One of my favourite Porsche projects of the last few years has been working with my friend Jonny Hart on the brand development of his company, Classic Retrofit. Jonny and I became online friends soon after he joined our 1974-1989 Porsche 911 forum at impactbumpers.com and it has been fun to follow his electronics magic on parts for these classic 911s, including the all new Porsche 911 air con system.
The peak of achievement to date is Jonny’s electric air con kit for classic Porsche 911s. Branded ‘Electrocooler’, the full kit is about to be unleashed on the classic Porsche community in its first public showing at the LA Lit Show on March 4.
I shared some pics on Classic Retrofit’s social media pages last week and they went totally ballistic: a most rewarding return for all of Jonny’s hard work. I have just sent more details out and am sure that many of my Ferdinand friends will also be interested in knowing more, so I share them below.
Classic Porsche 911 Electric Air Con: A/C Technical Layout
The compressor module (front centre in the picture) goes in the smuggler’s box on a LHD 911. On a RHD car, the compressor is mounted adjacent to the battery and fits with no modifications to battery or spare wheel arrangements.
The condenser goes under the front wing/fender, in place of the oversized windscreen washer reservoir on an impact-bumper car. The blower unit (top right) contains a modern fan and evaporator. All original non A/C vents now blow A/C air.
The occupants can also enjoy A/C air out of any vent in the car, including warm A/C air for rapid windscreen defogging. Our blower assembly brings recirculation capability to the 911s ventilation system and assists heated air flow for hot air without the need for footwell blowers.
Maintaining the standards of classic Porsche design, the original cabin slider ventilation controls are retained, for maximum discretion. A single pushbutton with indication is the only visible clue that Electrocooler is fitted.
Electrocooler Weight Savings and Performance Benefits
As shown in our photo, the complete kit weighs a shade over 16 kilograms (35 lbs). Combining the fitment of a smaller washer bottle and accounting for removal of the original fresh air blower, installing Classic Retrofit’s Electrocooler kit to a 911 originally supplied without factory air conditioning adds less than 7 kilograms (15 lbs) to overall weight.
For a car originally equipped with factory air conditioning, converting to the Classic Retrofit Electrocooler system results in an overall weight saving of circa 18 kilograms (40 lbs).
There is the added handling benefit of weight loss at the rear of the car by removing the substantial original air-con compressor from its elevated position in the engine bay, not to mention the increased fuel efficiency and engine power, once the crankshaft load inflicted by the archaic belt-driven compressor is removed.
The Canary Islands are volcanic isles located off the north-west coast of Africa, just a half-hour flight from the Western Sahara Desert. I first visited the Canaries in 1993 and instantly fell in love with the islands and the people. I have since returned here many times, visiting each of the islands over the years, but Gran Canaria remains my favourite.
The locals say that Gran Canaria is like a mini-continent. Divided by a mountainous centre, the south gets most sunshine, so is where the resorts are. In the north is Las Palmas, Spain’s ninth biggest city and the islands’ governmental centre. 850,000 people live on this island, including many extranjeros (immigrants) from across Europe, Africa and Latin America. This Irish immigrant has spent the last seven days here and as always, it has been a pleasure.
Thanks to beautiful weather all year around, a huge working sea port and a very busy airport, Gran Canaria welcomes hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. The mix of global influences has earned GC a reputation for tolerance and an openness to many cultures. This has certainly been my experience. I have made some good friends in Gran Canaria and am interested in possibly owning a house here, hence my frequent visits in recent months. We will see how that goes.
A Lesson in Spanish Philosophy
Canarian history goes back thousands of years and each island is truly unique in character, but today the Canaries are a part of modern Spain. Here we speak español (small e) and follow the rhythms of Spanish life and culture. There is little point in rushing anywhere, as you will only catch up to the bloke in front. Make time for life and life will make time for you is how things tend to go.
Catching up to slower moving people reminds me of the famous Spanish philosopher, José Ortega y Gasset, who believed that a person was the combination of both life and circumstance. “Yo soy yo y mi circunstancia” as he put it. To Ortega y Gasset, circunstancia meant those things forced upon us. He saw life as a constant tug-of-war between the freedom we were born with and our dictated fate.
In the fight between freedom and fate, Ortega y Gasset’s concept is the start of all art. We accept that fate will befall us but inside that acceptance, we select a destiny. Some become part of what the philosopher’s 1929 essays call “The Mass”, while some select a different path.
“The mass crushes beneath it everything that is different, everything that is excellent, individual, qualified and select. Anybody who is not like everybody, who does not think like everybody, runs the risk of being eliminated.”
To escape this fate, Ortega Y Gasset believed that a person must make an active decision to live a life of effort. “For me, then, nobility is synonymous with a life of effort, ever set on excelling oneself, in passing beyond what one is to what one sets up as a duty and an obligation. In this way, the noble life stands opposed to the common or inert life, which reclines statically upon itself, condemned to perpetual immobility, unless an external force compels it to come out of itself.”
