We’d like to update the stock photos on our website by showcasing some of our customer’s cars.
If you’ve got a great pic of your car that you would like to share, please send it through. We’re looking for a total of 4 images that look good, and reflect what NINEAUTO customers love about Porsches. The wining pictures will obviously make your car famous, and NINEAUTO will adore you as a customer even more than we do now!
And so the journey begins.
I did it. Having owned 47 cars, I finally own a Porsche.
I’ve a weakness for Alfa Romeos. I’ve owned eight of them and still own two. But for years I have hankered after a something from Zuffenhausen. Some years ago, I was looking at adding a car to the fleet and ended up with the choice of a BMW 530i or a Porsche 3.2 Carrera. Despite the fact that we had a Discovery III to ferry the kids around in, I bought the BM. That same car would now be worth about $15,000 if I was lucky. The Carrera would be worth about $100,000. (Sigh).
So for two years I studied the market. I watched the price of all things Porsche go up and up and up. I nearly bought a 964, but procrastinated…and now look at them. Then I contemplated a 996, but no (though I may still look at the 3.6 litre version before they, too, go ballistic). I always liked the front engine water cooled cars. I contemplated 944s and 928s. Even 924 turbos. But when all was said and done I wanted the boxer-engined experience. I was intrigued by 914s (especially 914/6s) but even their prices are heading north.
But hang on, I thought. What’s the modern equivalent of the unloved, derided 914? It’s the unloved, derided Boxster! What better, cheaper way to get the Stuttgart bug to bite, yeah?
But let me explain. It’s not me that needs to be bitten. The intention is to get my wife behind the wheel on track days and the like (she doesn’t like driving my 1970 105 Alfa race car… steering too heavy, clutch too heavy, turbo charger too tricky, and a bit flimsy, she says, roll cage notwithstanding!)
So I looked for another 12 months and, guess what, finally found one within 2ks of home. It wasn’t silver, black or yellow. It was dark metallic blue – tick the aesthetic box. It wasn’t a 2.5 (nor a 3.2, alas) but a 2.7, so it’s got a bit of get up and go – tick another box. Best of all, after some patience and hard bargaining, it was mine. FOR LESS THAN $10k!! Tick another box.
So far so good.
Stuart had a look at it and pronounced it fundamentally sound. A little tatty, but that’s easily fixed. There’s a small dint in the boot – no big deal. A quick wash, a cut and polish, touch up some stone chips, polish out the plastic back window (came up a treat), and it looks like a $15k car.
Mechanically not bad, but again, that’s nothing that we can’t address. We start with replacing the IMS bearing, a water pump, an engine mount, new shockers and springs and a full service. After that, I’ll be reasonably confident that it won’t roll to a stop on the side of the road with a splutter and a rattle.
So the first track day beckons…for all three of us!
Intrigued? Me too. Stand by!
There will be more. Much more.
Like I say… “So the journey begins…”
By Ian Roberts
In preparation for the inaugural PFA (Porsche Forum Australia) Track Day, NINEAUTO are running a Track Prep Night on Wednesday, January the 25th, 2017.
This will be an opportunity to learn how to prepare yourself and your Porsche for your first track day. This is a beginner event aimed at preparing people new to the track in time for the Feb 12. TrackDay.01, however all are welcome.
This event will cost $10 per person and will go towards catering for the night. Tickets can be purchased from the PFA Store – Events section via this link.
The night will start at 7pm, and will be run at the NINEAUTO Workshop – 19 Wannan St, Highett.
The following attachment is a useful pre and post tracking checklist.
Chern a NINEAUTO customer, is a Film Producer who has spent the last two years working with a number of Porsche enthusiast to make a movie which will soon hit the silver screen!
The film was shot in Australia and Japan, and is a documentary about a Porsche tuner called RWB. It focuses on the building and preparation of a Porsche called ‘Pinkie’ for the famous 12 hour endurance race at Motegi circuit in Japan. Pinkie is a pink (no surprises there) 1986 911 featuring the legenday RWB kit.
This one-hour long film premiers in the IMAX Theatre at the Melbourne Museum on March 25th. The film trailer can be viewed, and film tickets can be purchased via this website http://www.rwb.film. In addition to the movie, 6 RWB Porsches will be on display at the cinema entrance!
Stuart even played a role in Pinkie’s preparation… check her out gracing a NINEAUTO hoist.
Two months ago, I caught up with Andrew, one of the active members of Porsche Club of Victoria about helping him to sell his 1994 993 C2 manual coupe. The car had been on the market for quite a number of months and Andrew had suffered lots of tyre kickers with no genuine offers. We talked about sprucing up the car, resealing the motor and attending to the tired gearbox synchro’s, but Andrew had had enough and was keen to move on to a more modern 911.
