Too good to miss

[911FVD]

Hi to all, Just introducing myself and car...........
As an ex (retired) engineer with Jaguar/Aston Martin then Jaguar Land Rover and coming from a family who founded one of the biggest auto parts company in the UK I was sort of brought up on cars such as Alvis, Armstrong Siddeley, Lancaster, Riley etc and so many more too many to list.
I have owned several 911's too in the past but ended up with Ferrari's, Astons, Lotus, MG's and Rolls for most of my classic collection.
However this 1985 Carrera popped up at a local dealer and seemed too good to miss. Super nut and bolt restoration by Porsche Approved dealer and a total gearbox/engine rebuild again every nut bolt bracket.
With its registration 911FVD applied when new and not a private later addition I assumed it must be reasonably memorable in some Porsche circles. Sadly not many owners have added their names in the handbook and DVLA don't give out the personal details anymore but interested if anyone has owned it or knows of the car. It is a keeper now and so pleased to get back into an air cooled engined car.

Steve

[Bootsy]

Welcome to ddk - looks lovely

[Chris_911]

Looks lovely.

The guys on Impactbumpers would be interested too.

[911FVD]

Thanks Bootsy and Chris,
I have signed up on a couple of forums but seems despite at times over 500 views no one has responded to some posts. I figured the way IB splits its sections and calls the 3.2 section 'the last eleven' there were only ten others left with a 3.2 hence few replies and on another I got none. I bought some parts from andyM and he told me of this forum so looks like I will stay as posts I have looked through seem to get good responses from what I have been scrolling through looking at.
I have a full 200 page pictured file of the stage by stage rebuild and the car has a complete service history record stamped booklet but prior to 2010 there are no invoices but I am sure way back then these cars changed hands regularly when daily drivers.
Few more pictures

Steve

[bjmullan]

Welcome, and a lovely car Maybe someone on here will pop along and know some history for it.

[KS]

911 FVD seems familiar (is there an FVD Brombach connection?). Looks great - and welcome to the madhouse!

[coomo]

lovely car.Start tearing it apart, put big wheels ,daft colours, and silly seats in it, youll be right at home here!!

[yoda]

Hi Steve. Welcome to DDK! Very similar to my first 911 and I have defiantly seen that number plate on my travels. Great to see the car is with an enthusiastic owner.

[911FVD]

Hi, and thanks all for the comments.
No connection to ''911FVD Brombacher'' but yes what a shame they are not UK based other than an agent Fearnsport at Silverstone. I did contact FVD though in Germany as have been asked a few times if I was connected to them, and asked what the initials stood for. They thought the car was 'cool'. FVD stood for Vehicle Sales Deutchland in their best english translation. I did wonder at first too as the company was set up in 1984 and the car is a 1985 had the original owner had some connection with them but alas it appears not. In fact the original owner in the handbook does not have the name initials FVD so it is a bit of a mystery how the car came to have the 911FVD plate assigned as it is the original number assigned to the car from day one and not a later personal plate someone just left on the car.
The car has been totally rebuilt factory day one ordered spec. Even to the point of a Blaupunkt Toronto radio. I suppose the ceramic coating on the fan and housing is not original but it sure looks good and can be seen was done properly removing the pulley rivets to even replate the pulley.
When I had my previous SC and 1984 Carrera some 32 years ago I worked on the prototypes at Jaguar/AM and was involved in the J gate shifter designs so actually developed my own mods to the 915 box shifter way before the Renn, WEVO or Seine was ever available. Not having access to the machine shops now in retirement I opted to fit the Seine gate control now on my car as a longterm fit after getting one of each to try out and do some back to back test reports to help pay for them.
The interior has obviously at some point been retrimmed again totally in the correct original Porsche materials, however the seat top surfaces on the squabs and backrest side supports have also been done in the hannibal/cocoa pinstripe usually seen just in the centre sections and I cannot see anywhere this being correct and usually these side supports are like the back and side materials done in brown vinyl or leather. I will put some pictures up to show but have to get them reduced in file size due to KB limit. That said I am not a concours trophy hunter but do like to see some of these old classics kept as factory. That said I do have the odd mongrel in my collection where original parts were NLA.

Steve

[Gary71]

Welcome to DDK Steve, car looks great.