The concepts of Ortega y Gasset and others were at the heart of a lively bilingual conversation I enjoyed with my friends Rafael and Jorge over coffee last night. Rafael – a Doctor of Philosophy – is a former consultant to the Swedish government and has just completed another PhD, pondering the practical applications of preventative psychology. His lifelong friend, Jorge, is a Porsche restorer. Both are living “a noble life” that Ortega y Gasset would be proud of.
Pons Vintage Cars
Based just outside Santa Brigida, here in Gran Canaria, Jorge Pons takes the idea of Porsche restoration to the nth degree. While most of the Porsche restorers I have met and worked with add their own touches, that is not the way of Jorge. Pons Vintage Cars believes that, if it is not in the manual, it is not on the car.
The Dalmatian Blue (Oxford Blue) 1973 Porsche 911 2.4T Targa seen here is a perfect example. And I mean it is a perfect example. Restored over ten months from start to finish, this superb 2.4 T Targa is immaculate inside and out. I had the pleasure of a short drive in this 911 around Jorge’s family estate and it was a delightful experience.
All of Jorge’s 911s are completed to an exacting standard. The ’73 Targa is the seventh car in as many years to come from his wonderfully pastoral workshop. Set amongst the mountains overlooking the wild blue Atlantic and surrounded by palm trees, a group of four much-loved donkeys (burros in Spain) follow progress in the glass-walled garage through wise and appreciative eyes. As a donkey- and a Porsche-lover, I think it is perfect.
Dalmatian Blue Porsche 911 T Targa
Dalmatian Blue is one of my favourite Porsche colours but it is not very common. I have only seen one other 911 in Dalmatian Blue and that was a hot rod built by my friend Gib Bosworth, eventually finished by another good friend. How many Dalmatian/Oxford Blue Targas were ever built in the final year of early 911 production (and how many matching-number examples remain) is anyone’s guess, but it can’t be that many. This could easily be the the best one available.
Anyone seeking a well restored example of classic Porsche engineering should contact Jorge Pons to discuss this car for sale. Gran Canaria is just a plane ride away and shipping is easy. Pons does not ask a fortune for his work – the projects are not about the money – but the prices are not negotiable. This one is up for €125,000, which seems reasonable, given that some dealers in Germany are asking more than €150k for similar cars that will not have taken ten painstaking months to restore. I m back in Essen in april and I have no doubt that cars this good will be into the €160k+ bracket.
Now finished the 911T Targa, Jorge has switched to a superb Irish Green 1970 Porsche 911 T Coupe. This car recently returned from the paint shop following an incredible bare-metal restoration, all recorded on camera. It is beautiful: the paintwork is a joy to behold. I leave Gran Canaria tomorrow, but am very excited to see what progress will have been made when I return to the island in May.
My friend Simon Kelly has just had his Porsche 911 SC repainted by Tuthills in a cool Alméras Frères tribute livery. I managed to get a few pics of the finished item before jumping on the plane to Gran Canaria.
Almeras won the 1978 Monte Carlo Rally with an SC in the famous Blue and Gold ‘Gitanes’ cigarettes livery: probably the high point of the SC’s motorsport career. Tobacco advertising is a sensitive topic in Europe nowadays and many owners modify tribute livery branding slightly, to ensure their cars do not fall foul of any rules. Simon also tweaked the design of his decals a bit, to be sure the livery would not upset the wrong people.
“I wasn’t quite sure what I would do regarding the tobacco thing and, in the end, I had a last-minute wobble. I did some reading about it and it’s a grey area with governing bodies, regulators and the media all having a different take on what’s acceptable. I didn’t want the tobacco ban causing problems for the car, so for a quite life I used the French spelling of ‘gypsy’ instead of the Catalan.
“The decals were made by our mutual friend, Rick Cannell at Highgate House, and are a lovely job. Rick made them the same way as the originals would have been done, using layered vinyl and not the printed vinyl which is more common nowadays. Your photos remind me that I need to send Tuthills some new number plates I had made in the proper style!”
Regular readers may recognise Simon’s car as one I did a feature on back in the day, when it was painted grey and red. Built by Tuthills using one of EB Motorsport’s first Group 4 Almeras-style arch kits, Simon bought the car in 2011, selling an RSR replica and 968 Sport to buy this one instead.
The car has been a regular at the Below Zero Ice Driving camp in Sweden every winter and is heading back again for 2017, hence the font and rear guards and towing eyes, to drag it off the snow banks. I think this is going to look great on a white background – here’s to taking many more pics!
My friend Guy Allen has released a new Porsche print. An atmospheric rendition of the SWB car in flight, it’s another great example of why Guy is one of the UK’s busiest illustrators.
Guy’s previous Porsche work is all over Ferdinand. I’ve commissioned him a few times for impactbumpers t-shirt artwork and we’ve also released prints of this work together. Those prints all sold out long ago, and I would not be surprised to see this one sell out just as quickly.
