by John Glynn | Nov 28, 2012 | Classic Porsche Blog, Porsche People, Race and Rally
Tuthill Porsche Safari contender, Franz Wunderlich, will follow in the tyre tracks of the original Paris-Dakar rally when he takes part in the Sonangol Africa Eco Race, which kicks off over Christmas.
Starting in Morocco on December 29th, the rally runs through North Africa en route to Senegal and a finish in the capital on January 9th, following the vision of Dakar founder, Thierry Sabine. Competitors in the classic category run along the same rugged desert tracks as modern competitors, but avoid the worst of the car-claiming dunes.
Racers benefit from identical logistic and medical support to those in the grand event. Sonangol Africa Race Classic competitors also enjoy the bivouac with regular participants, so there is some relief from cabin fever at the end of a day.
Sporting Director for this epic desert rally is René Metge (above): the famous Porsche wheelsman who claimed Dakar victory in the 959. Taking last year as a model, René has no plans to dish out easy rides.
“Just looking at the maps, we knew the 2012 edition would be difficult, and it was. What we did not anticipate was the weather, especially in Mauritania, where the sandstorm began to blow before we arrived and stayed ten days. The Mauritanian desert was then totally changed.
“Although I know the route by heart, I saw that some places became invisible and many dunes appeared where a few weeks ago, there was nothing. This bad weather forced us to cancel one leg. After several days of stress everyone was very tired including vehicles. The cancellation of the special stage between Akjoujt and Tenadi allowed them to start on the last Mauritanian leg with energy.
“The 2012 edition was difficult, but I think we took the right option. Dense race, “serious” navigation and intense crossing but not too long. We tried to have a minimum of rocky terrain all along the way but in Morocco, for example, it is quite impossible to avoid any rocky area.”
This event will be no cakewalk! We’ll be doing our best to follow Franz and his adventures, so keep it here for more updates.
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by John Glynn | Nov 22, 2012 | Classic Porsche Blog, Porsche People
We had a nice little session on Ferdinand’s Facebook page last night, where I opened the wall for a couple of hours to let Porsche friends post their answers to the question: “what shape does The Cult of Porsche take through your eyes?”
Holly Ragan Krueger shared this pic of her 912, before telling me the story of the car and making it a must-write blog post.
“My dad bought this 1968 912 in Florida in 1977,” said Holly. “I still have the two-line notarised bill of sale for $3,990. He drove it across the US and up the ALCAN highway with my brother, my mom and I following in a Ford pick up. My dad was a great old-school mechanic and he restored the car in Fairbanks, Arkansas next to his 356. He moved the cars to Georgia in 1987, then replaced the Solex with rebuilt Solex in ’89: he was such a purist.
“I drove her up to Minnesota in 1997. This ’68 912 is the only Porsche I’ve owned. I’ve paid mechanics a fortune to work on her, and spent many frustrating hours trying to work on her myself. 912 projects take me forever because I don’t know what I’m doing, but it’s worth it because I learn so much and then I’m that much closer to really understanding the car. I like to think what I lack in skill I make up for in determination.
“I replaced the fuel tank this past summer, which turned out to be a lot more than just sliding in a new tank. I had a shop replace the Solex with Webers this October, but I still need to balance the carbs and I think adjust the linkage too. I’m not sure how to do that, but I bribed my brother to send me some tools, so if I feel reasonably confident I’ll try to do the work myself. If I can’t I’ll have a shop do it.
“This coming spring I’d like to get some touch-up work done on the paint and replace my muffler. If everything goes well, I’d also like to clean up the engine, paint the fan cover, get new stickers, etc. I’m looking forward to this spring because I’ve met some local enthusiasts and found a few car events I can attend.
“All Porsches are special, but learning how to work on this old car is what makes this Porsche special to me.”
What a great story, perfect for Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving to Holly, her family and all our American Porsche friends and family around the world. Enjoy the holidays and share the love!
by John Glynn | Nov 12, 2012 | Classic Porsche Blog, Market & Prices
Jamie & I are decompressing in San Francisco after five days of flat-out photography on our 2012 California Hot Rod Porsche Tour. He’s outside messing with the beige Porsche 912 he bought from one of our mates at Shark Werks a few days ago, and I’m indoors with a cup of tea and the TV showing non-stop car auctions.
Mecum Auctions is the big name in hammer sales here in the USA. Apparently, they pay this channel to replay coverage of their previous sales, for car guys like me to watch in the mornings. Good job they do, as I’ve been glued on and off since we arrived. Boss man Dana Mecum (below, centre) is kinda hard work, but tracking the prices from sale to sale is interesting.