I’m also ex Aston Martin (87 to ‘94) and then worked in (if not for) Jaguar for quite a while so wonder if our paths have crossed before?

[Nine One One]

I am sure I have seen that number on a 911 at Porsche GB in Reading, when they used to use us to deliver cars to customers, back in the 1980’s.

If they had something to do with it, they would certainly have enough clout, to get it first registered with that number, and could possibly be an ex director, at Porsche GB?

It might be worthwhile phoning them to see if they recognise who did own it there?

[911FVD]

Hi nine one one, thanks but it does not fit the history but I suspect a lot of cars especially if being a demo at a Porsche dealer could have been registered with a 911XXX plate. This car was purchased by a Mr Ring at Trygon Enterprises Ltd Harrow which appears a tech consultant company back then but now disolved a couple of years ago. The gent would be 71 years old now so possibly retired or passed away. The car was supplied by AFN Limited MiDDSX and changed hands at some point through Paul Devyea possibly to a Mathew or Anthony Barnett in the Maidstone area. No other information of ownership from the service book but is all fully stamped by various Porsche specialist around Hounslow. Strangely though nothing by Paul Devyea or La Rose. The next record in the file is a gearbox rebuild invoiced to a Mr Goodchild in 2008 but from my calculations there was 5 other owners up to 2008. Next pick up point now from the records is around 2009 with a new owner who would have been the 7th and lavished the car and did (well paid for) the fastidious total nut and bolt restoration in 2010. (£1000's of invoices for parts and work done) Given its very low mileage then covered from this work being done I would assume it went into a private collection or just a show car as there is not even a stone chip to be seen on the paintwork. I have added a few more pictures one showing the way the seats were done. Given the trim is also like new I can only asume it has been professionally retrimmed but no evidence in the history and as I said I can find no other pictures of the way the seats have been done and they are usually leather/Ambla on the side supports from what I have looked at.

Gary I am a Cheshire born man from Cheadle. We may have crossed sometime at Jaguar/AM. I assume you joined similar time to me and when Ford took over in the late 80's. I worked on the F type (XJS replacement) prototype as my responsibility was producing the prototype driveable cars from the styling concepts. Ford decided as the volumes were low and they thought they could turn Jaguar into a 100K+ volume company they canned the F Type and gave the designs and concept over to AM for low volume production. I worked with the transition over to AM and setting up the small build facility of what became the DB7. Also AM had been working on a saloon car bodyshell concept which came over to me for doing the trim as Ford canned that for AM so the prototype was finished into a running vehicle and bought by the Sultan of Brunei IIRC. It was painted in a dark maroon colour.
I also ran the European Group of what was called the ''Fresh Eyes Review Team'' and we were a team of selected specialist from all over the globe and consisted of every design area who would visit the early pre production assembly plants all over the world just to pick up on potential issues that may have been overlooked so I did a lot of work in Michigan assembly plants too. Needless to say pitching designers against designers we were not always welcomed with open arms so if you know who I am now I suppose not all comments will be nice ones

Steve

[911FVD]

Hi, Just a few more pictures to add to the above. Sorry they are poor quality as having to take them from the paper booklet as not got the original digital files. There are some later recent good ones from the dealer on digital but at the moment too big as around 5MB each picture so high resolution for zooming in.
As can be seen in above picture the radio fitted at sometime of resto is an aftermarket CD player and later as below picture fitted with an original Blaupunkt Toronto at circa £500. I assume the car originally had the tape holder draws in the centre console which probably got removed when CD/Radio fitted. Maybe something I could look for to put back but believe these are rare if not broken.
The bodywork consisted of new wings, sills, kidneys and they mention 'boomerangs' but not sure what this body part is. The work being done by Chaplane, Lancaster a Porsche award winning body repairer at the time.
I want to fit some wheelarch liners but got no responses on other forum despite quite a few others interested. If no joy getting some then I will prototype some in cardboard and get some thin sheet aluminium plate and make my own if need to.

Steve

[Gary71]

Wheel arch liners are available from Lokari
I’ve had some for a very long time on my car.
They aren’t the best fit, and they are a bit ugly but they do work.

They will be going back on after my current rebuild

[jb]

A bit about them here.
https://www.ddk-online.com/phpBB2/viewt ... ilit=+arch
I fitted them a long time ago and am very pleased that I did.
There are at least three other DDK cars with them fitted.