by John Glynn | Jul 23, 2014 | Classic Porsche Blog, Road Trips
Fellow Porsche 911 Carrera 3.0 owner Gavin emails from Australia, where he’s just launched a new Porsche for hire business in Sydney, helping Porsche fans to explore the landscape beyond this great city from a 911 driver’s seat.
Gavin and I have been friends online since 2006, when he was amongst the first to join our impactbumpers.com Porsche forum. His Talbot Yellow C3 Targa is one of my favourites.
“The C3 was my first Porsche.” says Gavin. “I originally went looking for a fun convertible, following a bunch of modern performance sedans that were fast, but not as much fun as I thought they’d be, particularly in normal driving conditions. Interestingly, I started looking at older Alfa Romeos, but stumbled across a 1975 911 Targa (which was a tub) and happily found that I had to move the seat forward and that my head didn’t stick out above the windscreen.
“Following this, I found a local SC, took it for a drive & fell in love with the sound, smell & overall experience. That was the end of the Italian turn and from there it was just a case of finding the right 911. The Carrera 3.0 ticked all the boxes for me at the time. Aside from SSI heat exchangers and 9″ x 16” Fuchs on the rear, it’s in original spec and has been a thrilling & reliable drive over the years.
“I must be a bit strange because I preferred the classic Porsche 911 Targa to both the Coupe and Cabriolet, particularly in the black and Talbot Yellow combination. Once I got married in the car (cunning move that one) and later discovered how much kids love it, I thought that it would probably be a forever car for me. I’ve had it for 11 years and, while tempted to swap it at times for others, nothing seemed to match the raw feel that the Carrera 3.0 offers. If we had to wrap everything up tomorrow and keep only one car out of our fleet, the C3 would be it.”
Gavin’s ‘Rent a Porsche in Australia‘ fleet is a nice selection – more of that in Part 2.
by John Glynn | Jul 22, 2014 | Classic Porsche Blog, Market & Prices
Another pair of low mileage collector Porsche 911 models has come up for sale. The prices have already started online tongues wagging, but that is no bad thing when the cars concerned are rare and ooze quality.
Porsche 996 GT3 RS Low Mileage for sale
If someone had told me this time last year that prices for 996 GT3 RS would touch £150,000 within twelve months, I’d have grown a second pair of eyebrows to raise in response. But this low mileage Porsche 996 GT3 RS now on sale is priced just off that.
It’s brave pricing but, with just 9,300 miles on the clock and apparently no track use in its past, this could be a last chance for serious collectors to grab a mint RHD 996 GT3 RS in their ascent towards air-cooled 911 Carrera RS price levels in thirty years.
Before you slam the keyboard, I’m not saying the two are comparable or that 996 GT3s will ever hit half-a-million quid a piece: I’m just throwing it out there. I’m already dazed by current 911 Carrera RS prices, so who knows what is possible for the water-cooled classics.
Porsche 993 Turbo S Low Mileage for sale
In the same used Porsche showroom as the low-mileage Porsche 996 GT3 RS is this rare Porsche 993 Turbo S for sale. Amongst the rarest of the rare air-cooled Turbos, the black-with-tan Turbo S has done just 17,100 miles from new and is offered at a price I am scared to say out loud.
I like 993 Turbos – really like them – but they are one of those super-capable Porsche 911s where, no matter what you do, the car will generally sort your mess out. It is hard to hoon around in a 993 Turbo and seriously scare yourself. In any case, this 450 bhp Turbo S cannot be hooned or used to frighten the driver. The value is in its rarity and low mileage, so no point spending all that cash on a car to go crazy in.
That said, there is more money in the world that I can comprehend, so these two could be gone by the weekend.
by John Glynn | Jul 21, 2014 | Classic Porsche Blog, Project Cars
Some great pics and video have just arrived from Mark at EB Motorsport, who supplied many of the replica Porsche parts used on this Rennsport Porsche 907 recreation build by RMS Porsche in Theix, near Vannes, France.
As a big fan of Brittany, I’ve been to Vannes a few times: wish I’d known RMS were based there. A quick look at the RMS Porsche Facebook page shows some very interesting projects, including running Tom Dillmann at Le Mans in Porsche Carrera Cup France. Anyone into GP2 will know Dillmann: no slouch in a single seater.
Suffice to say that RMS know their stuff on Porsche racing, although this 907 build has me scratching my head a bit. Introduced in 1967, the 907 initially ran a Rennsport 2-litre flat six. Far from being underpowered, it could hit 190mph in a straight line. Porsche then added a 2.2-litre flat eight engine, which took the 907 to Porsche’s first-ever 24-hours win at Daytona in 1968.
Superceded by the 908 later that same year, the 907 was quite a rare build and is not too common in historic racing. One giveaway of the 907 body was the nose, which had a rectangular centre grill with oval slots either side. The 908 went to an oval centre intake with an oval to the left and a mousehole-shaped slot to the right.
This recreation has that mousehole slot in the nose, but obviously does not run a 908 3-litre flat eight engine. The naming may just be as simple as that: 907 can show with a flat six. The replica bodywork looks modelled on Porsche 908K – like Cameron Healy’s 1968 908K (below), which I enjoyed photographing at Rennsport Reunion in 2011.
