AIR COOLED MEMORIES
- Thread starter geedee
- Start date
Agree with your view on the Turbo "tea-tray" which most later SCs came with as part of the Sport spec.
I have acquired a later Carrera "whale tail" and lid and a fibreglass ducktail - both were in the custody of my bodywork man for painting but he sadly died last year and I don't know if I will get them back.
I also have a flat lid in Bitter Chocolate but will need to get this repainted.
I have a few sets of hinges and catches, so tails will be easily interchangeable.
I note your last picture without the front spoiler shows the valance with no fog lights - I have done away with the front fogs and the holes have been closed up for the clean look.
Rear fog lights have been removed and one of the reversing lights has a red bulb and has been rewired as a fog light
All much cleaner in my opinion.
I have acquired a later Carrera "whale tail" and lid and a fibreglass ducktail - both were in the custody of my bodywork man for painting but he sadly died last year and I don't know if I will get them back.
I also have a flat lid in Bitter Chocolate but will need to get this repainted.
I have a few sets of hinges and catches, so tails will be easily interchangeable.
I note your last picture without the front spoiler shows the valance with no fog lights - I have done away with the front fogs and the holes have been closed up for the clean look.
Rear fog lights have been removed and one of the reversing lights has a red bulb and has been rewired as a fog light
All much cleaner in my opinion.
Well as they say Alistair, "every day is a school day." I did not know that the Turbo tea tray was ever offered on the SC, though obviously easily fitted at a later time so easily as so many Porsches tended to be updated with the passage of time, and now that so much time has passed it seems the trend is seems to be to backdate, as our American cousins would say.. "Go figure".. (-:
Front fog lights did not come as standard fitment on either my 77 or 82 SC, and all the neater for it to my mind. As the rear fogs were original I left them in place and if driving in "weather" in modern levels of traffic, it seems risky to drive without them. Seems a wise move to find a fog light alternative as you did.
Sorry to read of the demise of your "bodywork guy" I hope you can recover your parts, certainty worth a bit of investigating. I have seen some after-market spoilers completely made out of fibreglass, the lip was not rubber but part of the moulding, not my cup of tea. T`is a wise man who gathers up some spares for his old car, though at some stage he has to clear the garage out again... I suspect it is just an age thing. It broke my heart to throw out Standard Triumph manufactured "Morgan" cylinder block and parts some time back along with much else..Sigh!
If you don`t mind my asking, which area of R1 do you hale from Alistair..Judging by your membership number you seem unlikely to be one of the old guard..(-:
Front fog lights did not come as standard fitment on either my 77 or 82 SC, and all the neater for it to my mind. As the rear fogs were original I left them in place and if driving in "weather" in modern levels of traffic, it seems risky to drive without them. Seems a wise move to find a fog light alternative as you did.
Sorry to read of the demise of your "bodywork guy" I hope you can recover your parts, certainty worth a bit of investigating. I have seen some after-market spoilers completely made out of fibreglass, the lip was not rubber but part of the moulding, not my cup of tea. T`is a wise man who gathers up some spares for his old car, though at some stage he has to clear the garage out again... I suspect it is just an age thing. It broke my heart to throw out Standard Triumph manufactured "Morgan" cylinder block and parts some time back along with much else..Sigh!
If you don`t mind my asking, which area of R1 do you hale from Alistair..Judging by your membership number you seem unlikely to be one of the old guard..(-:
Alistair apologies if you thought that I doubted your knowledge on the original fitment of the Turbo spoiler to some SC Sports, I did not, as with much these days, I doubted my own understanding ..sigh.
It seems I have come to prefer the no spoiler look, though that could change again..(-:
Fingers crossed you can recover your lid and other spare parts.
It seems I have come to prefer the no spoiler look, though that could change again..(-:
Fingers crossed you can recover your lid and other spare parts.
Pleased that you found no issue in my response Alastair. I had forgotten about the all rubber earlier version of the whale tail. I can appreciate that there may be value in retaining originality, but other than that, my choice would perhaps be to have the pre spoiler look on an early Porsche these days.. As ever, each to their own.
Over the years when I was involved in repairing and restoring my SC`s One of the things that impressed me was that nuts, bolts and screws which I would expect to break off when attempting to work them loose carefully on other of my cars over the years, actually came loose on the Porsches, I put that down to the quality of the materials Porsche used and the system of plating applied. I was also impressed with the attention to detail that Porsche put into the quality aspect of spares supply, even if I was ordering just the correct screws to hold a bit of trim etc.
In time I would order new screws nuts and washers etc prior to taking on whatever task I had in mind, and they would come in packets with the Porsche crest and part numbers on the label. With the passage of time a newer version of packaging and logo arrived on the scene, but still exactly the correct screws, nuts, bolts, washers, all of which were plated or painted as the originals fitted to my SC.. It seemed possible that the supply chain was that the screws etc. were selected and packaged at Porsche Germany then sent to Porsche Cars GB in bulk, the spares staff at Reading would then pic the pack and stick a label on it with my dealers I.D to make sure they were delivered to the appropriate location, and ultimately to the correct customer. So what you might ask.. (-:
With the passage of a few years it seemed that the local dealer had storage buckets of screws washers etc.etc. and would use the part number listed on Microfiche to I.D. the parts bucket from which to select the appropriate length diameter and type of screw, all of which seemed to be made of the same material and not plated the same colour as the originals.... All of which caused me to wonder if this was a Porsche cost cutting exercise, or one instigated at the local official Porsche dealer in the late 90`s. The dealer moved to larger premises around that same time and some time later the far more modern and upscaled dealership under different owners opened to serve the West central Scotland area. All just part of Porsche evolutionary processes I guess.