Another channel hosts Keith Martin’s What’s My Car Worth, where the price expert behind Sports Car Market meets people bringing their car to auction, gets the auctioneers to give a view on value, adds the seller’s expectation and hazards a guess of his own. Once it’s gone through, its surprising how close Keith ends up. As I write, he’s just hit the nail on the head with an RS that was estimated to fly as high as $375k by the auctioneers (Gooding), an owner expectation of $340k, but a Keith-predicted $275k which was the price eventually fetched.
Valuing used cars is a bit of a black art: something I got pretty good at in my ten years as an editor with Glass’s Guide, the English equivalent of America’s Kelley Blue Book. With a twenty-five year history in the motor trade and a solid valuation background, I do a lot of insurance valuations for UK Porsche, and have a small pile to do when I get home later this week, but you can never have too much information on what the market’s doing in other countries.
by John Glynn | Nov 9, 2012 | Classic Porsche Blog, Porsche News
News from down under:
The largest gathering of Porsches ever at one race venue in Australia will occur at the inaugural Porsche Rennsport Australia Motor Racing Festival, to be held on the weekend of May 25/26 2013 at Sydney Motorsport Park (Eastern Creek).
Spurred by the success of previous Rennsport festivals in North America, as well as its own army of Porsche owner enthusiasts in Australia, Porsche Cars Australia (PCA) has decided to create a special event for all Porsche fans.
Racing and road Porsches of all types will share in a weekend of racing at the recently renovated and renamed Eastern Creek circuit, with more than 300 Porsches expected to participate.
The event will be promoted as a festival of racing with as much to see and experience away from the track as on it. The headline racing act will be a double header of Porsche GT3 Cup cars with rounds of the Porsche Carrera Cup Australia Championship as well as Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Australia presented by Pirelli.
In all, there will be seven different categories of Porsche racing including Regularity and Sprints for Porsche Club cars.
by John Glynn | Nov 5, 2012 | Classic Porsche Blog, Road Trips
I picked up a major tick on my bucket list yesterday (Sunday), as I did a Porsche track day at Laguna Seca Raceway in an early 911. It was everything I dreamed it would be, and more! Very exciting track to drive in a classic 911, especially one which had never done a track day before.
Laguna’s been a JG magnet since I saw it in an Elvis movie or somesuch as a kid growing up in Ireland. Built on a dried-up lake bed (Laguna – Lake/Seca – dry), everything that draws me to California is here: great light, incredible sunshine, beautiful landscape of the Monterey hills, close to the ocean at Pacific Grove. And of course, always very cool cars.
This visit was as good as ever. Leaving the San Francisco suburbs at the crack of dawn (above), my buddy Gray and I arrived at Laguna just in time for the briefing. Our beginners’ first session was at 10am, so I passengered my mate for his first laps of the track. That was interesting, to say the least. I will spare his blushes here!
Second session was my turn. I did a warm-up lap, came back in the pits, tightened my belts to the max and rejoined the circuit. Our car is a 911T: 2.2 with E cams and S pistons, SC undercarriage and brakes, albeit with no servo. Tyres are street Michelins and brake pads are road Mintex. It was probably the smallest engine in our group, but we didn’t hold too many people up and even passed a slowish Ferrari 360.
I’m working on a separate post about the lap experience and will get it up later. As with any track day, the social side was good fun and it was great to hang out with Lars and Leif from Denmark (above): Porsche owners who were doing their day in a Chevy hire car. A station wagon! Gotta love Laguna Seca.
by John Glynn | Nov 5, 2012 | Classic Porsche Blog, Modified Porsche Hot Rods
Good times on the California Hot Rod Porsche Tour 2012 last weekend, as we made our first-ever trip to the monthly RGruppe Porsche meet at EASY in Emeryville, San Francisco. EASY stands for European Auto Salvage Yard: this long-standing meet was recently featured on Wayne Carini’s Discovery TV show.
The weather here is terrific. Temperatures in the mid-70s (24 degrees Celsius) ensured a decent turnout, and it was good to see old friends and meet a few new ones including EASY top dog, Jim Breazeale.
We spent Friday at WEVO in San Carlos and WEVO’s Hayden Burvill (above) also came to EASY. The rather battered Porsche 911 known as Rabbit was his transport Porsche of choice: a 1973.5 2.4-litre 911T, running the original CIS injection. Was fun to convoy with it across the San Francisco bridges and out of the city: more on that one later.
Other cars spotted at EASY included Joey B’s beautiful Beetle with 356 running gear and a spotless ’76 911 Turbo (above) in special order Albert Blue, which we’ve arranged to shoot for a feature this week. So many cars, and so much fun to come!