The RMS guys have also made this video of the first start of their replica. Initially reluctant to fire, it soon gets going and sounds great through the megaphones. I am intrigued to see the car running: no doubt that flat six engine will be making great power and the chassis will weigh next to nothing. Nice job, RMS.
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by John Glynn | Jul 20, 2014 | Porsche Cayenne, Project Cars
“What’s that smell, dad?” asked youngest daughter as our Porsche Cayenne stormed away from a t-junction on a recent morning school run. The odour seemed familiar, but took a few hours to recall out what it was.
At first I thought the acrid, slightly burnt aroma was from the car in front, but when I heard the heater fan seizing up as I arrived in a car park later that morning, I remembered the smell when my 911 blower fan failed in the south of France on the 2010 R Gruppe Bergmeister Tour. Same thing.
The Porsche Cayenne is known for blower fan failure. These cars are big inside, with only one fan controlling the climate, so of course the fan is going to need replacement at some stage. I’d known it was getting weak for a while, but not been too anxious to change the fan as it’s a Porsche-only item and suitably priced. Now it was time to sort it out.
Some people spend hours repairing the heater fans (with unknown reliability), but that’s messing around I haven’t got time for. Chris at JZM recommended changing the heater blower resistor at the same time as, having been under increased current draw for such a long time, these usually fail soon after the blower fan is replaced. There speaks the voice of experience.
Once the parts were in stock, I set a Saturday morning aside to fit the new fan. Fitting the fan was easy: take out the glovebox, undo the wiring and seven hex screws, swap the fan over and put it all back together. The resistor is two screws and right in front of you when the glovebox is out: it’s a Volkswagen part, of course.
With the new fan fitted, the Cayenne is now cool & composed inside. Total cost was something like £300, but I’ve yet to see the parts bill. It’s a small price to pay for the pleasure and comfort with outside temps topping thirty degrees C ambient this year.
My next problem is a water leak: small but enough to annoy me at circa 750mls in 5k miles. The coolant pipes have already been done, so my first port of call will be checking the water pump. The Cayenne is due an oil change anyway, so we’ll have a look when that gets done.
by John Glynn | Jul 20, 2014 | Porsche Cayenne, Project Cars
If I ever recover from our last family holiday in the Cayenne (to Ireland last Easter) enough to want another one, and we take Ted the Jack Russell Terrier, he will get half the boot space. With four women ready to fill up the other half, I’ve been looking for a roof box as a just-in-case measure.
New Porsche roof boxes are silly money, so a used box is the obvious solution. eBay is usually the best place to find used Porsche accessories, and I’ve had a saved search for Porsche roof boxes running for a while. A quick flick on the search one lunchtime last week found a black Porsche roofbox out in Suffolk. Looking at the seller’s other items, he also had a set of 19″ Cayenne wheels with winter tyres.
eBay Porsche Wheels and Tyres
Having finally killed off the part-worn winters from last year, I needed replacement winter tyres and I wanted a roofbox, so one quick email offer later, both items were mine. I arranged collection for the following morning and duly set off after dropping the kids to school. It’s a 200-mile round trip from here to Suffolk on the east coast of England. Sat nav said a couple of hours with a few country short cuts, some of which turned out to be excellent roads. Noted for future 911 drives.
One great thing about Porsche ownership is the variety of interesting people who run around in these cars. Having met undertakers, dentists, truck drivers and more through buying and selling Porsches and parts, this latest deal was with Sean: an obviously talented property developer.
Sean’s place (above) was an amazing manor house. Seemingly 150 years old, it turned out to be a new build using carefully chosen materials. As someone who is still buying reclaimed building supplies for an ongoing Victorian house rebuild, the house appeared to have stood since the 1850s or earlier. It was absolutely beautiful: the pics are from the architect’s website.
We fitted the roof box on its Porsche roof rails and threw the wheels in the Cayenne. Ted approved of the boot space (below): now all we need is a boot divider for him. And some space to store this massive bit of luggage. Shouldn’t be a problem when the garage is built.
Modern Cayenne not as Well Built as Original
Sean was selling the roof box, as he had recently bought his third Cayenne, but the new Porsche Cayenne doesn’t come with the roof channels required to fit these boxes. A previous owner of a V8 like mine, a Turbo and now a new Turbodiesel, he felt that newer Cayennes had been lessened by removing items found on early cars, to make new cars easier to manufacture. This included the roof channel system and raised windscreen edges: the lack of which allowed water to run straight in through open front windows. Wet shirt sleeves are not appreciated when you’ve shelled out sixty grand or more on a car.
A similar thing happened to early BMW Minis. BMW couldn’t make money retaining the substantial build quality of the first production examples, so the cars got cheaper to build over time. It’s also said that lowering production costs was one motivation for the transition from air-cooled to water-cooled 911s, but let’s not go there.
Porsche Roof Box is a Thule Product
Having since spent an hour refining the fit, sliding it forward a bit to clear the DAB aerial and allow the boot to open fully, the roofbox – which is a Thule product, painted in black and rebadged as Porsche – fits the Cayenne really well.
Screwed to the genuine roof rails/cross bars using custom fittings, it opens from both sides and is rattle-free over bumps. There’s a bit of wind noise at 90mph and a minor impact on fuel economy, but no more than 10% lost. I’ve run with it for five days now and been impressed. A good buy for £200!
