Not very relaxing: How to buy an old 928 on holiday

[Winston Teague]

My Lad and i have a plan to easyjet/cycle to a Bon Coin Citroen Dyane and drive it back one of these days, but this 928 escapade makes our idea seem a cheap copout! Loving the story. W

[Timo]

Sooo, what happened next?

[KS]

Come on, no time for sleep. You have an audience to entertain!

[mycar]

Zut alors !!!

[210bhp]

On a brighter note, at least it wasn’t pi$$ing down and you had remembered your snazzy white sunnies.
I presume you had a couple of euros left for a sandwich, oh and there would be toilets in the supermarche. Always look on the bright side.

Now, about this key.......


Regards
Mike

[Jonny Hart]

Sooo, what happened next?

Let me guess, he has to go back to the pool..

[Tosh]

I reckon it ran out of petrol between the petrol station and the hypermarche

[Burma-Shave]

Ah, yes, well then. Thanks for the responses, I enjoy writing this stuff, and it is all exactly as it happened. But I feel I should defend the choice of car at this point, in case you all start to think I am a swivel-eyed loon, for putting all this effort into an old, unreliable and thirsty 'fat 944'.

First, although I would like a later 928 too, a widebody auto with the 5.0 motor and frickin' laser beams, this one had to be a manual early car with Pascha and no spoilers, same as every other bugger wants basically. Well me and Steve sng45 anyway. These are the archetypal 928's, the original avant garde late 70's ECOTY winning bullet. The 240hp 4.5's are just powerful enough it seems, and the autos are probably quite suited to the GT thing, but the manual would presumably let you get the most out of it. But more importantly it lets people know you are a proper wheelman, and not some soft-handed boulevardier.

If 240hp in 1400kg becomes insufficient, there are tuning options, such as 4.7 cams, or easier, just dropping in a whole 4.7, which are easy to source on ebay, are plug and play in an early car, and provide 300 horse. Also the early cars are lighter, less complex with far fewer emissions and electronics, and have a non interference valve train (or something like that), so the cambelt sword of Damocles is not an issue. From what I could tell, otherwise the engines and transmissions are tough, no broken headstuds, cheesy magnesium or compulsory oil leaks here.. and what electrics it does have can apparently be kept up with easily enough by making sure the earths are all good. Yes they jolly well like a drink, but I suspect the MPG is not hugely different to many souped up 911s. Of my cars, the 356 is noticeably good on fuel, everything else seems to be low 20s give or take.

And why France? I guess I could have found a UK equivalent over time, but I am quite impatient when I get an idea in my head, and there were never any around when I was looking - the market is almost entirely 80's automatics of uncertain merits, and stupid money GTS's. Any early manuals were crazy money or US import projects, with big mileages, rats nest interiors, ugly side lights and less power. I didn't want a retrimmed interior either, they never look right, and although 928's seem to be way better than 911s for rust, they do still go in the sills and rear quarters - which again made a UK RHD less appealing. A dry climate car should have happier electrics too.

But mainly: there is a definite Zen in the experience of rescuing an old car against the odds and fixing it up - it would have been easier, and perhaps cheaper in the end, to buy a restored car for sure, and have it trailered to me. But that's not really what the game is about, is it? Its about the journey, discovering yourself and your fellow humans, and finding yourself stepping away from the predictable pattern of life for a bit. And all that bollox.

[anglophone1]

Bravo!

[sng45]

[
First, although I would like a later 928 too, a widebody auto with the 5.0 motor and frickin' laser beams, this one had to be a manual early car with Pascha and no spoilers, same as every other bugger wants basically. Well me and Steve sng45 anyway. These are the archetypal 928's, the original avant garde late 70's ECOTY winning bullet. The 240hp 4.5's are just powerful enough it seems, and the autos are probably quite suited to the GT thing, but the manual would presumably let you get the most out of it. But more importantly it lets people know you are a proper wheelman, and not some soft-handed boulevardier.



But mainly: there is a definite Zen in the experience of rescuing an old car against the odds and fixing it up - it would have been easier, and perhaps cheaper in the end, to buy a restored car for sure, and have it trailered to me. But that's not really what the game is about, is it? Its about the journey, discovering yourself and your fellow humans, and finding yourself stepping away from the predictable pattern of life for a bit. And all that bollox.[/quote]

Hear Hear - put me down for a copy of your first book - Ace !

[Burma-Shave]

Well there I was. Wondering if I should try and find my way back to Boris. However after pushing her along to a slight slope on the road out of the carpark, I managed to push the car and bump it in 2nd gear, it caught nice and easy. At least I think it was 2nd. After this I noted to always stop on a hill, or better just leave it running. The latter was made easier at least by the ignition key being removeable while the engine was still running. Boris had thought of everything.