I must admit I hadn’t considered buying the car until Andrew put me on the spot and asked me if I was interested. I’ve always loved the 993, and after seeking approval from the Finance and Entertainment Director (namely my wife Max), I was ok’d to make the purchase. Andrew and I quickly reached an amicable price and the deal was done! That night I couldn’t wait for the kids to go to bed so I could search Google images for how I could personalise my new 993. About 1am, I trundled off to bed with a rough plan to build an RSCS clone.
Given the 911’s age and km (all 236k of them), the motor and gearbox needed immediate attention. I probably could have given the motor a service and ran the car for a couple of months to get a feel for it, but the gearbox was crunchy suggesting a new clutch and synchro’s were badly needed. I parked the car in the workshop and starting planning the RSCS conversion.
Whenever you’re seeking the look and essence of a rare 911, the question is always how far do you go? A basic bolt on body kit can give the RSCS exterior look (paint colours aside) and interior door cards and rear seat delete carpets can add to the vibe. Do you go the full suspension, brakes, 3.8lt motor, gearbox mods etc? With my heart set on the RSCS, I began speaking with suppliers about possible parts and upgrades.
Next post: Stuart drops the motor and gearbox, and we ‘workshop’ what we’re going to upgrade and update!
By Tim Rout
Highett’s hardest working Porsche mechanic is taking a short break over Christmas and the New Year… As a result we’ll be closed from Monday 26th December, and will be back on Monday the 9th of January.
We wish everyone a merry Christmas and a safe, happy and successful New Year.
Stuart & Max
This question used to be easy to answer when you could simply check the sticker on your windscreen. Those days are long gone, and depending on your diligence in home office administration it might be a challenge to find your registration notice, and identify if it’s been paid.
The great news is you can simply plug your car registration into the VicRoads website, and easily access your rego status and due date. I regularly use this service to assist customers who are interstate, overseas, or completing a car sale and need to add this information to documentation.
Here’s the link to the VicRoads Registration Check, and below is an example of the output of a rego check.
The site also allows you to add a rego reminder to your calender or mobile device.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder or so the saying goes…
A friend passed on this link to modern artist Chris Labrooy who’s had some fun with 911’s. It might not be everyones cup of tea, but his works are certainly eye catching. If you think these static works are a bit out there, check out his moving art with a Porsche hopping on one tyre and another trapped and swaying.
I’ll leave Freddie Mercury to sum up a great way to approach modern art appreciation… “Modern paintings are like women, you’ll never enjoy them if you try to understand them.”
A few weeks back I received an email highlighting the upcoming Coys (http://www.coys.co.uk/) auction and the car that stood out for me was a 1969 Porsche 911 S/T with a price estimate from £700K to £900K (A$1.2M to A$1.5M). http://www.coys.co.uk/cars/the-frohde-1969-porsche-911-st
What makes a car command this sort of price?
With so much money at stake, how can you be confident that everything checks out?
Coincidently, this week a customer of ours, Peter Bosland, contacted us regarding a new venture.
Peter Bosland (owner of Blondie the ‘77 Carrera 3.0 we’re restoring) is someone fascinated with vehicle provenance and authentication, so much so that together with business partner and fellow Porsche owner Glenn McEldowney they have created verumachina. It’s a bit like an ‘ancestry.com’ for cars. If you’re interested in chatting to Peter about uncovering your car’s unique story click on this link for more information verumachina Provenance Research & Protection Services.
I asked Peter for his thoughts on why the Coys Porsche was so valuable.
“Fundamentally, the value of a collectable car comes down to the 3 pillars of Provenance, Condition & Desirability. Contrary to the Meatloaf mantra, where “2-out-of-3-ain’t-bad”, you really do need all 3 of these covered for maximum value.
Provenance: Essentially, the chronology of ownership, Provenance allows the car to be traced back through its’ history to the time of manufacture. The greater the quantity & quality of available documentation, the stronger the provenance.
Condition: Of the 3, this is the one upon which a car’s present owner can have the greatest impact. To rate highly on condition, the owners should have undertaken properly documented regular mechanical and cosmetic maintenance, avoiding any urge to ‘improve’ upon the factory specification.
Desirability: Unlike Provenance & Condition, Desirability can be rather more difficult to quantify. It varies from person to person, location to location, but also from day to day. Today’s unwanted car can easily become tomorrow’s darling.”
So, to the Coys car. The Coys portrayal of the car as: “the ultimate of the ultimate”, is obviously sales spiel, however it isn’t too far from the truth.
It apparently has Provenance, Condition & Desirability in spades.
Despite Coys’ good reputation and the comprehensiveness of the information provided, such a purchase demands caution. As a minimum, a very close inspection by an expert in the marque, not only of the actual car, but also of all the documentation provided.
Given:
• The large sums of money involved,
• The extent, quality, and sophistication of the re-creation market,
• The fact that a number of these cars were destroyed in racing, It would be prudent (or even crucial) to absolutely rule-out a re-creation.
