by John Glynn | Jan 11, 2015 | Classic Porsche Blog, Porsche News
Selling prices continue to climb for the best examples of air-cooled Porsche 911, and low mileage water-cooled cars. Looking at the buyers active at the top of the market, no impending disaster looms to their ability to pay the asking prices now commonplace for older Porsche cars. Add that to a burgeoning demand for one of the hottest investment spots of recent classic car sales and it’s small wonder that good cars sell quickly.
Low-mileage 997 GT3s and 996 Turbos in top class condition continue to do well. A recent 996 Turbo Tiptronic with just 21k miles (above) sold to the first person to view at £39,900: strong money for a 996 Turbo. That said, the car was exceptional and the buyer was sitting on cash, ready to go.
Sitting on cash is a situation many lucky people find themselves in at the minute, whether from bonus, downsizing a property, inheritance or just lots of hard work. Specialist UK dealers have a bundle of air-cooled rarities in their used Porsche for sale stocks, which may do the trick for investors.
My current favourite is this Porsche 993 RS Lightweight: a one-owner car just arrived from Japan with a paltry mileage on the clock. £270,000 seems about right, given where values have been in the last twelve months. Still a truckload of money, though.
I’ve never been a ’73 RS groupie, but this very nice 1973 Porsche 911 Carrera RS Touring for sale – three owners in Light Yellow and beautifully restored many years ago – for offers around the £650k mark.
I’ve set eyes on less than pristine examples with nothing like the history of this car elsewhere in the UK, where sellers insist they have turned down bids of £700k+. Not because they don’t want to sell it: they just want more money. I could say that is pushing it, but then I’m not sitting on a proper RS with all that ownership entails.
Away from high-end Porsche metal, some interesting impact-bumper 911 projects sold over Christmas for mid-£20k: about the right price as far as I’m concerned. No shortage of armchair experts around to shout the prices down, but low-priced IBs are becoming harder to find.
by John Glynn | Jan 9, 2015 | Classic Porsche Blog, Porsche News
Below Zero Ice Driving is about to unveil a fleet of eight Porsche 911s for its busiest season yet. The cars shipped out to Sweden last week, with three mechanics, two support staff and a flurry of support vehicles packed with Porsche parts and a geodesic dome.
I’ve been promised a trip to the ice many times before, but this year it looks highly likely. The geodesic dome will serve as the hospitality unit on the lake, where new hostess Marine will ensure that Below Zero clients are well looked after. No press trip is scheduled for this year’s event, so a photographer will be needed to shoot the new features, making the trip in exchange for a session or two on the lakes. Look no further than yours truly to step up and fill that gap.
The courses have been just been cut into the frozen lake at Below Zero HQ near the Swedish ski resort of Åre. This year, the team will have ten miles of ice tracks at its disposal, and it is likely to need them Just four days are left open in the six-week season, and they look likely to disappear also.
Below Zero hosts everything from corporate events to driver training and special birthday experiences. The cars are bona-fide rally cars: three of this year’s eight car fleet have won rallies in recent times, hosting drivers including Travis Pastrana, Björn Waldegård, Carlos Sainz and Stig Blomqvist.
There’s some filming going on this year and talk of the Tuthill Porsche 997 R-GT car heading to Sweden for a bit of ice testing, but we’ll have to see how that pans out. If I had a bit more time, I wouldn’t mind driving the Cayenne up to Sweden and trying it out on full studs. Temperatures are hovering close to freezing here in the UK, but Sweden offers anywhere between -5 and -12 Celsius, a frozen lake and a dome full of beer. Tempting.
by John Glynn | Dec 21, 2014 | Porsche News, Race and Rally
Porsche has announced a series of changes to its motorsport programme for 2015. Next year’s schedule was set out at the annual Night of Champions, where Jaap van Lagen was awarded the Porsche Cup as the most successful private driver competing in a Porsche during 2014.
