A few months ago, in what now seems like a privileged previous existence, I spent my regular December fortnight in Lanzarote working on a few projects and wandering the streets of the island’s capital, Arrecife. I did whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. As a man of simple tastes, that involved coffee and tapas, the occasional pizza, talking to new people in basic Spanish and sitting on the balcony watching Wheeler Dealers.
My February column for BMW Car magazine zoomed in on this idea of Wheeler Dealers as a highlight of the day. I never watch it while at home but, out in the Canaries, it quickly became a lynchpin of daily routine. It was usually broadcast in English with Spanish subtitles, giving me a bit of a car fix while also improving my language skills. (‘Control de las Fronteras’, with dark-haired Spanish ladies in uniform catching Ukrainian tobacco smugglers et al ran Mike a close second, but that’s another story.)
The new season of Wheeler Dealers kicked off on Discovery Channel last month and the first episode seems to have been a show I saw while in Lanzarote: an SMG to manual conversion on an E46 M3. Subsequent episodes include more favourite four-wheelers:
1972 Fiat 124 Spider
1973 Toyota Celica
2002 Mercedes Benz E55 AMG
Volvo Amazon 122
Toyota Land Cruiser
1982 Porsche 911 SC
Now, I like all of these cars and still own my 1993 Land Cruiser 80-series 4.2 diesel manual. If this pandemic really was some sort of apocalypse, I would be dragging the Land Cruiser back into service right about now, so I’ll definitely be watching that episode, which converts a 60-series Cruiser from auto to manual. Another one for the diary is the 1982 911 SC, which I think has been Herr Brewer’s daily driver for a few years.
Mike is a bona fide Porsche nut. Based in Huntington Beach, California when shooting in America, he is friends with another friend of mine, the artist Nicolas Hunziker, so I often see pics of the craic they enjoy on social media. Nicolas also spends a fair bit of time driving with Chad McQueen: I can definitely see how this lot get on. On a side note, Nicolas has a great offer on his classic Porsche driving shoes at the minute: all shoes are just $50 a pair in the Stay at Home Sale! Check that out and keep him busy.
I don’t know which spanners will be waving in the SC episode, but I see a big old exhaust in the preview photos, so a bit of that at least. In time-honoured Wheeler Dealers tradition, Mike’s SC was sold after the episode was finished and still lives in the USA. Going by his Twitter feed, Mike now runs a 1976 Porsche 912E and has been fettling it while the lockdown continues.
He’s been told that it’s Enamel Blue (it was described as such when sold by Silverstone Auctions) but it looks pretty much the same as my old 912E, which was painted Arrow Blue at the factory in 1976. Maybe it’s had a repaint somewhere down the line. You can follow Mike’s progress with the car on his Twitter feed, @mikebrewer. Worth a follow just to see how he bats off the trolls, not to mention his projects.
The SC episode will be broadcast on Monday April 27th, so stick it in your diary. The Land Cruiser one is the week before!
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Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support the blog or engage with me in other ways, you can:
RM Sotheby’s has announced that its second auction at the annual Techno Classica Essen car show (which was to be held at the end of March) will be postponed to June 2020 due to the coronavirus scare.
“RM Sotheby’s today announces that its forthcoming Essen auction (scheduled 26-27 March) is postponed until the second half of June. RM Sotheby’s, along with all participants of The Techno-Classica Essen show, are working in consultation with the organisers of the event in order to establish a fixed new date. The decision to not proceed with original dates comes in light of the global COVID-19 outbreak and the need to secure the safety of the exhibitors, staff, auction and event visitors, and all decisions are being made in consultation with the health department of the German government.
“It is both our and the Techno-Classica organisation’s primary goal to ensure the good health of our customers, auction visitors and staff, while all parties are committed to reorganizing this incredible annual event as quickly as possible in 2020. RM Sotheby’s will do all it can to ensure the transition to a new date is as smooth as possible for all involved. We will be in touch with news of the new date as soon as it is settled.”
Techno Classica is a yearly ritual for me, so, assuming the fair goes ahead, I am heading for Essen. Having an auction on site is a handy addition and I will miss the opportunity to sit amongst bidders.
Last year’s auction – the first at Techno Classica – was held in a basement close to one of the furthest entrances from the centre. In previous years, this space had been filled by a mixed bag of enthusiast stands and trade sellers, none of whom one would place in the top tier of cars being shown. One had to leave the main arena to access this hall and, for those coming in from the main entrance, it was possible to miss it entirely.
