DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

For various reasons, my old 911 enthusiasm has waned this year. So I thought I'd have a go at re-stoking them and see if there's any interest in my starting a restoration thread.

Some DDK-ers will remember various posts of mine concerning the car, but my original ambitions didn't really involve a 911 restoration at all. In fact, the intention was to find a nice solid 3.0SC (they were still reasonably priced at that point) and have some fun with it while my two sons were small enough to fit into the back.

But as the saying goes: "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men, gang aft a-gley".

In January 2012 I was engaged for a few weeks on a consultancy contract in Florida. At home, my personal circumstances had changed and I was single again - albeit a single dad with two sons aged 8 & 13. I'd always had an 'interesting' car along with the sensible one and there was definitely a vacancy in the garage. The thought of searching for a car while I was in the US did occur to me, but I dismissed it. Florida is a big place and I didn't fancy spending every weekend traipsing up and down the country looking at old Porsches.

I was lodging in a small seaside town called New Smyrna Beach. One evening when driving back from the offices, I took a slightly different route through the business district. Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight, on the other side of the road, of the distinctive shape of a chrome-trimmed 911's roof profile above the central reservation Armco. The car appeared to be sitting in a dealer's showroom and out of curiosity I decided to check it out when I next got an opportunity.

The next weekend I drove my Mazda RX8 loan car over. The dealer was in a small anonymous unit set back a little from the road, the doors were locked and the place looked quiet, even deserted. The car I'd seen earlier in the week was an mid-70's IB model, when chrome window trim was a common specification. In silver, it looked to be in lovely restored condition, and shared showroom space with a couple of 'Big' Healeys. Eventually I found a number on a card wedged in the front door, called it, and 10 minutes later the owner turned up.

He was an ex-pat Austrian. So the story goes, he mainly dealt in old Brit iron, but undertook a couple of 911 restorations a year. The silver 2.7S was his latest completed project. After some chat, I asked if he had any older cars in stock and after a pause he led me through a door into the workshop.

On a lift at the back of the workshop I saw this:



C>

...and?

..and realising it was a CIS engined car he ran back into the showroom and bought the silver one

I've bought a few old cars in my life. Most follow the same rule: from 20 metres away they look nice and shiny, but the closer you get the more problems you see.

This one wasn't like that at all, from 20metres away it looked horrible. The photos are very flattering; some time in the 80s it had been subjected to a cheap paint job in Bahama-ish yellow.



Now the paint was faded and the shine had long gone. The over-spray however was spectacular; spare wheel, silencer, dashboard, luggage compartment and the engine's electrical system were all spattered in yellow.



At around the same time the car had been half-heartedly RS'd; there were wider rear arches, nasty sports seats, rank carpets. an ugly steering wheel, cassette player and inevitably the door cards had been butchered to fit speakers.





Chrome replica Fuchs:


front and rear g/f bumpers and black rubber extrusions on the sills



The dashboard didn't really fit, and in the luggage compartment some components were lying loose while the remains of an a/c system lingered in the smugglers box:





I expected to see the usual signs of trouble in 911 bodies. You know, screen surrounds:



Door shuts:



Inner arches:



I couldn't see any rust at all. Nothing. Convinced I'd missed something, I groped around the bottom of the arches, around the fuel tank, along the rear parcel shelf, under the rear seats and all I could see, hear and feel was solid metal. The only exception was an odd patch under the front of the car:



With the aid of old a fresh battery, the car was persuaded into life. There were no ominous noises and I could feel evidence of five gears.

I took more pictures and sent them off the Nick Moss for a second opinion and told the Austrian I might give him a call in the week.

C>

I love these threads - keep em coming

Nick's no fool. He's picked up the pieces from many an impulse purchase of a car after a customer has viewed it with the rosiest of rose coloured specs. He countenanced caution, and warned of the potential wallet-bleed of even the most solid looking US cars.

