My friend Paul in that there Essex has decided to offer his Porsche 911 3.2 Carrera for sale. I know the car quite well and it is a great example of a modified 3.2 finished to a very strong level. This car is worth your attention if you’re in the market.
He’s just sent me a slightly ‘Friday night’ description, which I will attempt to decipher. Let us begin:
I bought this car over ten years ago with 75,000 miles on it. It came from a well known independent dealer and was my first 911. Straight after my purchase, I fell in with the impactbumpers.com crowd, which led to many road trips and track days all over Europe and the UK.
The most recent of these road trips was in September, to the Race de Remparts in Angouleme in south west France. The classic race weekend in the sunshine reminded me that there are still many classics to own and enjoy, so I have decided to offer the Carrera for sale and see whether it might find a new home.
I have developed and upgraded the car throughout my ownership, so it is now a superb example of an air-cooled Porsche 911 prepared for track days, fast road and touring use. It had a detailed restoration in 2012, when a highly respected Porsche bodyshop (Sportwagen in Great Wakering) took many monies from me and handed me back a beautiful car in near perfect condition.
The complete restoration was documented in detailed photographs. During the restoration, the sunroof, side repeaters, fog lights and headlamp washers were deleted, with the usual rust removal from the kidney bowls and other rust traps. The driver’s seat rails were removed and a lower set fitted to accommodate a taller driver. All rubber trim (except bumperettes) was replaced during the rebuild. We also fitted a new windscreen. All of the car is steel, save for the ducktail and Ruf 935 mirrors. It weighs in 1120 kilograms with a quarter of a tank of fuel.
Soon after purchase, the top end was rebuilt by Autowerke in Norwich at approx 76k miles. It now shows 122k miles and runs better than ever. It has a custom Steve Wong chip, stainless steel Cargraphic silencer with stainless steel Dansk heat exchangers and crossover pipe. I keep it well maintained and the engine power figures show just how strong this particular flat six is, with the most recent dyno run showing 278.5 bhp (LSV in Wellingborough).
Everyone who rides in this car comments on how quick it is. It revs freely to the 6.8k limit, and the low weight of less than 1100 kilograms means it can easily match more modern machinery on track. Being a 1987 model year 911, the transmission is the sought-after Getrag G50. I have fitted poly mounts for even slicker shifting and the clutch is less than 5k miles old.
Handling is super important to me, so the dampers have been upgraded to Bilstein Club Sport spec. Anti roll bar and rear arm bushes are poly, while the torsion bars and anti-roll bars themselves are stock. The car benefits from an expensive Centre of Gravity suspension setup and corner balance. It is fitted with a set of genuine 7 and 8 x 16″ Fuchs alloy wheels, with a set of replica 7″ and 9″ Fuchs with track tyres available as an option. Brakes are standard with upgraded pads. There is no issue with standard brakes and bars on a lightened 911.
The cabin is a nice place to be. I went for a mix of light weight while retaining some comfort for touring, so it has Recaro SPG XL race seats, custom trimmed in leather and Pascha. There is also a rear seat delete and Club Sport carpet setup, but you could reinstate rear seats for kids if you needed to. RS style door cards, a Momo 07 steering wheel and genuine Cocomats add to the ambience. It has an AVO bluetooth stereo, and the main fuseboard has been replaced with a Classic Retrofit blade fuse board incorporating upgraded headlamp relays.
Most of the original lead weight soundproofing has been removed and replaced with Dynamat. The car makes a noise, but in a very good way. Earplugs are not required for long drives! It has a full MOT, immobiliser, loads of paperwork and is ready to go.
I may end up with the car here at mine for viewings and inspections, but there is no room for the minute. Interested parties may contact me and I will put you in touch directly. It will also be up for sale on my Porsche 911 forum at impactbumpers.com and on a few other platforms.
Considering the money invested and recent sales of similarly modified cars, this one is priced at £49,995 for a quick sale – the body restoration alone was a £25k bill so there is value here. Consistently impressive dyno results over the last ten years suggest there is more to this engine than a standard 3.2. Serious buyers are welcome to arrange a pre-purchase inspection.
Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support the blog or engage with me in other ways, you can:
Stuttgart loves a special edition and another Macan has just joined the list: the Turbo Exclusive Performance Edition. The styling reminds me of a Volkswagen Polo ‘Beats’ Edition, but that is not a bad thing: everyone knows the VW Polo is one of the best cars in the world. Even Alois Ruf agrees with me on that.
Based on the current Macan Turbo with Performance Package, the 3.6-litre Turbo produces 440 horsepower. Porsche sticks a lot of extras on the standard model and carries the changes out at the ‘Exclusive Manufactur’ department in Leipzig, so the base price corresponds to that: £86k including VAT in the UK. Adding colour-to-sample paint and the other options could quickly take it to over £100k – a ton of cash for a mid size SUV.
Standard equipment includes 21-inch 911 Turbo Design wheels with lateral spokes painted in Black (high-gloss), LED headlights and tinted LED rear lights. The front seats, rear seating and steering wheel are heated as standard.
Custom Exclusive parts created specifically for this Macan include aero add-ons on the front spoiler, rear apron and side blades painted in Carmine Red. The Macan Turbo model designation on the tailgate is also painted in Carmine Red underneath PORSCHE lettering in high-gloss black.
Inside, there are more black and red accents through the black leather interior with Alcantara elements. The Garnet Red bolsters for the front seats are bespoke for this car. The colour is used also for the contrasting stitching, embroidered Turbo script on the headrests, seat belts, Sport Chrono stopwatch bezel and the vehicle key wallet.
The aluminium PDK gear selector is finished with Garnet Red leather in Garnet Red, and a “Macan Turbo Exclusive Performance Edition” logo has been added to the customised door entry trim strips and the dashboard trim. Well done Leipzig for fitting that into one plaque.
Porsche Macan Used Prices UK
A £90k soft-roader is obviously never going to have a place in my life but the colour to sample in Voodoo Blue looks pretty cool. I keep looking at Macans and wondering when they will get affordable as secondhand buys – not sure that day is coming any time soon. Of the 310 Macans on Pistonheads, the cheapest is a fairly boring 2014 2-litre PDK model with 15k miles up for £37k. Next cheapest car is an 82k-mile diesel for the same money.
Official Porsche Centres offer decent spec TDI PDKs with metallic paint, sensible mileage and the worth-having used Porsche warranty from £41k and that might be the best place to start looking. An independent petrol offering at £38k struggles to compete with that package.
Few things are more important to me than motorsport. While my first love has always been Porsche rally cars, the absolute top line of motorsport in my eyes will always be Formula 1, so I am super excited that 2015 WEC Champion and current WEC series leader, Porsche’s Brendon Hartley, is racing at the US Grand Prix in Austin this weekend in one of James Key’s beautiful Toro Rosso F1 cars.
To me, Hartley is one of the top five drivers in the world and easily capable of winning in F1. A former Red Bull driver and Toro Rosso reserve driver, who was dropped from the Red Bull programme eight years ago for whatever reason, Brendon has been typically candid in his own assessment of how things were back then and insists he is now far more prepared for the psychological challenges of this weekend’s opportunity.
“It’s a dream,” Brendon told Sky F1’s Ted Kravitz in his first interview at Circuit of the Americas. “I have dreamt about this moment all my life and support back home has been crazy. Honestly, I am trying to take the pressure off myself and tell myself “it’s just another race, it’s just another car”. In reality, I know that’s not quite true: it’s not just any other race and it’s not just any other car, but I’m trying to separate myself from that.
“Obviously, the support back home has been incredible. It’s been quite a while since we saw a Kiwi in Formula 1 and we’re very proud people. There’s a few of us in the motorsport world doing a good job, raising the flag at a very high level, but it’s been a long time since one of us was in Formula 1, so I’m well aware of what that means.”
Kravitz asked Brendon’s former Porsche team mate, Nico Hulkenberg, whether he was pleased for his former colleague. “Yeah, it’s fun and quite cool,” said Nico, “I didn’t see that coming. “No,” agreed Ted. “They needed a Red Bull person with a superlicence, so that narrowed it down to [Sebastien] Buemi or him. So I guess it’s him. Would you expect him to pick up this F1 lark pretty easily?”
