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 | Jul 28, 2014 | Classic Porsche Blog, Race and Rally
Ferdinand Magazine’s favourite digital artist, Guy Allen, has just released a new print for summer 2014. Celebrating a famous 911 win at the 1973 Daytona 12 Hours, Guy has created a striking Porsche 911 artwork that does justice to the hard-fought Sebring showdown.
Porsche 911 RSR Sebring 1973
Veteran race fans may recall how, in 1972, the Sebring 12 Hours was struck off the World Sportscar Championship calendar due to the state of the track. IMSA decided to include the circuit on its 1973 GT racing calendar and set the stage for a brutal test of survival.
A pair of Corvettes led from the start, but an unmerciful race pace around the airfield circuit took its toll. On lap 86, Porsche seized the lead. The Porsche 911 RSRs of Haywood/Gregg/Helmick and Minter/Keyser did battle to the flag, with Dave Helmick’s Light Yellow RSR coming home first.
Those lovely people at Gunnar Racing carried out a full restoration on the original RSR back in 2000 – see the Gunnar Racing 911 RSR restoration thread. At the time, it was owned by a gentleman living in Oxford, just down the road from here. No doubt this is an important 911: great to see it on a Guy Allen print.
Produced on archive quality heavyweight paper and available in a strictly limited edition of 100 prints, this is a large format A2 print: 594 x 420 mm. Each print is signed and numbered. Mine is number two – not sure where I’ll hang it yet, but it’s a really nice piece of work.
How Sebring Changed the Face of Racing
What I like about this story of the 1973 12 Hours of Sebring is how it changed the face of US racing. Gunnar’s website quotes Sebring historian Ken Breslauer’s summary of events around that time, following the FIA’s refusal to certify the circuit for 1973.
“For 1973, an upstart group known as IMSA added Sebring to its Camel GT series, and the race lived on, though radically different in appearance. The entire event was more informal, but no less competitive than previous years. In retrospect,the 1973 race was one of the finest gatherings of GT production race cars ever in North America. Entries totalled the second largest ever at Sebring.
“There was no race the next year, 1974, due to the OPEC oil embargo and resulting fuel crisis. Nevertheless, on the third weekend of March ’74, about 2,000 race fans showed up anyway. The Sebring tradition simply would not die.”
No race and a fuel crisis, but two thousand race fans “turned up anyway.” Way to go, America!
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.
Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support the blog or engage with me in other ways, you can:
by John Glynn | Jul 17, 2014 | Classic Porsche Blog, Market & Prices, Porsche News
The annual Silverstone Classic is next weekend – July 25 to 27 – and of course we will be there to follow the Porsches coming from our friends at Tuthill Porsche, and the mighty EB Motorsport.
This RSR replica has spent the last few weeks at Tuthills being prepared for the Silverstone weekend. Built elsewhere, the car had a number of issues after delivery, so arrived at Wardington with a list of repair jobs to do. It is coming together nicely, so I hope the owner enjoys a reliable weekend.
EB Motorsport’s Light Yellow Porsche 911 3.0 RSR and the Guards Red RS will both run at Silverstone on Friday and Saturday, in the Masters Historic qualifying and race. The SWB 911 sadly won’t be seen at Silverstone but is still looking good for Spa 6-Hours.
As always, Silverstone Auctions is holding a sale at the event. Running over two days, there are a number of Porsches listed for sale. A 1974 Porsche 911 S restoration project is estimated at £10-15k, while an allegedly stunning Carrera 3.2 Cabriolet is estimated at £18-22k. Seems low to me for a three-owner car with 81,000 miles. In Iris Blue, the colour may not arouse a majority of buyers, but only takes one to make a sale (or two to make a war).
The 1967 Porsche 911 2.0 ex-California car in Sand Beige seen above, with low mileage since a full engine rebuild is estimated at £45-55k: sounds alright for a left-hand drive car if it’s in good condition. But my favourite photo from the catalogue must be this Mini Cooper S, which has lived in the seller’s living room since purchased in 2006. It’s been recommissioned and MOT’d since leaving the sofa.
As ever with auctions, do your homework before committing to anything. Estimates are usually low, so expect some auction fever to knock prices up a notch. We’ll be around somewhere to watch how the bidding goes.
