My Porsche 924 Turbo restoration project returned home this weekend, more than a year after it was painted by Rob Campbell at Racing Restorations. I had been storing it out in Worcestershire but recently lost the space, so it’s come home to be finished with a view to selling it sometime this summer for cash to plough back into my garage build.
This LHD non-sunroof Turbo is a nice example of the very cool Porsche 924. Having lived most of its life in Sardinia, this one is lower than average mileage, entirely rust free and still remarkably original. Despite being stored for more than twelve months and not being on a battery charger in all of that time, it started easily when the time came to load it on the trailer. It runs pretty well once warm – cold running is not great so will be taking a look at that. Bound to be something simple.
I spent a few hours on the 924 today and made some good progress. A few exterior bits have gone missing since the car was stripped for paint (probably still at Rob’s), so I excavated some of my 924 spares boxes and dragged out some prize pieces, including a brand new boot seal I bought from Porscheshop a few months ago. I put that on and made a little shopping list, which turned out to be quite a long shopping list in the end: more than £500 worth of rubber, including door seals, rear window seals and numerous detail parts including a new Porsche badge.
Other bits which were missing from the 924 when I bought it include the aluminium jack, spare wheel compressor and tool kit. I did find an ally jack and an old Blaupunkt Toronto stereo in my stash, which I need to test. I’ve stripped out the doors so I can clean and regrease the handles and lock mechs and also the electric window motors and regulators, which are notorious for seizing up. I’ll dynamat the doors and fit new membranes at the same time. I found a full lock set to replace all the mismatched keys, but no miracle finds can sort this steering wheel, which desperately needs a retrim, if not just swapping for a Momo Prototipo.
The carpets are quite faded from UV exposure, so I bought a good LHD carpet set last year, but I might try dyeing these carpets first as other 924 boys have had good results with carpet dye. Elsewhere, there’s a set of 205/60 15 Bridgestone tyres to go on and I’ll take some engine bits off for powdercoating to lift the underbonnet presentation.
It’s a good solid car in nice condition, so most of what it needs is simple. The hardest part will be UK registration. It is still Italian registered and I don’t have the Italian registration document, so getting it UK legal will be a bit of a ballache involving waiting for a Porsche Certificate of Authenticity and also getting it through an MOT, which will force me to fit a passenger mirror.
I don’t want to do screw anything into the bodywork permanently, as I like the uninterrupted line down the passenger side, so I’ve been looking at temporary fit mirrors which could be detached once the test has been passed. The single side mirror is an oddball European car throwback, which I have always quite liked. You have to hang on to these details.
Regular readers will know that I occasionally sell classic Porsche cars for friends. My designer friend James has asked me to sell this interesting 911 for him, due to lack of time to use it (car is now sold – thanks all). It’s a 1985 Porsche 911 3.2 Carrera Coupe with above average mileage, but it’s had a huge amount of work done professionally and is now a very nice car. I’ll be putting it on eBay and Pistonheads later, so get in touch if it’s something you’re looking for.
Porsche 911 Restoration
Bought by James in 2007, this right-hand drive 1985 911 Carrera showed 185,000 miles on the clock, had been much enjoyed by its one previous owner and needed some restoration. James took the car to Tuthill Porsche and had the bodywork restored: the front wings were replaced, and common impact-bumper 911 rust spots like the inner front wing tops, front bumper mounts, windscreen apertures, sills and kidney bowls were repaired before the car was repainted in its apparently original colour of Viper Green.
At this time, the aluminium bumpers were also replaced with lightweight Ruf-style bumpers: anyone who has taken the bumpers off their impact-bumper car knows how much weight that saves and how much better the car feels to drive. Impact-bumper blades could easily be refitted if one preferred that style, or fit Speedline wheels for the full Ruf look.
Classic Porsche Maintenance Costs
The original colour is Speedway Green, which is a shade away from its current colour. Greens like this were not offered on 3.2 Carrera Coupes, so consider this car one of one. I have the bills for the last seven years and more than £10,000 has been spent on mechanical upkeep at Tuthills, including a full gearbox rebuild with replacement crownwheel and pinion, and a recent service, new brakes, new Bosch battery and MOT, costing £1500. This does not include the body restoration or the engine rebuild, both carried out at Tuthills.