“Probably a little bit more challenging for him than for Carlos [Sainz, who is switching teams to Renault from this weekend], because he hasn’t sat in an F1 car for quite some time now, but the WEC cars also produce a lot of downforce and he has raced here quite recently, so that should help him, but it will be interesting to see how he feels these cars and how he gets on.”
“I guess it’s a bit of an advantage for me coming here recently,” notes Brendon, “but I think that the biggest ask is driving a modern Formula 1 car and that’s going to be the bigger learning curve. In some ways I feel prepared for this: a lot more prepared than in 2009-2010 when I was a reserve driver. I wasn’t ready at that time.
“I know Max [Verstappen] came in at a very young age, but at that age I wasn’t ready. I’ve learned a lot since then. Being with Porsche in the LMP1 taught me a lot: high pressure scenario, representing Porsche, working with guys like Mark Webber and Timo [Bernhard] and you learn a lot off each other in that environment when you actually work together. So from that side, I feel very prepared and mentally strong.
“Unfortunately, in terms of driving a modern Formula 1 car I’m completely underprepared – i.e. not prepared at all – but I think I’ll know a lot more after Free Practice 1 tomorrow. I’m looking forward to stop talking about what I’m expecting. Just get that first session under way, see how I feel in the car, see where I’m at and then figure out what I’ve got to work on to get towards Sunday afternoon, which is the big debut.”
What’s interesting about the debut is that Hartley himself set the wheels in motion, calling Red Bull’s Helmut Marko when Porsche canned its LMP1 programme earlier this year and offering his services should a spare seat materialise. As the twisted handshakes of the McLaren/Toro Rosso Honda/Renault engine swap deal unwound, it turned out that Toro Rosso had been left without a driver for Austin.
A good performance in Texas could potentially lead to more F1 activity, but Brendon insists that no one has spoken of this as yet and no performance targets have been set. It is hard to imagine that Brendon’s considerable talent won’t find some pace in the car, so that will make all three practice sessions unmissable viewing. Hartley will be off to IndyCar if this doesn’t lead on to better things and F1 will be poorer because of it. Fingers crossed for a great weekend!
Porsche has unveiled a triptych of new special-edition 911s celebrating three British racing drivers who have taken Porsche to the top step of the podium at the Le Mans 24 Hours. The British Legends series honours Richard Attwood, Nick Tandy and Derek Bell.
British Legends: Richard Attwood
Richard Attwood helped claim Porsche’s first Le Mans victory in 1970. Driving a theoretically outdated 4.5-litre 917 in the Porsche family colours of Salzburg Racing, Attwood and partner, Hans Herrmann, outlasted many other competitors including the newer 4.9-litre 917s to reach the finish first. Just sixteen of the original fifty-one starters took the chequered flag.
Herrmann – a Porsche factory driver from the early 1950s – had promised his wife that a Le Mans win would be his last ever race. After the race, he kept his word and retired, much to the surprise of his Salzburg team bosses. Attwood raced another 917 at Le Mans in 1971, finished second and retired at the end of the season. Attwood currently features in a Porsche 928 racing video.
British Legends: Nick Tandy
After a blistering early career in Ministox and single seaters (Formula Ford and F3), Bedford-born rockstar and Porsche tart extraordinaire, Nick Tandy, first blipped on Weissach’s radar with an exceptional Carrera Cup debut at Dijon for Konrad Motorsport in 2009. Despite no testing beforehand, Tandy finished second in this round of the highly competitive Carrera Cup Germany, so Konrad invited him back for the Abu Dhabi race, where he impressed them again and earned himself a full season Carrera Cup drive for 2010.
Tandy went from strength to strength in 2010, narrowly missing the title to Rene Rast, who was insanely quick: the pair were the class of the field. The championship was Tandy’s in 2011, at which stage he shifted to the world stage, ending up in Porsche’s LMP programme and taking his first Le Mans win for Weissach in 2015 alongside Earl Bamber and Nico Hülkenberg. He continues to be a key part of the Porsche works driver squad.