Van Lagen is in rarified company, as only the second Dutch driver in the trophy’s long history to win this prestigious award. The other Dutch champ was the great Gijs van Lennep, who claimed the first Porsche Cup from Ferry himself back in 1970. Jaap’s prize: a brand new 911 Carrera S. Well done that man!
This was a week with much to celebrate. Weissach enjoyed a successful roll-out of the 2015 Porsche 919 LMP1 Hybrid with Marc Lieb piloting. The first test is scheduled for January 18-22 in Abu Dhabi: hopefully will coincide with a trip I am taking there also.
Porsche Motorsport 2015
Great to see Earl Bamber get a works drive for 2015: another richly deserved step towards a very bright future. Bamber’s awesome performances in Supercup and as a works stand-in did the trick.
A pair of works RSRs will race in America, from the Daytona 24 season opener. Bamber will partner Fred Makowiecki and Jörg Bergmeister in car 911, while Nick Tandy, Patrick Pilet and Marc Lieb share the sister 912. No mention yet of what super-quick Marco Holzer will be up to next year, but he was happy to tweet this pic of the boys decompressing with slot cars:
Taking Earl’s slot in Supercup is highly talented Italian teenager, Matteo Cairoli. I’m excited to see what Matteo can do in Supercup against the 2015 Porsche Juniors, Sven Müller and Connor de Phillippi. Also new to Supercup is incoming championship manager, thirty-three year-old Oliver Schwab. The former motorsport chief at Porsche China takes over from Jonas Krauss, who is leaving the company.
Every year, new names join the Porsche works squad and every year I expect to see someone lose out. While it has dropped two Juniors this year – farewell to Klaus Bachler and Alex Riberas – Porsche still maintains the biggest works driver lineup that I can remember, and more names will join for Le Mans, when Nico Hülkenberg (below) slides into the Porsche LMP1. We’re all keen to see who will partner the German, and how he will fare at La Sarthe. No one is keener than Porsche CEO, Matthias Müller.
“Motorsport is the soul and principle of this company,” said Herr Müller. “The best and most innovative technologies in our roadgoing sports cars come directly from motorsport.” A sentiment echoed by Wolfgang Hatz. “For Porsche, racing is more than an end in itself. On race tracks around the world, we test and develop technologies that are relevant for our sports car customers on the street.”
For all the chat about racing to develop road car technology, some of us go racing for one reason only: beating the rest. If we’re not winning, we’re losing, and we don’t like to lose! I’m not that bothered about how many cars Porsche sells, as long as each of these boys races their nuts off, and hopefully brings us to victory. The 2015 team looks like a potential winner to me, as it must be to beat the awesome Toyota squad. Roll on 2015!
by John Glynn | Dec 12, 2014 | Classic Porsche Blog, Project Cars
Spent a morning this week at Tuthill Porsche, watching a proper 3.0 911 RSR engine go together. The most interesting thing about this engine is it was built using rare factory sand-cast engine cases: something apart from the norm and a nice link to RSR heritage.
Richard Tuthill has always promised to help with a top end rebuild on my Carrera 3.0 engine, currently resting with tired valve guides and a cracked head stud. The C3 engine has much in common with the RSR motor, so there was plenty on this build that would also apply to my own. I’d seen these cases when they first arrived in the parts washer, so looked forward to watching them come back to life: it was going to be educational.
Engine builder Anthony served as Francis’ apprentice and has since built countless Porsche engines and transmissions, using a mix of Fran’s teachings and knowledge gleaned from other engine gurus. It will be a few years before he has the wrinkles to countenance his impressive store of knowledge, but no doubt he’s en route to the top of his field.
As you’d expect, this was not the first time the race engine had been stripped, and some bits needed a rethink. When the original crank was found to need oversize bearings at three grand a set from our German friend, it made more sense to keep the ancient crank safe, and prepare a new crankshaft to RSR spec.
The 6-bolt crankshaft was knife-edged, polished and nitrided (hardened in a 72-hour process) before being fitted with the original connecting rods. These were original and I thought quite lovely. Edges had been ground and polished before the rods were shot peened: nothing overly dressy. These engines are all about go, not show.
