Amazing barn find and a journey of discovery

[210bhp]

A liitle trip to Switzerland sounded nice. We could have sat by the lake with Paddy, sipping coffee and eating chocolate chatting about the springbok series and hopefully,......... The lovely new light ivory road car he had just got for himself and poured over a few period photos perhaps with a few nice girls (he famously dated Sarah Ferguson before Prince Andrew) in the background.

But no, he doesn't live in Geneva any more!

Great! we thought, maybe he's now in Rio or Sydney or Cape Town, still could be a great trip,


Oh no, it Berkshire (nothing wrong with Berkshire but its not Rio) .......

Ah well, passports back in the drawer.

[964RS]

You didn't miss out on Geneva by much - he was still CEO of Allsport until late last year...although he's always had an 'estate' in Wiltshire...and don't think it's a council one!

[MdR]

I've only just found this thread after the Admin headsup email of this morning.
I've just sat here at work & read the whole damn 18 page long thing.
Fabulous. Well done lads

[earlybay]

I've only just found this thread after the Admin headsup email of this morning.
I've just sat here at work & read the whole damn 18 page long thing.
Fabulous. Well done lads

Its a genuine F5 thread ... (to coin a new phrase !)

[210bhp]

You didn't miss out on Geneva by much - he was still CEO of Allsport until late last year...although he's always had an 'estate' in Wiltshire...and don't think it's a council one!

I believe he sold out to Bernie?

[NigelC210]

Excellent sleuthing chaps !
Interesting that Paddy McNally chose an E over an S, and then had it converted to RHD when he was living in Geneva.
Come restoration time are you going to leave it RHD?

[Bootsy]

Excellent sleuthing chaps !
Interesting that Paddy McNally chose an E over an S, and then had it converted to RHD when he was living in Geneva.
Come restoration time are you going to leave it RHD?

What do you mean 'come' - I reckon they've already restored it and the last post on the thread will reveal all *

*Actually based on the Brendan's engine rebuild, scrub that

[210bhp]

One thing that confuses me is that by the time Paddy came to buy the car he could of bourght a production RHD, if he was so keen to have the first car off the production line then why get Porsche to rip out half the floor bulkhead luggage floor and dash to make it RHD, seems a little odd.

Exactly, why would you?

The bulkhead needs investigating fully but first impressions are it was changed completely. You will note how the correct position of the RHD heater controls are above centre (LHD heater controls are in the middle of the lower dash). This switch would also explain why the (possible) loss of the matching red lower dash (conjecture) complementing the red interior is now black. One would imagine it would be too difficult to get a piece of matching red material to install.

[964RS]

You didn't miss out on Geneva by much - he was still CEO of Allsport until late last year...although he's always had an 'estate' in Wiltshire...and don't think it's a council one!

I believe he sold out to Bernie?

Yeah in 2006 I think, although Bernie only owns a tiny part of the real F1 holding company i think - Paddy stayed on till circa November 2011 when he retired. He still has a house in Geneva I think though...he's a big skier.

Awaiting todays proper update with real anticipation........

[Bruce M]

Inside a 1969 'T'.....

[murph2309]

I don't know, you look away from DDK for 5 days because there's stuff to do and then there's an 18 page screamer that means I've done chuff all but read it for the last hour or so.

Congrats Mike, this looks really special and I remember talking to you about the fate of another historically significant car that had made you cross. I think it's karma that you get to work with this one - cars like this deserve people who know - and care...

And so can we have another update please - F5 all the way.

R

[Bertroex]

Re the lower dash pad: was the car ever used in competition and perhaps acquired later a lower dash pad?

Fantastic story, chaps.

Bert

[MdR]

Inside a 1969 'T'.....

Red interior with (apparent) orange paint? Really? Ooooo. No. That's not to my taste.

[sdelan]

Presumably bought to match the bicycle seats !

[911hillclimber]

Good read!

Just to maybe add a little:

I converted my 911T (73) to RHD using genuine factory dash front/top steel pressings in 91.

The dash front panel was in fact a LHD pressing cut vertically about the centre all swapped over to the other hand and butt welded together with filler pieces.

It looked from the back as if I had done it on the bench in my garage, but from the front it was seamless. Painted black and all was looking factory finished.

The fit was perfect as with the dash top pressing.
So, the factory made the RHD pressings by cut-n-shut.