I spent most of yesterday driving this 911 and it is superb on the road: as good as any 3.2 I have ever driven. The rebuilt engine pulls cleanly and is very strong on power: a treat to use with that rebuilt Porsche 915 transmission. The interior is good: Grey Beige leather with electric front seat height, all working fine. Hand stitched extended leather to door pulls and storage pocket lids: another factory option.
Porsche 911 3.2 Carrera for sale
Seats are in good shape, with only minor bolster wear showing on the driver’s side. The 911 also has a Momo steering wheel, which is very nice to use. The sunroof works well, as does the optional rear wiper on the flat rear engine cover. Rear seats are in nice condition: no rear seat belts are fitted. The car has a Sony CD player and comes with the jack, compressor and the original toolkit (that needs restoration but a nice job for someone).
I had a good look around the car and found a few minus points.
The sunroof seal needs replacing
Crack in the front bumper under one side grille
The leather dashtop has a small split to the left of the binnacle
Optional black headlining sagging around the sunroof
Front wiper arms a bit scruffy
One rear floor carpet is missing: an aftermarket mat is in its place
Heater works but service invoice notes that the flaps could do with replacing
Bodywork is always the big concern on a 911, and no 911 is rust free. Expect to do a bit here and there over the next five years to keep the bodywork in A1 condition. I can see a few little bits but nothing overly concerning. Other than that it looks a good example and drives exceptionally well on very good tyres. I will update this post with more history as and when it becomes available.
Classic Porsche 911 Prices
As for price, let me put my professional Porsche valuations hat on for this bit. Solid 911 Carreras in similar condition generally hit the market with 125-135k miles and now sell for about £38-40k privately. They also usually come with Fuchs wheels: a set would cost circa £1500. This car has clocked up about 25k miles since restoration, so now has 212k miles on the clock, but remember this Porsche has had a huge amount invested in its upkeep over the last eight years and I cannot fault how it drives.
Adjusting for the mileage, the absence of Fuchs – which most buyers will budget to fit – and making a generous adjustment for the condition issues raised above, I’ve set a selling price of £24,995 (now sold) to buy a great classic 911 that is ready to use right now.
The car is with me near Banbury. I can pick you up from the nearest train station (Banbury) or if you are up in Scotland or in Ireland etc, you can fly in to Birmingham and catch a direct train down to inspect. It is ready to drive home once taxed and insured. I can also organise transport to any UK port for overseas shipping. Contact me with any questions.
In the week that German prosecutors suspended investigations into twelve members of the Porsche supervisory board accused of 2008 stock market manipulation by a number of hedge funds, I resolved the battle between my Porsche 944 and a Worcestershire hedge.
Long-time readers will remember that I bought this early 944 on eBay in 2007, and collected it from Chichester, where it had lain unloved in a leaky garage for more than ten years. It was a case of out of the frying pan into the fishery for the 944, as I parked it on a friend’s farm & fishing lake, where it was subsequently absorbed into the landscape. Now he wants his farmyard back to build a house on, the 944 had to be dragged out of the way.
Arriving at the farm with Rob Campbell of Porsche bodywork restorers, Racing Restorations, both he and my farmer mate were sure that the car would be ruined after five years sitting in the brambles. Obviously I was on the 944’s side: I knew it had survived.
We set about pulling the hedge apart, but the farmer insisted we leave it alone so it looked better after the car was removed – hilarious given the state of the place, but he is the boss. I shifted a few thorns out of the way and hooked a chain onto the front anti-roll bar, we attached that to a tractor and the car was pulled free. Nothing like a nice bit of weekend gardening.
The 944 looks fine: plenty of dirt but there’s no more rust than it had when it was parked up. One sill is holed and the battery tray still leaks: we can easily sort all that out. I need to find a bit of storage near either Banbury or Daventry where the 944 can sit until my garage gets a roof on next month, then it can come home for a bit and I’ll do a few jobs, such as fitting a repaired fusebox and loom and trying to get it started.