One illuminating job on the crankshaft assembly was stretching the rod bolts using a rod bolt stretch gauge. The bolts are at max clamp load when stretched by 10 thousandths of an inch, so Anthony’s junior held the ARP gauge while the bolts were stretched up to spec.
With the crankshaft assembled, the builder spent a long time cleaning and lubricating the first case half, installing oil seals, oil pump, timing chains and intermediate shaft before dropping the crank in, adding more seals, using a variety of sealants to prep the case further, then turning his attention to the other case half.
This was given the same close attention: lots of cleaning, lubrication and then a different sealant. When everything was ready, the case halves were joined together and Anthony worked quickly to get it all buttoned up while the sealant was curing. Next job was to install pistons and cylinders and measure the heights and CCs, so they could be sent off for finishing. More on that next time (it’s good).
by John Glynn | Dec 12, 2014 | Porsche Cayenne, Project Cars
Not reported on my Cayenne for a little while, so that is worth an update. It’s been a busy bus and not had much love since fitting the new propshaft in September. You might remember that I bought a recon shaft and that was not right so had to send it back, then bought a new one and that had a small vibration when I fitted it.
My plan was to refit that second one using a Porsche propshaft alignment tool and then have my original shaft reconditioned by some old-school guys in Nottingham and fit that to sort it once and for all. A great plan and so far I have managed to achieve none of it! Busy, busy, busy: it may happen over Christmas.
Minor vibration notwithstanding, the Cayenne trucks on regardless. I had to top up the coolant by quite a lot for the first time in months the other day, so I guess I have a leak. As the Cayenne is approaching 140k miles, it could be water pump or could be rad wearing out. The centre coolant pipes in the V8 have been changed to aluminium, so unlikely to be that. I’ll look at it when it’s next on a lift.
It being winter, the starter has gone sluggish again, rarely starting first time from cold. I have another starter to recon and fit, but that’s another project not sorted yet. I did manage to swap the worn-out summer tyres for nice set of part-worn Pirelli Scorpion winter tyres on 19″ wheels. I like the look on the original Cayenne wheels, and the early 19s are wider than later rims. Not convinced about ultimate grip of the Scorpions but a: they are better than nothing and b: they are on the car now so we will wear them out. I’ll wash the truck when I change back to summer tyres.
Swapping the wheels gave me a chance to to check the brakes: still looking good after plenty of miles. A big tick for lifespan of Mintex discs and pads for Cayenne. Things that will not last much longer include the rear light units – will have to replace the offside one soon as it has now started filling up with water over time. Resealing the unit made no real difference, so I drilled a few small holes in the base to let water escape. It’s had condensation problems since the day I bought it, which is common on Cayennes and very annoying.
A change to new Philips X-treme headlamp bulbs brought a lot of irate drivers on a high-speed thrash up the A34 from Portsmouth one evening. Coming up behind people quickly with my headlamps on dipped beam, the Philips pattern was obviously dazzling the car in front, but turning the headlamp beam height adjuster had zero effect on angle. Took the lamps apart the following day to find neither adjuster was working internally, so I am looking for headlamps now also: new ones are mega expensive.
Having recently used the Big Pig to tow Tuthill’s 997 R-GT rally car to a PCGB GT3 Register open day, a good friend asked me this morning what he should be paying for a used Porsche Cayenne, to do a bit of towing and usual mix of everyday work stuff. I have to confess, I pointed him towards a Landcruiser instead. He may still buy a Cayenne, but it won’t be on my say-so.
You’ll pay a bit extra up front for the Landcruiser (a proper 4.2 TD Landcruiser that is, not a 3.0 Colorado or whatever), but it comes with better reliability, better economy and better residual values. You don’t get quite as much personality, but personality is well down the list when a truck can’t hold itself together at 140k miles: small beans for a working machine. That said, I have a Landcruiser in the garage, and no plans to sell the Cayenne, so what the heck do I know! 😀