Footfall consequently felt fairly low, with many people skipping the hall through no fault of their own. One UK trade seller I spoke to at length who had consigned a Porsche 911 Turbo to the sale was disappointed with the bidding, but that might have been caused by a high asking price and a general lethargy around the model he was offering.
Sotheby’s press release after the event painted an upbeat picture. “RM Sotheby’s wrapped up the company’s first-ever German auction, reaching total sales of €18.7 million with 86 percent of all 229 lots on offer finding new homes. The two-day sale represents one of the most successful and significant collector car auctions ever held in Germany in terms of both total value and number of cars sold. The auction took place in a packed room on both days and drew bidders from 46 countries, with more than 40 percent of participants being first-time RM Sotheby’s clientele.”
This certainly sounds like an exciting result, but auctions rely on generating some fever and it felt a bit like the fever was going on elsewhere. A better spot for the auction might have been in one of the spaces between halls, where the buzz is constant and the sound of an auction in progress would build on that excitement. Sotheby’s always put on a characterful show and it felt wasted downstairs in the basement.
Porsche Auction Sales Mix
The catalogue for this year’s Techno Classica sale included several Porsches. The online catalogue shows 217 lots in total, with 203 being vehicles and sixteen being Porsches: two water cooled 911s in the shape of a 2005 996 Turbo S Coupe and a 2014 991 Turbo S Coupe, a 1992 928 GTS manual, no less than eight 356 models of various types and five air-cooled 911s, including a 1977 Carrera 3.0 Coupe with little early history but offered without reserve (below).
The 2020 Essen Porsche auction mix is quite different to last year’s sale, which comprised 229 lots, 212 of which were vehicles. Seventeen of these were Porsche vehicles, including two tractors, one water-cooled 911 – a 2011 997 GT3 RS – three 928s and several air-cooled 911s. Everything sold except for two cars: both of which were air-cooled Turbos, which have been sinking from their overinflated prices in recent years.
While there is still decent demand for quality air-cooled cars sold by private owners and my Porsche valuation service including Porsche pre-purchase price checks has been busy all year, supply of the best examples through the used trade and auction market does seem a bit squeezed and it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
I recently contributed to a piece in Classic Cars magazine on the 993 RS being offered at Sotheby’s Retromobile Paris sale on February 5th: a nice street optioned car with decent history, which failed to sell despite an apparently sensible estimate.
Auction Results for Sotheby’s Paris Porsche sale
The Paris sale was quite a low volume event. Just 97 lots were shown on the catalogue and only 78 of those were vehicles, with five of those offerings carrying Porsche badges. Two of the five failed to sell: one being the 993 RS and the other a black and gold Carrera GT modified from new by Gemballa for a footballer. The sellers were a 904 Carrera GTS at €1.9 million, a super low mileage 996 GT3 RS Club Sport that found a home at €250,000 and an ex-Porsche 924 Carrera GTS, which sold for over €200,000. Clearly there was money in the room for the right car, so it seems that the RS was not that example.
Postponing the TechnoClassica sale seems like a sensible option, both for sellers who don’t want their car to fail to sell in public due to low footfall and the auctioneers who don’t want a flop on their hands so early in the life of an annual event. Of course coronavirus is also a concern, but timing is everything in Porsche sales and June may give these eight 356s a much better chance.
One has to wonder what will come of the TechnoClassica if Germany follows the lead of other countries and prohibits events gathering of more than 5,000 people at a time. My hotel is non-refundable, so there’s a good lesson to start with!
Another edition of the Safari Classic Rally is currently in progress and, as always, I’m running the Tuthill Porsche media feeds. With ten cars under its wing, the team is enjoying a decent event. Yesterday was rally day seven and three Tuthill-built 911s finished the day in the top three positions: a fortunate position after thousands of kilometres of competitive rallying on this famously brutal contest.
The entry list for 2019 was smaller than previous editions; fewer than thirty cars entered and only twenty-two cars started the rally. The lower entry numbers can be ascribed to a number of factors, including cost, perceived risk and alternatives. There were also some issues in management and communications during and after the 2017 edition, following the death of one of the managing partners in a mid-event car crash. The fallout cast a traumatic shadow over what had otherwise been another tough but exciting Safari.