Here’s some video of the moment when it was pulled from the undergrowth. A female friend compared it to childbirth: yikes!
Good friend Justin just sent me this interesting slide from Australia, showing the first RHD Porsche 911 Targa being produced. Here’s the story behind it:
“I found a whole lot of my late father’s slides that I had digitally scanned a few years ago. This one is the first RHD targa going down the production line in September 1972.
“As my father told it, we were on the factory tour and the tour guide was talking about Targas. Knowing there were some English and Australians on the tour, it was mentioned that there were no RHD 911 Targas until the following year (i.e. 1973).
“You were still able to take your camera back then and Dad saw a Targa shell being rolled towards us that looked somehow different: initially, he wasn’t sure how. He took a shot of it quickly and then walked past it. On the build sheet of the car, he saw erste rechts (1st right), so we can assume it was the first production RHD Targa for the 73MY. It was mid-September 1972 my parents tell me.
“The tour guide realised and, rather than seizing Dad’s camera, asked him not to do anything with the picture until after the official embargo (which was early 1973). I assume the car was being shown somewhere – Earl’s Court , Birmingham, South Africa, Hong Kong? Dad complied with Porsche’s request, which was perfectly reasonable. I wonder where the car is now – or if indeed it still survives?
“As a side note, there are 2 73S Targas (both RHD, and both English) awaiting restorations in Sydney (where my green L was done) – one Sepia, and the other Signal Yellow. They’ll be done in about two years.”
Love getting presents from overseas and this was a really good one! Thanks, Justin 😉
A Porsche 928 art car painted by eminent German artist, Heinz Mack, will be auctioned at the Lempertz Contemporary Art sale in Cologne on May 30, 2015. Though classic Porsche 928 values are rising along with prices for all other older Porsche models, the likely value of this car is more closely linked to its artistic connections.
Heinz Mack and ZERO
Born in Lollar near Frankfurt in 1931, Heinz Mack attended the Düsseldorf Academy of Arts during the 1950s, also attaining a philosophy degree at the University of Cologne. In 1957, Mack started an art magazine ‘ZERO’, which ran for a decade and gave rise to the eponymous ZERO art movement.
ZERO held to the notion that art should be void of colour, emotion and individual expression. Founded by a trio of German artists including Mack, Otto Piene and Günther Uecker, ZERO later encompassed a wider group of primarily European artists including the Swiss Jean Tinguely and Argentinian-born Italian, Lucio Fontana.
The central theme of Heinz Mack’s art is light. His ideas have been expressed through sculptures and pictures in a hugely diverse range of materials and locations. Often working in open spaces ‘untouched by the fingerprint of civilisation’, Mack’s most recent project, Nine Columns under Sky, was created on the beautiful Island of San Giorgio Maggiore in my favourite city of Venice. Nine seven-metre columns covered in more than 800,000 gold-plated mosaic tiles inspired by the Sahara Desert invite reflection upon this long-term epicentre of Mediterranean art.
Porsche 928 Art Car & Value
While Mack is reputedly a passionate collector of cars, his tastes lean more toward British machinery. Preferring Aston Martins and Jaguars, Mack was asked to paint the Porsche 928S by a friend in 1984.
The Porsche is a 1978 4.4-litre 928S manual with TUV approval to August 2015. The odometer reading shows unknown kilometres but the car is said to display signs of its age. Signed by the artist on both doors and taking some inspiration from period aero tests, the design is said to “accentuate the aerodynamic silhouette of the sports car with small triangles on both sides and a colour spectrum that morphs from white into black”.
Porsche Museum 928 provenance
Previously exhibited at the Porsche Museum, auction estimates for the car run from €40-€45k. Given current prices for standard Porsche 928s of similar vintage, this seems ridiculously low for a bona-fide art car.
The most recent large scale auction of ZERO artist output came at Sotheby’s in 2010, where a catalogue of of 49 paintings and drawings sold for more than four times the original auction estimates, to hit a total of more than £54 million.
Mindful of where the art market has soared to in the five years since, current interest in the unique early 928 and the parallels between classic Porsche and modern art collecting, I can see this car outperforming all expectations at auction. I am excited to see how it goes.
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