So I bought it. I haggled, and we agreed an invoice price of $15,950 for the car, and a further $5,000 that was to cover a full fluids service, and various bits including a key, fuel hoses, batteries, repairs to lights and sunroof, and delivery to the port of embarkation. ISTR that was around £15k at the time.

Arranging to have the car delivered to the UK from Florida didn't involve much more that contacting Alan Shores of Kingstown shipping, and giving him details of the car and its location. He also helped with the paperwork, and I was pleased that import duties amounted to no more than 5% of the invoice number.

A couple of months later I was at the yard at Southampton docks. In the pound of newly imported metal I spotted this:



The word 'Tow' scrawled on the screen wasn't a good sign


...and closer examination of the screen revealed a label with more bad news:



But I had zero expectation of being able to drive the thing anywhere, and had laid on suitable transport. Before long the car had been lashed to a trailer, and was on its way to Oxfordshire.



I had a plan.

>C

While the car was en-route for the UK on the good ship Integrity (I kid you not) I had plenty of time to scour the internet looking at 911 builds and think about what I wanted to achieve. I was pretty sure I didn't want to plough a load of money into a full-on restoration from the start, but to get the car roadworthy, focus on the mechanicals and not worry about the cosmetics. I could then spend the summer having fun and then evaluate things once I’d had the chance to learn exactly what I’d bought.

So the first aim was to get the car legal, safe, reliable and fun to drive. I was also attracted to the idea of removing the unknown quality that was the 130bhp (40 years ago..) CIS motor and replacing it with something with more grunt, possibly a used 3.0SC motor. A check with Porsche on the chassis number revealed that my purchase was originally a late (July 1973) 911T in metallic silver with some of the nice bits they added to the run out cars: Fuchs (long gone), sunroof, ‘S’ instrument pack, 5-speed ‘box and f&r anti roll bars. It was also likely to have the 7R strengthened magnesium cases. As any originality was long gone, it seemed an opportunity to build up a hotrod on a budget.

Now I was very unsure about doing this work myself, and started casting around for some professional help - and I should add that this was before I'd met any DDK-ers! I'd become aware of the reputation of the Tuthills company based near Banbury in Oxfordshire. I'd read articles about their rally car and hotrod builds in numerous magazine and internet articles, and chatted with one of their engineers at RaceRetro. They clearly knew old 911s and the idea of having the car looked after by a ‘brand’ might be a good idea as far as future values went.

So I contacted Richard at Tuthills and we exchanged some emails. I've just dug some of them out, and found them interesting. My original brief to him was: “My aim is to build something that is quick and fun, with solid mechanicals and worry about paint and cosmetics in the future. The car will be used entirely on the road, probably daily in good weather, and although I don't spend very much time commuting or travelling on the motorways it needs to be capable of both things. Nowadays I'm not into massive speed, and don't really exceed three figures on the open road, yet I want to be able to cruise quietly through the 30/40's. A stripped out road-racer doesn't appeal either, so I will want to retain sound deadening and fit some sort of sound system. As far as appearance goes, I like the S/T look, but will happily live with a bit of a ratty spin. While one of your superb paint jobs and leather/alcantara interiors would be lovely, I don't have the budget for that or a full restoration. So I'll keep the yellow matt paint for now, and might do a quick job with a black rattle can on the boot and bonnet. Essentially I'm trying to recreate the supple, balanced, responsive, confidence giving drives I can remember from cars I've driven or owned in the past; a couple of Integrales, various VW Golf and 205Gti's, an E30 M3, a 60's Lotus Elan, my old man's very standard 2litre 924(superb in the wet!) and a series of Caterhams I built.”

