by John Glynn | Aug 29, 2014 | Classic Porsche Blog, Project Cars
My US-purchased 1976 Porsche 912E roller is about to land on UK soil. The car is coming in alongside some imports by a collector friend of mine, so he emailed me the customs forms today to get the clearance put through ASAP.
Tuthills are shipping a really beautiful 356 Roadster in the same bundle as mine and they want to take that to Goodwood Revival next weekend, so while I have no clear date on landing, I expect to be unloading it by this day next week and sharing pictures on the blog soon after.
Plans for the 912: we’ll trailer it to Rob Campbell’s Racing Restorations, have a poke around on the ramps, see what the body looks like and decide what parts can go on eBay as surplus to requirements. I’m sure I’ll at least be listing some impact bumper front wings, as my plan is to backdate it – most likely in steel. More 912 news later.
I still have my 1976 911 Carrera 3.0, the 924 Turbo and all my other cars. Buried in a variety of projects lately has left little time for project fun, but I have been busy on eBay, buying stuff under the duvet late at night. Many website building projects and delays to our long-standing building programme here at home left me with a bit of spare cash, so as I’ve always had a soft spot for Merc SLs, I started looking at those again.
I’ve owned four different Mercedes models, and always enjoyed their solidity. My last experience with a Mercedes SL was to help shift a friend’s R107 SL (chrome bumper one above) from the South of France to the UK and then on to Croatia. That was a 560SL: the US-Canada smog beater. Utterly beautiful, but I’ve always preferred driving the later R129 models.
Good job too, as my £3k in spare cash wasn’t going to buy much of a 107, but it would buy a together example of my target car: a 300SL-24 from 1990-1993 in a good colour with low-ish mileage and big history file. I was OK without a V8, as the Cayenne ticks all my 8-cylinder boxes and the 300 is a nice grand tourer for weekends away with Mrs G. I was not looking for another sports car.
I’m fine with doing a little bit of work as long as the pricey stuff works: i.e. central locking, air con and the electro-hydraulic convertible roof, so I set up an eBay search for SLs under £4k, and bid on a few six-cylinders. A few days into the process, up popped a 500SL that caught my eye just minutes after listing.
£3995 asking price for this very tidy 68k-mile 1992 V8 SL was an excellent price versus my research: being sold cheap for a quick sale. Malachite Green with beige leather was not my first choice, but not too unattractive: I quite like green cars. I rang the number in the ad, spoke to the interior designer owner, she had owned it for four years, mileage supported by MOTs and everything worked fine. Ten minutes later, she had my Paypal deposit on the full asking price and I was arranging insurance.
I collected the car last Friday and all is good: I’ve been doing some more research since. Mercedes built 200,000 R129 SLs from 1989 to 2002, but less than 800 V8s of this generation are still known to the UK registration authorities. Numbers have been falling since the start of the century, so nice to save one from destruction.
A plate transfer has held up the registration transfer, and I have bought another private plate for it, so it will be an extra week or so until it is taxed and ready to use on the road. First impressions: it’s had some paint while it lived in London, needs some help on trim and we got a few quid off for cracks in the plastic soft top windows, but it drives very nicely: exactly as I remember them.
Superbly comfortable seats, beautiful M119 V8 as fitted to the Porsche-fettled Mercedes 500E, the earlier and much maligned 4-speed transmission is still a joy to use and pre-93 has none of the aggro that goes with the later electrical looms or transmission fluid wicking up the wiring harness. I love the gentle styling, that classic front end and the hardtop that transforms the car into a beautifully together sports coupe.
A comparable 911 of the same vintage – so a 964 Carrera 2 Cabriolet – would be over £30k now, and is it ten times what I bought? Ask me in ten years.
by John Glynn | Aug 22, 2014 | Modified Porsche Hot Rods, Porsche News
The Mexico Blue Porsche 997 GT3 RS 4.0 has just sold at JZM Porsche. Finished in what might be the ultimate paint-to-sample shade, the lack of decals is what most people I spoke to seemed to bring up – that and the price, of course.