So, I got off the little back roads and onto the autoroute, enfin. Taking her up to some speed for the first time, through the gears on the on-ramp was another memorable moment, although I was surprised that she was so quiet, with a holy Ansa exhaust. I should have enjoyed the peace. But, we got into a rhythm, and the car drove well - and I began to need to remember Boris's words about billets d'exces vitesse. She was, like all Porsches I have driven, not really happy to bimble, endlessly keen to press on. Only the front cigarette lighter had power, so the sat nav and phone took it in turns to charge. The miles passed, and there were lots of these



and these



..but I remembered to not add up the fuel and tolls, as this would of course break one of the golden rules of car purchase-related man maths.

The medallion incidentally is a St Christopher purchased at a French flea market, and this proved to be a vital investment. But, despite this divine insurance, the progress did not last long (no! you gasp) because of a fire. Noooooo!, you gasp.

Luckily, it was the tinder dry Cote d'Azur trees that were on fire, not the 928: but the smoke from the forest fire across the autoroute had resulted in an all time classic monster French tailback. This was good in some ways, as the temperature gauge showed that the car could handle being stationary in heat. However, this was making me even later for my family - and worse, whilst in the middle lane, I fluffed a gearchange and stalled it. I was on the slight upward grade of a dip. I had an Eastern European truck right behind me and traffic either side. I jumped out, managed somehow to roll the car back enough to get it across the slow lane between two cars, and on to the hard shoulder, where she became lodged against the the Armco. After a significant desperate uphill push, I got it forward off the barrier and ready to roll backward to try and bump start in reverse. I had one chance until the dip bottomed out, with my next option being recruiting people from the traffic to try and push me I guess. Or, perhaps just run screaming into the woods, and never be seen again. On the first bump, it didn't catch and was rolling to a halt. I made a desperate 2nd hit off the clutch, and to my considerable surprise she roared into life. I was careful with gearshifts after that.

So, the exhaust didn't fall off until Carcassonne, which is good. I only noticed when I was rolling backwards to make a bump after a fuel stop, and heard the unmistakeable noise of a 2.5 inch diameter pipe scraping on asphalt. Again, Boris came to the rescue: I forgot to mention that when I was checking out back at casa Boris, I had wobbled the coil wire at the distributor as it looked loose, and at this the male part of the connector just crumbled. So we fixed it on with a length of thick insulated single core electrical wire around the distributor body. Boris had handed me the remaining length of wire, which I had chucked in the back. And it was this wire I used to suspend the broken exhaust off the rear axle, so that at least it wasn't scraping the floor. It was approximately in line with the central silencer, but despite this the car now sounded like a mastercraft speedboat. Which was pretty cool, for a while anyway.

And once again, onwards, towards Toulouse and in to the setting sun. What next, I thought as I drove, what next? Well, nothing really. She kept going, strong and true. I got to Toulouse and deployed the lights as night fell, which lead to the realisation that they were clearly set to read signs on overhead gantries: pointing up, rather than forward. So I drove the last section in the dark on the fog lights and side lights, which are yellow, and which just added to the mounting Hunter S Thomson feel to the whole trip. And at last we were rumbling along the holiday home track, back to the bosom of my family, after midnight, but so, so relieved. I crept in to bed and slept well for the first time in 10 days.

The next day, I inspected my quarry from the previous day's adventure. Not bad from a distance.





I spent the next couple days being holiday Dad again, whilst also trying to figure out the starting issue, and tying up the exhaust properly, i.e. with an old leather belt I found in an outbuilding, and more electrical wire. I planned our break for the border too: To Calais, through the Chunnel to Folkstone. I had to choose a journey to book. Calais was about 9 hours drive, so I booked a 5pm train.

Apart from the peripherique around Paris, the roads should be pretty good. I was hoping to get half way up the UK to stay overnight with my Mum in North Lancs. And so leaving at 7am, the plan was to drive the shonky old 928 up France and half of the UK in a day, to get to Lancashire before midnight. What a muppet.

[willbrown]

Such a cool car


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[Tp81]

Loving this. No matter what (classic) car I have bought in recent times something has gone wrong. I honestly dont feel at ease until some of the issues present themselves and you know it’s another ticked off the list. Brilliant stuff

[Tosh]

More please!

[inaglasshouse]

But mainly: there is a definite Zen in the experience of rescuing an old car against the odds and fixing it up - it would have been easier, and perhaps cheaper in the end, to buy a restored car for sure, and have it trailered to me. But that's not really what the game is about, is it? Its about the journey, discovering yourself and your fellow humans, and finding yourself stepping away from the predictable pattern of life for a bit. And all that bollox.

Exactly!

Loving this, thanks for taking the time to share.
Cheers, Richard.