend: Friday-Sunday).
by John Glynn | Nov 11, 2013 | Classic Porsche Blog, Project Cars
Better known as Le Corbusier, Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris was a pioneer of modern architecture. While Le Corbusier’s designs for urban living may no longer be attuned to 21st century inner city pressures, his ideas continue to influence designers and artists, almost fifty years after his death.
Le Corbusier had much to say on colour. “If the house is white all over, the shapes of things stand out without any possible ambiguity; the volume of things will appear clear cut; the colour of things is categorical. The white of whitewash is absolute. Everything stands out against it and is displayed absolutely: black against white, frank and truthful. Put in objects that are unsuitable or in bad taste, and you can’t miss them. You might call it the X-ray of beauty, a permanent court of judgement, the eye of truth.”
Le Corbusier’s eye of truth is currently being cast upon Thomas Flohr’s Safari car, awaiting fresh paint in the Tuthill Porsche bodyshop. Last seen on Safari 2011, the silver 911 had a rough start to the event, being abandoned at the mid-way point when the crew decided to call it a day. Tuthills carried the car along on the event – Francis’ experience suggesting this would be prudent – and it eventually donated the front section of its roll cage to the Waldegård car, allowing it to complete the rally after a fairly big off as the rally reached its final days.
Now fully repaired with a brand new and latest-version roll cage installed by the fabrication team at Wardington, Thomas’ superb 911 has been rubbed down by hand, ahead of a full respray in the same silver colour. The off-white shade may not tally with the master, but Le Corbusier’s musings on using a single monochromatic colour to highlight pure shapes and bad taste rings true.
The finished Safari cage in a simple, bare 911 shell is a structure of enduring fascination and beauty. Don’t you think? Maybe just me.
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