For sale at a heady £350,000, people were always going to talk about the advertised price. “That’s not us driving the market,” say the sellers, “that is what the owner decided would convince him to part with it. The last RHD 4.0 RS to sell was a more common white car, which sold at £320k. The market has jumped since then and our customer was happy to keep this low-mileage one-off if his return wasn’t worthwhile.”
Such is life as a dealer: balancing customer sentiment with market activity. And it’s not always positive. Agressive dealers keen to push the market up for other 911s have dragged others with them, hurting everyone’s prospects as a consequence. One particular specialist known for scary prices has been listing 911 Turbos – mainly 993s – at huge money this year, forcing other sellers to list cars beyond their comfort zone, to prevent more realistic prices from inferring poor condition. I’m not saying dealers are scared of pushing prices, but there’s a fine line between market top and madness.
JZM has since re-priced its low-mileage Porsche 993 Turbo to what it believes is a more realistic level. Further down the price scale, I’ve spoken to a number of other dealer friends this week who, fed up with silly prices for projects, have been bidding much lower then the asking price and not coming home empty-handed.
One dealer who recently inspected a 1970 911 for a customer valued the car at just 60% of asking. “It was up for one price but with non-matching numbers, rust to repair and no shortage of issues to point at, I offered much less than the advertised price and told him to try and do better. A few days later, the phone rang to say come pick it up.”
What would a potentially slowing project market prove? Not much we don’t know. Prices for good cars are one place, prices for projects are somewhere else entirely. Few people want to buy huge amounts of work as most specialist repairers are pretty booked up, and restoration prices are climbing as parts get harder to source. At some stage there may be a tipping point: if it comes, I’m assuming it will be interest rate related.
There’s no harm in sellers making hay while they can if that what the market is willing to pay. Hurts that genuine enthusiasts are being blown out by investors, but let’s see how it all plays out.
by John Glynn | Aug 16, 2014 | Modified Porsche Hot Rods, Porsche News
Enjoyed a run in this sweet used Porsche 997 GT2 for sale earlier this week: a 2008 registered/2009 model year car with the full Manthey M600 power upgrade and some other fun bits. The car arrived for sale and was sold soon after to a keen driver and regular customer. Small wonder when it is such a special machine.
JZM is the UK Manthey agent and built this car from new for the original owner. The factory spec is comprehensive enough, but this GT2 also runs: M600 engine upgrade, Manthey MM1 magnesium wheels, KW HLS2 nose lift system and Nürburgring-approved Manthey carbon bits including front spoiler, front arch Gurneys, sill trims and rear wing extension.
Inside it has even more carbon with PCM3, black leather sports seats and Schroth harnesses as well as the normal seatbelts. Upgrades to the six-speed manual transmission include a Manthey short shift and gearbox overhaul with a few tweaks at Frikadelli Racing. Manthey replaced the upgraded 890 Nm clutch in April of this year. It shifts like a dream, and needs that upgraded clutch pack.
Standard power in a GT2 is 530 bhp, but only a stone cold example holds on to those horses. As heat increases so power is lost, with the plastic-capped intercoolers soaking up heat and frying intake temps. Manthey solves the problem with bigger all-aluminium intercoolers, also adding adding 200-cell cats and an all-new Akrapovic silencer.
As intake temperatures are now much lower, and the gases can exit the car freely, Olaf’s boys remap the better-breathing GT2 on their 850 bhp Maha dyno, taking power to a dependable 600 horsepower (hence the M600).
On the road, the car is a pussycat. JZM’s Steve McHale took us up the nearby A41 for a few miles, exploiting gaps in the traffic to best advantage. An older Porsche with this much power on a wet greasy road would be a proper handful, but even when the traction light flashed at 5,000 revs in fourth gear, the car never deviated from the straightest of lines.