Putting things right took a lot of hard work. After 2017, the organisers put considerable effort into modernising its processes, with a major personnel shakeup and big changes in transparency and stewarding. As was promised in discussions and competitor workshops through 2018, the changes delivered a much-improved structure for 2019 and the organisers – headed by a new Clerk of Course – have done a magnificent job this year.
The Safari Classic entry list is restricted to cars from the glory days of Safari: 2wd non-turbo cars pre-1986 that conform to FIA historic regulations. Many cars have won the event, with Mk1 and Mk2 Escorts, 240Zs and 911s all down as previous winners.
The rally takes place over vast swathes of East Africa. While the event is run entirely on open public roads, the logistics including car shipping, accommodation, route mapping, marshalling, medical helicopters etc are huge and it is not cheap to compete. Entry fees for international drivers including car shipping and three twin hotel rooms for the rally duration are set at $34,000, with local entries costing $12,500. Add the cost of car prep before and re-prep after, the cost of hiring support and bringing in parts and the cost of putting up team and supporters and the costs soon soar. This is not a poor man’s sport.
Kenya has a highly active national championship and locals stage another Safari-style rally earlier in the year. Subsidised by wealthy competitors, the earlier rally has lower entry fees and no participant support, so drivers sort out their own shipping, accommodation and so on. If one only wants to rally against local friends and rivals, the smaller event might fit the bill. As most club rally folk do not have the resources to refurbish a rally car twice in six months, this leads to inevitable consequences for the big Safari’s entry list.
Safari Classic entries may have been down this year but the calibre of entrant remained pretty strong. Six-time Kenyan champion, Ian Duncan, was entered in a new Rover SD1 build. Three Kabras Sugar 911 entries included the triple Safari Rally winner, Baldev Chager.
Three Team Tidö Race4Health 911s included the former world rally champion and 2015 Safari Classic winner, Stig Blomqvist. Former Austrian national rally champion and three-time national historic champion, Kris Rosenberger (below), was also entered in a Tuthill 911 that had competed in several earlier events with its previous owner. He would be co-driven by partner, Nicola (Niki) Bleicher, on her first rally in Africa.
The weather through Kenya and Tanzania in the weeks before Safari was wet on an epic scale. Heavy rains in the mountains washed away many roads and bridges and some cancelled stages would be inevitable. Nevertheless, the rally began in Mombasa on November 27th and the competitors completed day one with the first three stages of the 2019 event.
The end of the day saw Kabras Porsches first and second, Blomqvist third and Rosenberger fourth. Three seconds separated first and second, then it was seven minutes back to Blomqvist and Rosenberger: the Austrian less than a minute off Stig. The front two were setting a super hot pace, but Safari is all about surviving the long haul.
Day two brought the first big change at the front. Chager ran well in the first two stages but failed to start the third of the day. This cost more than two hours in penalties and moved him out of the top ten. As team mate Onkar Rai took the lead, Rosenberger outpaced Stig: Nicola was learning to manage the notes and the pair closed the gap to the lead to under three minutes.
Huge rains in the mountains around Arusha in Tanzania lead to the cancellation of all stages on day three, but the cars got racing again the day after. Blomqvist came out with guns blazing, setting the fastest time on stage one. Onkar Rai responded, going quickest on two, but the day’s third stage again hurt the Kabras team and Rai suffered damage. He moved down to fifth overall and Rosenberger took over the lead with Blomqvist some thirty seconds behind. Kabras driver, Tejveer Rai, was now in third.
Day five is the mid-point of the rally and what’s known as ‘rest day’. Drivers get a chance to catch up on sleep, relax or go sightseeing while the crews prepare the cars for four more days of torture. In an extended six-hour service, every Tuthill car is stripped, checked and rebuilt ready for rally part two. This is made possible by a huge team effort, including a mobile parts base shipped from the UK and a devoted tyre station with two tyre guys managing the thirty-six tyres allotted to each car for the nine-day event.
The scale of Tuthill’s presence in Africa is akin to manufacturers on world championship events and many of the mechanics looking after these 911s in Kenya are ex-WRC, so operate efficiently under extreme pressure. The team has run as many as seventeen cars on previous editions and, given the sums clients are paying to complete the event successfully, there is a pressing commercial case for the highest possible level of technical support.
Compared to how solo competitors with simpler aspirations go rallying in Africa, the Wardington army may seem like overkill, but if you want to start ten cars, rally them flat out for nine days and thousands of kilometres in an environment as harsh as this and get them all across the finish line nine days later, it is difficult to overcook the support. The detailed campaign is a giant leap forward on how privateers used to go rallying back in the day, but what clients expect nowadays on tortuous, far-flung events.
