Tempting Porsches #13

Tempting Porsche #1

The first one is a car I’ve watched on Craigslist for nearly 5 months now. I had it in a Tempting Porsches post back in January. The guy still hasn’t sold it and has lowered the price even further.

I have it on here because it’s quickly getting to the point where if I had the space, I’d seriously consider buying it just to tinker with and see if I could learn something useful from a mechanical standpoint. Same problem is still in play that I had back in January: day dreaming. I’m sure I have no idea what I’d be getting in to.

The car is a 1968 911 that doesn’t run, something about a spark issue and a fuel leak problem, but seems to be fairly complete. Funny, the guy says in the ad he’s “currently troubleshooting the no spark problem”. He’s been working on that about 5 months now. Must be a heck of a problem.

The clincher is the price is now down to $4900. I would think it’d be an easy $4000 to $4300 buy.

Tempting Porsche #2

The second tempting Porsche for today is a 1967 912 with some body updates. This one is being sold by a guy who’s owned it for the last 25 years. He’s always garaged it and, according to the ad, has invested a fair amount in the car over the years to maintain it. Although it’s a grey market car, I can’t imagine it would be that problematic given that it’s spent more than half of it’s life in the US. I think it’s actually kind of cool that it was imported from Switzerland, one of my favorite countries (driven largely by a watch addiction).

Here’s some highlights from the ad:

I’ve had this Porsche for the last twenty-five years and it has always been garaged. This vehicle was originally purchased in Switzerland in 1967. It was brought to California in 1971 and I purchased it from the fellow who brought it to the US in 1984. So I’m the third owner. Over the years I put over $20,000 in improvements and repairs on this vehicle. While the motor and 5-speed transmission are original, this is not a car for the purist. I did a lot of updating on the body to give the car more of a 1980’s look. I flared the rear wheel wells and updated the front and rear bumpers, including the rear Porsche reflector.

The reconditioned motor has about 20,000 miles on it. The motor has the larger pistons and cylinders so the actual displacement now is closer to 2.0 cubic liters.

The car looks and runs great. Both interior and exterior are in excellent condition. I now drive the Porsche less than 1,200 miles per year and as my daughter turns 16 and wants her own car, so it’s time for the Porsche to go. This car was never driven hard and is an excellent alternative for someone who wants the look and feel of a Porsche without having to spend a lot of money for it. This car is great fun to drive and pretty powerful for a 4-cylinder motor.

I’m not a fan of the yellow and I’ve never really liked the duck-tail, but other than that, this seems like a steal at $4950. Starting with a car that actually runs would probably be a better learning playground for me. Very very tempting.