DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

Hi Everyone, I bought my first early 911 this summer and thought I would start a restoration thread. It is a 'T' and metallic silver 8080 so not quite as exciting as some of the other cars I have been admiring on the forum - but its a lifetime ambition and as you can tell from my user name I figured it was a good way to celebrate my midlife crisis.

So just to give a little background, my life was turned upside down at the end of last year when my lovely wife was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia. We spent the first half of the year with her in hospital in isolation having chemo and me looking after our two small children. I am happy to say she is now in remission and she's made an amazing recovery. The reason I mention it is because it has made both of us re imagine what we want the rest of our lives to look like and buying a vintage Porsche was one of the dreams I have always had. Im sure all of us have a motivation as to why we love these cars and sometimes a big life change can make you take the plunge and actually buy one!

After looking on here and other forums I felt the best approach was to buy something in the US. I have a couple of really close friends in Costa Messa and so initially looked at cars that were available from a dealer in So Cal. There was a few 'nearly' sales and a couple of nearly big mistakes but eventually I found my car advertised on Ebay. The guy who was selling it left an email address on the site and I used Google to check him out and make sure he was legit, ending in me calling him at work (you got to love the internet) and finding out what he wanted to achieve from the auction. We agreed a price and I initially paid him a $1000 to take the car off Ebay while I arranged a PPI. Through EarlyS I made contact with a Porsche specialist Eric Shea (PMB Performance) who offered to look over the car for me as he lived an hour away. To cut a long story short, Eric owns exactly the same model and year and so was able to offer a really detailed report and as such money changed hands and I became the proud owner of a 911T even though it was based in Utah!

These were some of the photos on Ebay

Midlifecrisis wrote:It is a 'T' and metallic silver 8080 so not quite as exciting as some of the other cars I have been admiring on the forum

It's an early 911, sounds pretty damned exciting to me!

All the best to you and your wife and good luck with your restoration….I'll be following with interest.

Cheers,

Looks a great base and good news to read you got it checked out prior to the purchase.

Even better news that your wife is in remission.

Looking forwar to reading more about the car

Looks a really good car to start with. Seems like you are a guy who tackles things in a logical and sound way. I will look forward to your restoration with interest. Is there much to do?

Wish you all the best with the project. May you, your wife and family enjoy Porsche-life for many years.

I don't mean the project will last for many years!! But it may, and happily

Ian

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1965 RHD 911 in Golfblau
2001 3.2 Boxster in hiberation

Nice looking car, look forward to seeing what you do with it.

As much as we all love these great cars, family and loved ones are always the most important..... great to hear that your wife is in remission and life can hopefully start to get back to 'normal'....then again you now have an early 911, things will never be the same again


Chris

Thank you for your kind comments, I just read them to my wife who got a bit teary.

Anyway back to the car.....
I plan on keeping it as original as possible and will be having most of the work done in the US. I need to post quite a lot of catch up photos and then will be probably asking a lot of stupid question so please bear with me.

Has the car arrived in blighty and what is the next step for you - a labour of love with your own skinned knuckles and swarfega (why does noone mention that anymore) or getting someone to check the car and do the uk preliminaries? Many many examples on here of both sorts, I am sure advice would be forthcoming if you have not planned this yet. There is a Flickr page with reference photos of a lhd 1970 911 S 2.2 which I will find the link for that might be interesting though you would be welcome to come and compare notes with my 70S, though I haven't the foggiest or the forensic mind of some of the DDKers what the physical, visual differences are between an S and T. Apart from the badge. And the noise and the drive! Let me know where you and the car are in London.

Ah I see you are having work done in the US. Would be interested to know why or if there is a travel plan afterwards for you both! Does the factory air con still work?

Heres a few more pics from the Ebay advert. As you can see the cars is pretty solid with some rust in the door jams and the front headlight bowls. The seller also had a link to a short video of the engine which sounded to my untrained ears (on laptop speakers!) fantastic. The paint job was done 20 plus years ago and had started to go grey rather than silver but the thing that did it for me was the car had been kept in dry storage for nearly 15 years. He planned to restore it but never had the time or spare money. So I guess the over used phrase barn-find could be applied. As you can see the floor pan was rust free and there didn't seem to be any rust on the rear parcel shelf.

squirejo wrote:Ah I see you are having work done in the US. Would be interested to know why or if there is a travel plan afterwards for you both! Does the factory air con still work?

The car is still in Utah and being worked on, more about that later. I would like to drive her to the port in LA though, if we can make it work logistically, either with my wife or one of my daughters.

Welcome to DDK

Life is about the journey

Matt

Nice car, great story! Your travel is starting

Firstly, I'd like to say it's great to hear that your wife is in remission and you can now look forward to living one of your dreams with your 911.

I have recently bought my first 911. Like yours, it's a 70MY T, with factory air, and it was licensed in Utah! I have a few more rust issues to address, notably I do not share the same parcel shelf joy as you! However, I'm really pleased with the car and look forward to the restoration which I will be doing myself (I hope!).

I'll be watching your thread with interest. Thanks for sharing.

Loz

Thank you for all your kind comments. I will be doing a few more posts to get up to date.
I had made a few calls to some of the pros who frequent DDK, both Nick from Early 911 and also Alan from Canford Classic were really helpful by putting the state of car in some sort of context regarding costs to get it running again. However I struck up a great relationship with Eric from PMB in Sandy, Utah and after some quotes to and fro decided to ask him to sort out the seized brakes and suspension (his speciality). The car was loaded up on a trailer and headed of to his shop.

Eric then introduced me his bodywork guy Troy Lundquist who had a good look over the car and then emailed me with a quote to do a bare metal restoration, removing all of the rust areas and respraying the car in the original 8080 Glasurit metallic silver. The various new parts and rubber were bought in from Stoddard and as Troy was waiting for a Lamboughini to arrive, my little 911 slipped into his body shop that week. Work then started at great speed with Troy emailing me with daily/weekly updates.