My 'new longer-term project' ...

[johnM]

Hi Andy

What a great project. I think its fair to say some people have a soft spot for 356's some for 914's and some for 911's but we all love 904's.

keep the updates coming.

Kind Regards

[mmikedino]

Hi Keith . Yes you did a great article on my Car for 911 & Porsche World, thanks, if I remember Correctly the French CUL means "Arse" ? for me it meant "See you Later Vroom "!!. Yes the Oz man is Ken Price. Nice man and hes really enjoyed his Car. Thanks Sladey for re jigging the Pics for me. Regards. Mike

[Lightweight_911]

Andy,

Have you based it on an actual factory run car ? Decals etc. Wait till tommorow is gonna be your answer.

Dave - it's not meant to be a replica of any specific Factory 904 but will have 'influences' from various individual cars.

As for the actual colour choice, the vast majority of original cars were painted silver &, although I do like some of the other colours seen on 904's (including the Ben Ponn car, Irvine Laidlaw's 'maroon' car & the bright red one seen at last year's Hedingham event), to me the 904 is inextricably linked with the German national racing colour ... silver.

Choice of painter was based on the excellent results achieved on James' (M&W) grp 356 coupe:





- & the wealth of experience they have had with painting grp boats & cars - so the 904 body/chassis was trailered up to Mike & Dave Ward's premises in Yorkshire.

They were very complimentary about Barrie's grp work & the current general high level of fit/finish of the grp panels - but, as anyone who's familiar with fibreglass bodywork knows, it still takes a lot of work to get it to the painting stage...

First any imperfections & surface blemishes needed to be filled & rubbed down:










- then a blue guide coat was sprayed on:




- & rubbed down again.

Once they were happy with the surface, the primer was applied:








- & finally the colour coats & lacqer:











The end results were excellent.

Eventually, some decals, racing number 'roundels' & probably an orange band across the nose & tail will be added - similar to this (later) car photograpphed by DDKer Tim Scott @ Fluid Images:

[Bertroex]

O M G.

fabulous. And then the "Andy" factor. woa.

Bert

[Ferry Man]

Even looks good in the blue guide coat....

Superb work Andy, the car's fantastic.

[Darren65]

The paint finish looks great Andy

I notice some 904's have the fuel filler central where as some are set to the right, is this due to different tank sizes?

Cheers,
Darren

[Gary71]

Just fantastic!

Does this car use a standard screen or are they specials?

[Lightweight_911]

Thanks again for all the positive coments.

I notice some 904's have the fuel filler central where as some are set to the right, is this due to different tank sizes?

Cheers,
Darren

The central filler was a feature of the later (Factory) 6-cylinder cars - along with shorter doors, larger 'elephant ear' side air intakes, vertically-sliding door windows & a 'shark's nose' frontal air intake (plus other differences).

[Lightweight_911]

Does this car use a standard screen or are they specials?

It uses a screen unique to the 904 ... heated in this case.

[jury]

Stunning Andy!

[Mike]

brilliant Andy, how did you arrive at the paint code, flake size and so on, and was it a lacquer finish in the day?

[Lightweight_911]

The continual on-going search for parts turned up a few more items from my expanding list.

Although, modern versions of the front orange & white Hella lamps were readily available, the original version with an in-built chrome rim as used on the 904 wasn't, but persistence yielded a NOS set:




I'd also mananged to find an original '60's Talbot Berlin mirror in great condition:





Whilst frequently scouring Gunnar Racing's invaluable website I came across a picture posted by Kevin Jeanette of the 904 column switches:





I'm going to attempt to emulate this set-up by using a pair of early VW Bus indicator switches:





I'll modify them so that they fit 'back-to-back', paint the housings black & swap the black knobs for the correct ivory version:





With a suitable length of correct diameter steel tube it should do the trick !


.

[911hillclimber]

Good grief, it looks good!

Am i right in thinking you have not done a dry build, so you need to cut all the holes for the smaller parts, ie dial etc and rear lights??
What an interesting project.

A lot of these stage-by-stage pics must be old and spaced apart, so i guess the chassis is a roller by now?

Keep it coming for all our sakes!

[964RS]

Looks great.

Think it would have looked great in any colour but silver is the german race colour like you say so a sensible choice

[Lightweight_911]

brilliant Andy, how did you arrive at the paint code, flake size and so on, and was it a lacquer finish in the day?

Sorry Mike - I didn't go into it in that degree of detail !

We chose an early '60's 356 silver but left the rest up to the painter.



- probably not the answer you wanted ...