Should the above-mentioned concerns prove unfounded, this can only be seen as one very solid investment. Testament to that is that Porsche themselves recently undertook the full restoration of a 911 S/T. They too are keen to ensure the integrity of these important Porsche classic cars.”
Thanks to Peter for sharing his knowledge and passion.
I’ll warn you now that this is not a story about Porsches. It’s a story about a BMW 3.0CSL, and Motorclassica. Max doesn’t want any complaints about “that wasn’t a 911 story…”, and that sort of thing, so if you’re easily offended, look away now!
For the past two and a half years I’ve been doing a restoration of a quite rare, and to my eye, beautiful car, an E9 BMW 3.0CSL. I purchased the car in Sydney, and having trailered it down to home, commissioned a pretty much, spare no expense restoration of it.
If you know these cars, you know that they habitually convert themselves over time to a small pile of red flakes on the garage floor, so starting the restoration was a little like leaping of a precipice in total darkness, not quite knowing how deep the fall might be.
Pretty soon we knew it was a good shell – battered but solid, so we went to work.
Long story short, it was earlier in the year that a friend at BMW asked if I could have the CSL ready by October, as they were doing a substantial display at Motorclassica, celebrating the company’s centenary. Looking at pretty much a gorgeously painted shell and a pile of parts I gulped, said yes, then went and told the lads I’d promised a deadline.
It’s funny how a deadline makes things happen! Within weeks wiring was threading its way through the car, it grew suspension, an engine and gearbox, doors that actually opened and closed, and glass. The day I got to the workshop and the car was sitting there idling it was actually quite emotional, I’m happy to admit!
Next it was off to the trimmer. A four month search had landed four metres of the correct cloth for the standard Scheel bucket seats and the rear seats, and the trimmer had located the correct carpet for the car. Neither cheap, but essential to getting it right. The only part that never arrived was a door card for the passenger door, a problem with the remanufacture delaying that.
Once the interior was custom fitted, along with the restored timber dashboard and door caps, the car was pretty much ready to go.
On the Tuesday before Motorclassica, I was still heading out to collect trim parts from UPS in Tullamarine, and tyres from Continental in Preston, and standing back with a beer that night, the car was declared done!
Motorclassica as most will know is an amazing event, with hundreds of world class cars inside the Royal Exhibition Buildings, and hundreds more outside on a changing cycle of marque and club displays.
Our fears that the car might not be up to scratch were allayed within minutes when the crew from BMW crawled all over it, all excited. On opening the door, one lady surfaced declaring that it was a new car, if the smell was any indication!
The three days of the event were a blur of enthusiastic faces, compliments, photo opportunities, friends, and gentle enquiries as to whether it might be for sale! I hadn’t anticipated the excitement and love that people held for this particular model. The most unexpected people declared love for it, either long standing (“I have a photo on the wall of Peter Brock driving one of these!”) or newfound, (“I’d never seen one of these until today – how do I get one?).
Great fun. I’d declared that the car would never be a Concours car, yet its debut was at the biggest Concours de Elegance in the Southern Hemisphere!
As I was looking at the car through my beer on the Tuesday before the event, I swore I was done with restoring cars. On the Sunday afternoon, waiting to drive my car from the Royal Exhibition Buildings I did the deal to get my next restoration project. I think I’ve found a new drug!
My first drive of the car was out of Motorclassica, to home! It drove beautifully, cruised on 70mph (indicated) on the freeway. All four forward gears and even reverse worked. It’s very leisurely by Porsche standards – so much softer than my Carrera, but the overall feel isn’t dissimilar.
Once it’s fettled and sorted, I can’t wait to cruise around in it, music playing from the Becker Europa (AM and FM no less!), fat arming it around.
Now, when I say I did the restoration, mine was the easy part – I wrote the cheques and found the bits!
So, on to gratuitous plugs…
Oven Baked Enamel Services – 34 Molan Street, Ringwood. Their paint and panel work is amazing. Their guys actually know aluminium (essential with a CSL) and steel, and the paint is just amazing. The best in the business bar none! Call Dick Richey 9870 0052 and chat with him.
OZ Trim – 2A Olive Grove, Ringwood – I call Alan, the Wizard of Oz Trim. The best bloke I can imagine to do this project. Big or small part, the attention to detail and getting it right was incredible. The interior of the car is the star. Alan 9870 2747
John Nicholls – the master of timber dashboards and trim. Started making Maton guitars and still turning out hit makers, just this time in cars! 9874 1329
The 3.0 CSL was an homologation edition from what was to become BMW’s M Sport division (the first M Car). Aluminium panels, thinner steel, and a 3003cc engine (over 3 litre class, bigger wheels, brakes etc) made it lighter and faster.
It was homologated to compete against the contemporary 911s and Ford Capris in European Touring cars.
And in the day, it retailed for substantially more than the revered 911 2.7RS. I can’t wait for the market to catch up on that point!
By David James