Today was the penultimate day of the 2019 East African Safari Classic Rally and it was a typical day of Safari highs and lows, as seen in Richard’s latest video diary (below – see the full set on the Tuthill Porsche YouTube channel). From securing loose goats to losing a podium place within sight of the finish with an unfortunate landing, the rally is all about highs and lows, but that is why devotees love it so much.
As we wait for the final stages of day nine to begin, 6.8 seconds separate Blomqvist and Rosenberger at the front of the field. That exciting story is about to conclude, but this rally is packed with stories equally as thrilling right through the order. From those drivers who save for a lifetime to experience this event, to the people who help run and operate it, to the spectators who take so much energy from brief glimpses of rally cars once every two years, Safari Classic is an incredible spectacle.
Whatever happens tomorrow, I hope the organisers can continue to build upon the overhaul of their internal structures and entice more cars back to Kenya in 2021. This event and the spirit and heritage it honours merits huge respect and success: it is one of a kind and unique in the world.
The wettest November on record came in 1852. After heavy rain through summer and autumn, records show that things reached disastrous levels in November, when large parts of the country ended up underwater. Even Queen Victoria noted in her diary that half of Windsor was submerged.
The rainfall in November 2019 is so far shaping up to beat the record set 167 years ago, so no wonder that Dario Franchitti’s Porsche 964 Speedster has popped up for sale through Bonhams in their RAF Museum sale in London on November 21st.
Dario picked up this Speedster in 2010 while driving for Ganassi and shipped it back to the UK when he moved home to Scotland in 2014. The four-time IndyCar champ was the third owner of the Guards Red Speedster after its delivery to the original buyer in February 1994.
I’m by no means an expert on the Franchitti collection, but he and I did discuss his Porsche fleet in a chat at Tuthills a few months ago. The main topic of conversation was the surprise restoration of his dad’s original 930, presented as a surprise after the return to Scotland. That was a very cool story.
While Dario has a thing for red cars, and the Speedster is certainly red with a capital R, a Speedster may not instantly strike you as an obvious Franchitti choice, but a manual 964 Speedster is good fun to drive. Dario previously shipped the car from his US base in Tennessee to California, for a 2k-mile road trip up and down PCH1.
“The fact that it was a convertible was good in California,” Dario told Motor Trend. “I did about 2,000 miles in a couple of weeks, so that was quite good fun. I drove it down to L.A. and up to San Francisco a couple of times while based at the Monterey Historics.”
I drove those roads through the redwoods in my Pacific Blue 911 SC and for sure they’d be fun in a Speedster. My 964 Speedster drives have all been ace and the 17″ Cup wheels, factory limited slip differential and the RS buckets fitted to this one just up the attraction. MOT history shows the 964 has only done a few hundred miles a year since coming back to the UK. A quick look online also shows that the car has previously been offered for sale, with no takers.
Chassis number WP0CB2965RS465353 appeared in the catalogue for the September Silverstone Auctions sale at our local polo club. Low estimate was a sensible £125k but the car failed to find a buyer. At least Silverstone’s pictures (seen here) showed more of an effort than Bonhams. It has also apparently been offered at supercar dealer, Joe Macari in London with no joy. So now it is heading off to another auction.
Some friends of mine once lived in a very posh squat around the corner from the RAF Museum. Hendon in a soaking wet November doesn’t strike me as the sort of place one would predict a Speedster to sell well. Personally I would book it for the auction they hold at Monaco Historic GP every May and watch it romp off amongst fellow race drivers and – HELLO – some good old-fashioned SUNSHINE. Easy sales are all about timing.
PS: note the good reg plate on this car: 111 XRF. I would take that off before the auction. It will not add a cent to the price for an overseas buyer (good odds) and is too cool to give away. Sell the car to a Euro buyer in Monaco and keep the plate for something else. Always, always, always take plates off unless they are of historic significance to the chassis.
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Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support the blog or engage with me in other ways, you can:
There are some big family birthdays this month. My eldest sister turns fifty tomorrow and youngest daughter is fifteen in a fortnight. Between the two is a big birthday for Norbert Singer, the most celebrated race engineer in Porsche history.