Noise is my only complaint about modern 911s. They all make a stunning amount of noise through those massive rear tyres, and the M600 GT2 is no exception. Trying to make a hands-free phone call on a grainy road surface like this English dual carriageway would be somewhat frustrating, but talking on the move is no problem.
All too soon, our twenty mile spin is over. The car gets a clean bill of health and I tick another 911 off the bucket list. A police car out front on the return leg kept our speeds fairly sensible, but the Manthey Porsche 997 GT2 M600 will top 203 mph where limits allow: 200 reasons to open your wallet.
by John Glynn | Aug 16, 2014 | Classic Porsche Blog, Porsche News
Either I am following most of the Californian Porsche population on Instagram, or everyone else is at the first Werks Reunion at Carmel on the Monterey Historics weekend. My feed has been a parade of 356s, early 911s and latest Magnus Walker video exploits for the last few days.
Not seen many pics of this little beauty, though. It’s Joey B’s 1977 Porsche 911 S in Minerva Blue, which I shared a few weeks ago. Joey has now applied his meticulous attention to detail to what was already quite a nice car, and created something quite remarkable.
“Hey Johnny, hope you are well,” says his email. “Just wanted let you know this middie (what we call a ‘mid-year’ Porsche: post-1973 and pre-SC) is all buttoned up & ready for the prom this Friday at the 1st Werks Reunion in Carmel. Hope you approve of the changes, some more subtle than others.”
Changes obviously include a coat of wax! I spy 15″ Fuchs (of course), some period sounds and a retrimmed steering wheel. That Cork & Pascha interior is just right – makes me think I’d love to see some tan suede or Alcantara centres on early impact bumper Recaro sports seats.
Outside, that no-sunroof narrow body looks sharp with the black H4 headlamp trim rings and single door mirror. “I decided to stay with the 2.7-litre CIS engine with 10k miles on the rebuild,” says Joey and looks like a great decision to me. I see some yellow fog lamp bulbs, too. What a superstar classic!
Who has more pics to share from the Monterey Porsche Werks Reunion? Owner driver Porsche pics like this suit me perfect – we’re not about the garage queens. Drop me an email via the contact page.
by John Glynn | Aug 15, 2014 | Porsche News, Race and Rally
So much for more time for Ferdinand after last weekend: this week has been even madder than last. Much activity has centred on the WRC debut of the Tuthill Porsche 997 RGT car.
Originally intended to debut on the Ulster Rally, the schedule did not allow for transport to the first test to Germany on the following Monday: Germany is too far away at 53 mph in the race truck. So it is straight off to Germany today, to arrive on Sunday. There follows a week of full on activity with testing, recce, shakedown and then the rally proper.
I had a look through the WRC event paperwork with Richard this morning and it’s amazing what they give the teams to get their heads around, even before the co-driver paperwork. Speaking of which, Stèphane Prévot is co-driving with Richard next weekend, and that is another delight.
Stephane started with Bruno Thiry in European rallying before moving to WRC in 1993. He then partnered Francois Duval, Stèphane Sarrazin and now runs with Subaru/Hyundai WRC pilot, Chris Atkinson. The pair are not racing again until Australia, so Prévot can partner with Tuthill. Stèphane is well known to the team, as he often sits alongside Glenn Jannssens, Tuthill’s Belgian Historic championship winner.
An unbelievable amount of work has gone into the 997 development and launch, so opportunities to really enjoy that achievement have been few and far between. Richard took the car out to bed in new brakes last night and said that the nicest surprise was the smile that appeared on his face half way around our local test route. “The 997 GT3 might look big, but it doesn’t feel big once you get moving,” said Richard. “Our aim in Germany is just to enjoy being back in a WRC paddock, with what we think is the coolest car.
“We’ll be looking for reliability as it’s not an easy car to service and we still need to understand the best approach to that side of things. It is so exciting and there is a huge amount of interest in what we’re doing. I’ve got to shut that excitement out, find some space and just focus on the road.” The enormity of a Porsche 911 in full-on FIA WRC rallying makes me nervous just standing next to the machine, so I am super excited for the team.