British Legends: Derek Bell
Born in leafy Pinner in 1941, Derek Reginald Bell went on to claim five wins at Le Mans – four of them with Porsche – and remains Britain’s winningest Le Mans racer.
Bell’s first Le Mans 24 was in 1970: the same race won by Richard Attwood in a Porsche 917. Driving alongside Ronnie Peterson in a works Ferrari 512S, the duo was forced to retire from the race, but Bell stayed on afterwards to help his friend Steve McQueen film the classic: “Le Mans”. The 512 used in the film caught fire with Bell in it, and he narrowly escaped with minor burns.
DB’s most memorable successes at La Sarthe came when teamed with Jacky Ickx. The pair claimed victory for Mirage in 1975 and then for Porsche in 1981 and 1982. Bell’s other Porsche Le Mans wins came in 1986 and 1987, alongside Hans Stuck and Al Holbert.
Carrera GTS ‘British Legends’
The ‘British Legends’ 991s are based on 991 Carrera 4 GTS models and come with options including LED headlights, Sport Design body styling and satin-finish mirrors, lots of carbon and a Union Jack badge on each car with the driver’s signature alongside. Porsche says:
“Using the design of the winning race cars as the starting point of each car, joint workshops between Porsche Cars GB and the drivers ensured their passion was built-in to each 911. The ideas were then taken forward by the design team at Style Porsche in Weissach and the craftsmen at Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur in Stuttgart.
“Each British Legends Edition is finished intricately by hand in the new Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur workshop. Special features such as the Satin finish black door mirrors, carbon floor mats with Alcantara edging and a steering column casing in Alcantara make their first appearance on this 911.”
The 911 Carrera 4 GTS British Legends Edition is on sale from 9 October, priced at £122,376 inc VAT for Attwood Red – add an extra £900 for Tandy White or Bell Blue paint. A bargain! Whatever about the cars, there is no doubt that all three drivers are proper Porsche legends so it’s great to see them get the hat tip of a special edition. Watch the video below – it has some nice archive stuff in it:
No fan of Porsche racing will have enjoyed the recent news that former Porsche R&D supremo, Wolfgang Hatz, had been arrested in connection with ongoing investigations into the Volkswagen diesel emissions cheating scandal.
Hatz’ arrest is not the first in this story and will not be the last. The most detailed piece I have read regarding Hatz was on Arstechnica, in an article which said the former VW and Audi engine chief was the fourth arrest made so far in relation to the dieselgate scandal:
“Hatz, who is reportedly being held without bail, is the fourth VW Group employee to be arrested in connection with the scandal (VW Group as an entity pleaded guilty to violating the Clean Air Act in early 2017). James Liang, a former VW engineer, was arrested in 2016 in the US and sentenced to 40 months in prison; Oliver Schmidt, a German emissions compliance executive who worked in the US, was arrested in Miami in December; and Zaccheo Giovanni Pamio, an Italian citizen who was the former chief of thermodynamics in Audi’s engine development department, was arrested in Germany earlier this year.”
One senses the growing inevitability of further arrests amongst former or current board members. Exactly what punishment might be meted out to directors and board members convicted of wrongdoing is unknown, but the situation continues to be closely monitored by many news outlets. VW’s (presumably vast) media spend to underpin positive public perception of the organisation has not brought the carmaker out of the woods just yet.
Knowing that one of the people at the very top of Porsche Motorsport success has been arrested for allegedly cheating air quality regulations leaves an unpleasant taste. It is also very hard to accept that Volkswagen remains the only car manufacturer that has ever done this sort of thing, so who is investigating the rest of them?
Diesel Emissions effect on Porsche SE
Two years after the emissions scandal broke, Porsche SE continues to feel the pain. When Volkswagen recently announced further “negative special items” (i.e. big numbers in red ink) of more than €2.5 billion due to the ongoing emissions crisis, Porsche SE – which holds more than 30% of VW’s shares – announced that this would inevitably hit its own profits, which were now expected to land somewhere between €2.1 and 3.1 billion.
Summing up SE’s press release in the words of Monty Python’s Black Knight, missing the first arm: “I’ve had worse.”
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