The SWB 911 has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years. Once ignored as the runt of the litter due to the twitchy handling and smaller engines, contemporary Porsche fans now rightly regard its Germanic purity and unique driving experience as a pivotal step in Porsche history. The SWB cars were the original lightweights and the thread of their lineage must be carefully picked through the model lines – some 911s follow the founding philosophy much closer than others.
My first proper experience of a SWB car came while I still lived in Ireland. A friend’s dad was a keen rally driver and also owned a garage. He had a SWB car in for some work and I would see that driving around quite a bit. It was LHD and may even have been something famous once upon a time, but I never got close enough for a proper look. Years later, when Jamie and I shot a well-known piece featuring two SWB 911s on our first trip to California (Short but Sweet: read it here), I remembered that early rally car and thought how well it would have slotted in with Bob Tilton and Chris Nielsen’s rally inspired R Gruppe machines. I should have bought a SWB project car then, but I missed that particular boat – they are now well out of my reach.
Experience the SWB cars in depth and you gain a unique understanding of the original 911 ethos, but race a SWB car hard and win with it, and you enter another dimension of 911 folklore. The UK saw a huge jump in SWB enthusiasm when the 73rd Goodwood Members’ Meeting featured the Aldington Trophy: a race for pre-’66 SWB 911s only. Mark Bates raced the EB Motorsport SWB 911 at Goodwood among a select group of its peers and spent most of the lap going sideways in some very close battles. Mark finished on the podium after a great hour of racing and people still talk to me about that mental race – a fine day in the SWB story.
Away from the circuits, SWB 911s make highly prized road cars, but finding original interior parts and trim is now perhaps the hardest part of a SWB restoration. There is plenty of choice as to who restores your SWB car but, with waiting lists as long as they are at the very best workshops, it might be quicker to learn the skills to restore it yourself! Plenty of Porsche fans are doing just that and, as a DIY diehard, I think that is brilliant.
Guy’s SWB Porsche print is produced on archive quality heavyweight paper. It is a limited edition of 200 large-format A2-sized prints (A2 is 420 x 594 mm). The prints are signed and numbered and you can take a closer look at them here.
Jonny came up with the idea for a modern upgrade to the Porsche CDI unit when the time came in his 911 restoration to refit the thirty year-old Bosch CDI box to the 911 SC hot rod. The talented engineer runs an electronics firm building mission critical components for aviation and defence companies, so has a bunch of circuit designers and system engineers on staff. He diverted a few from designing guidance systems and set them to work making modern technology for the boss’s new Porsche.
The team spent almost two years developing their ideas, until eventually there was a plug & play prototype sitting on the bench. Then the real work began, as Jonny roped in a bunch of 911-owning friends to help with testing both the product and the upgradeable software (firmware) which runs the box and serves the two additional outputs. The cars were a mix of pre- and post-1973, as CDI+ is suitable for all 911s from 1969-1983 and 930/911 Turbo to 1989.
Bosch CDI boxes grow old disgracefully, delivering deteriorating performance over the decades and eventually giving up the ghost completely: one reason I always carry a spare CDI box in my car on long trips. Most CDI alternatives require changes to wiring looms and few add modern features such as mappable second spark. Ageing low-end replacements like PermaTune have a bit of a reputation for sporadic reliability. Up to now, ignition units have not been a very exciting topic.
Developed by a Porsche enthusiast who uses his 911 SC every day, the CDI+ box brings passion to this previously mundane arena. This is apparent from the minute you take the unit in your hands, as CDI+ ships in a smart hand-made wooden presentation box which should be used to store your original ignition unit (the idea being that CDI+ always has a value and can be removed to transfer to another car should this one be sold). Installation is simple: Jonny reckons he can fit it to my orange 911 (below) in less than ten minutes, so we’ll test that with a vid for the Classic Retrofit Youtube channel.
In back-to-back testing, Neil Bainbridge’s engine dyno proved the CDI+ ignition to deliver notable improvements to torque on a 2.7 RS engine and all users report the new ignition as making the car feel much more alive. “Of the 98,000 miles I have done in my 1969 Porsche 911S, the 160 miles to Goodwood and back today (with my new CDI+ box fitted) were possibly the most enjoyable I have ever had,” is how how one satisfied customer put it. I am very excited to visit Jonny’s man cave and try this on my car.
CDI+ is available to buy direct from Classic Retrofit or US users can get one from Pelican Parts. Jonny’s Porsche 911 replacement fuse panels have already gained recommended upgrade status from Wayne Dempsey, author of 101 Projects for your Porsche 911, with hundreds of satisfied customers benefitting from the increased reliability of the new Porsche fuse boards.
Here’s a video of CDI+ being dyno tested on a 68k-mile SC, with the improved power and torque curves below. I am always impressed by my talented friends!
To read more of my work, commission my valuation expertise or hire my content generation skills, you can:
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