I arranged to go a see Richard, and we spent some time discussing options and continued the discussion later via email. He really seemed to get what I was trying to achieve and eventually we agreed on a plan of attack:

- Collect car from Southampton
- Comprehensive inspection

Then assuming the above doesn't reveal I've bought a shed:
- A full service including inspection of brakes, fuel system, electrics etc to ensure things were safe.
- Fit UK spec headlights, new seat-belts and tyres
- Check seals and rubbers to make sure it was watertight
- Suspension refresh, including uprated rear torsion bars and new Tuthills spec. Bilstein dampers
- Refurbish brake system, so pads/discs/flexible hoses and then fit Tuthills split master cylinders and pedal
- MOT and register the car
- Decide on engine options once the current CIS lump had been evaluated

I bought some nice Recaro Sports CS seats to replace to ones that came in the car, and asked Tuthills to fit them using their low seat mounts:


And I also sourced a Wevo sprung-gate gear lever to add a bit of confidence to my dealings with a worn 915 'box:


....and (the inevitable) nice used Momo Prototipo that I had double wrapped.


Richard supplied an initial estimate and it left room within the £10k I’d mentally assigned to the project for a used engine, so I gave him the ok. It was to be my first experience of how old Porsche specialists are also expert in separating customers from their money.

In met engine man Mark at the docks, helped him load the car, and watched it head off to Tuthills.


I then mentally held my breath and waited for the inspection to be complete followed by the inevitable phone call from Tuthills asking me to remove the heap of rusty junk that was lowering the tone of their establishment.

Meanwhile the car bombed one of their Facebook posts!


C>

So the phone call came a couple of weeks later - this was mid-March 2012. Basically the news was good, and I would not be needing a skip lorry to cart the thing off to the scrap merchant after all!

Apart from the patch under the tank support there were no more obvious signs of rust. The window seals were still good, so water hadn't been getting behind the front and rear glass, something that can cause extensive corrosion of the bulkheads. The engine was proving difficult to get running; it was Porsche's first iteration of the K-Jetronic that served the 911 until 1984, but in its early form was proving recalcitrant. The transmission was good, although 3rd gear synchromesh was worn.

One surprise was to be told that the car wasn't entirely constructed of finest German steel, and that the front offside wing and both doors were glass fibre (30 seconds with a magnet subsequently revealed the latter claim to be billhooks), although there weren't any signs or accident damage with the car on a lift.

I gave the go-ahead, and then sat back and waited. Tuthills supplied me with regular updates, and progress was rapid. Within a few weeks most of the work was complete, the car was awarded an MOT and a UK registration. In spite of the evidence of the specification from Porsche, the nice DVLA lady put it down as a December 1972 build, saving me a years road tax!

In mid-April I had the opportunity to pay a visit to Tuthills to see the car and check out the install of the new seats. I'm over 6 feet tall and the seats that were in the car when I bought it were set far too high.

I find that a good driving position is a critical factor in my being able to enjoy a car, and I really wanted to get this aspect of the build absolutely right. My preference is to sit low, with my pelvis somewhere around the centre of gravity, and the steering wheel only a short reach away. With the driver's Recaro fitted to the original Porsche mounts, I was still a little higher than was ideal, so I left agreeing with Richard that a different set of mounts would be used, dropping the seat a further couple of inches. With luck that would do the trick - the option would be to weld mounting brackets to the floor, a system used in Tuthill's rally cars. In addition, an extension to the Momo's boss would be fitted to move the wheel closer to my chest.



Interior coming along; wheel and Wevo in place, the mounts for the driver's seat were to be modified.



Ill-fitting dash, scuzzy carpet, cheap stereo and butchered door furniture well in evidence!



A week later the car was ready for collection.

SS7

Enjoying this

Me too

Waiting for bombshell...............................................?

Agreed, the signs are all there

shoestring7 wrote:started casting around for some professional help - and I should add that this was before I'd met any DDK-ers!

shoestring7 wrote:t was to be my first experience of how old Porsche specialists are also expert in separating customers from their money.

shoestring7 wrote:(30 seconds with a magnet subsequently revealed the latter claim to be billhooks.

Apologies for selective quoting out of context if this all turns out rosy

Great thread so far.....^^^^ now on edge of seat!

mrk wrote:Great thread so far.....^^^^ now on edge of seat!

Me too ..... this brings back memories ......

mrk wrote:Great thread so far.....^^^^ now on edge of seat!

So am I ..... and I know what happens!
A career in suspense writing awaits, Charles.