It’s no coincidence that Singer is a name now known for a certain type of 911s. Singer founder, Rob Dickinson, is one of the many Norbert Singer superfans. Recordings of my first interview with Rob where he talks about the genesis of his company feature a geekish delight in the fact that Rob was both a successful singer and a disciple of Singer the designer.
Big ideas in Bohemia
On November 16, 1939, Norbert Singer was born in Eger in the Sudetenland, one year after Hitler had reclaimed the disputed region split from Germany as part of the creation of Czechoslovakia in the Treaty of Versailles.
Having annexed neighbouring Austria in March 1938, Hitler called for a plebiscite across the Sudeten Mountains of northern Czechoslovakia, to allow the millions of German-speaking Sudeten Germans who had been “trapped” by the creation of Czechoslovakia to decide their own fate, threatening invasion if the request was ignored and building a force of some 750,000 soldiers along the Czech border.
To avoid war, England and France acquiesced to the demands as part of the appeasement set out in the Munich Agreement and convinced the Czech government to cede the territory. Hitler sent the Wehrmacht into the Sudetenland the day after the agreement was signed, on October 1st, 1938. Six months later, he invaded the rest of the country.
German expansionism (known as Lebensraum or ‘space to live’) was the climate that welcomed young Singer in November 1939. Eger (now Cheb in the Czech Republic) was again part of Germany and feeling good about life: it was time to think big and plan for the future.
Norbert was all about the future: he grew up fascinated with space travel and dreamed of a career as a rocket engineer. He watched a lot of racing through his university years studying aerospace and automotive engineering in Munich and saw Jim Clark race at the Monaco Grand Prix. A professor convinced him on the idea that “rocket engineering is for Americans: in Germany we are all about cars”.
No letter from Porsche
Singer learned that Porsche was looking for engineers, but his father was not convinced that the small sports car firm would be Norbert’s best option. Other small firms were all going under: what hope could Porsche have of being any different? Singer’s fascination almost came to nothing as, after interviewing with Porsche, he heard no more until a phone call in early March 1970, asking why he hadn’t turned up for his first day at work. Stuttgart had neglected to send the letter confirming his appointment.
He turned up for his second day and was immediately set to work on simplifying the 917’s fuel system, under the leadership of Ferdinand Piëch. After that it was gearbox cooling, then aerodynamics. The 917 won its first Le Mans later that year and Singer began to build a reputation. His work on the 911 RSR took the car to victory, as it did with the RSR Turbo, the 935 and the famous 936. But it was the 956 that really put Norbert on the map.
Following the introduction of the Group C regulations in 1982, Singer proved his tremendous ability as an aerodynamicist, providing Porsche’s new Group C car with exceptional ground effect. The car’s winning sure-footedness came from a special underbody design with air ducts and the legendary “Singer dent”, but Norbert notes that success was not guaranteed.
Norbert Singer: “You can trip up over your own feet”
“I was cautious going into the race,” recalls the chief engineer. “The 956 was a completely new car. You can’t go into every race saying, Hurray, we’re going for the win! You have to see how things go – getting through 24 hours is no easy task. This win was perfect and actually somewhat surprising. We had taken our job very seriously. A few years before that we had made a mistake.
“In 1979, Ernst Fuhrmann was still with Porsche and he said to us engineers, ‘What do you say if we drive Le Mans this year? There’s practically no competition.’ Basically, we just had to show up and walk off with the victory. And what happened? We didn’t reach the finish line with either car – we lost even without competition. You can trip over your own feet as well. Having experienced that, I really enjoyed the win in 1982. The 956 went straight into the museum. It’s the car that hangs from the ceiling.”
The 956 and its successor, the 962C, won five driver titles, three manufacturer titles and two team world championships between 1982 and 1986, also clocking up seven overall victories at Le Mans. From 1970 to 1998, Singer played significant roles in all of Porsche’s race wins at Le Mans with the 917, 935, 936, 965, 962C, WSC Spyder and 911 GT1 98.
Until his retirement in 2004, Norbert Singer was the project manager for most of Porsche’s racing cars. After leaving Porsche, he continued to consult with customer race teams, also serving as an advisor to ACO: the Le Mans race organisers. Singer’s knowledge of Porsche racing history has also proved invaluable to the factory when restoring original race cars, such as 917 chassis number 001 or 965 number 005.
Porsche says that Singer has been lecturing at Esslingen University since 2006 and continues to do so. Whatever he is up to these days, his place at the top table of Porsche history is without question and it is a delight to see him reach the grand age of eighty. Happy birthday Norbert!
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