Judging by some of the grumbles relating to spare part prices, I wondered if Porsche had returned to the gold plating appearance of some fixings, as was the finish in the past, though perhaps this time round using real gold... (-:
In time I would order new screws nuts and washers etc prior to taking on whatever task I had in mind, and they would come in packets with the Porsche crest and part numbers on the label. With the passage of time a newer version of packaging and logo arrived on the scene, but still exactly the correct screws, nuts, bolts, washers, all of which were plated or painted as the originals fitted to my SC.. It seemed possible that the supply chain was that the screws etc. were selected and packaged at Porsche Germany then sent to Porsche Cars GB in bulk, the spares staff at Reading would then pic the pack and stick a label on it with my dealers I.D to make sure they were delivered to the appropriate location, and ultimately to the correct customer. So what you might ask.. (-:
With the passage of a few years it seemed that the local dealer had storage buckets of screws washers etc.etc. and would use the part number listed on Microfiche to I.D. the parts bucket from which to select the appropriate length diameter and type of screw, all of which seemed to be made of the same material and not plated the same colour as the originals.... All of which caused me to wonder if this was a Porsche cost cutting exercise, or one instigated at the local official Porsche dealer in the late 90`s. The dealer moved to larger premises around that same time and some time later the far more modern and upscaled dealership under different owners opened to serve the West central Scotland area. All just part of Porsche evolutionary processes I guess.
Judging by some of the grumbles relating to spare part prices, I wondered if Porsche had returned to the gold plating appearance of some fixings, as was the finish in the past, though perhaps this time round using real gold... (-:
I have just watched a vid of Chris Harris driving the new 992 GT3, apparently £150k`s worth of kit, That Chris seemingly forgave the expected firmness of ride, it is after all a GT3 which is no doubt a more track oriented Porsche, took me back somewhat to memories of the difference between my non-sport SC and that of the Sport version of it. I managed to enjoy a few memorable track miles in my old SC even sharing the track with some iconic machinery, such as a D Type Jag, which seemed to have similar performance on the straight but the brakes on my Porsche appeared to be just that bit better, and of course more modern... It was just such a privilege to be tailing such a historic machine for a few laps before I thought to make use of the brake advantage of my old 911 and pass a D Type...!!!! Well you have to, don`t you...? I do admit to thinking It was verging on being disrespectful..I still do.. Hmm..?
One other memory trigger Chris pulled as I watched his vid, was that when he mentioned the possibility of driving the new GT3 round a "certain race track in Germany" and then driving home in it afterwards, which caused me to again remember another sunny day at Knockhill in my old SC, enjoying a few laps and coming back into the pit lane to park up for lunch and observing the paddock with it`s usual array of incontinent machinery dripping oil or boiling water on the Tarmac. Lunch over brakes cooled, and the old SC was more than ready for another few enjoyable laps, after which it was home time. A lovely sunny evening on the interesting stretch road from Knockhill to the Kincardine bridge (as it was circa 23 years ago) all I can say is that I suspect you do not need 500HP and to spend £150k to have a wonderfully immersive day or to of Porsche enjoyment, and to create memories that last a lifetime..
Sorry about the quality of the pic, but it is an old scan of an older print I took on that memorable day of a C,D and SSK all attending what was, if memory serves, a Bentley drivers day at Knockhill
And the link to Chris` vid.
https://youtu.be/jJlyB0teZGQ
One other memory trigger Chris pulled as I watched his vid, was that when he mentioned the possibility of driving the new GT3 round a "certain race track in Germany" and then driving home in it afterwards, which caused me to again remember another sunny day at Knockhill in my old SC, enjoying a few laps and coming back into the pit lane to park up for lunch and observing the paddock with it`s usual array of incontinent machinery dripping oil or boiling water on the Tarmac. Lunch over brakes cooled, and the old SC was more than ready for another few enjoyable laps, after which it was home time. A lovely sunny evening on the interesting stretch road from Knockhill to the Kincardine bridge (as it was circa 23 years ago) all I can say is that I suspect you do not need 500HP and to spend £150k to have a wonderfully immersive day or to of Porsche enjoyment, and to create memories that last a lifetime..
Sorry about the quality of the pic, but it is an old scan of an older print I took on that memorable day of a C,D and SSK all attending what was, if memory serves, a Bentley drivers day at Knockhill
And the link to Chris` vid.
https://youtu.be/jJlyB0teZGQ
alanchester
New member
Oh, I remember seeing this in your place Alistair many moons ago in Clydebank.
I also remember driving it round Knockhill after it was completed, fantastic work my friend!
Met George the last week and he was reminiscing over his SC’s when he saw mine.
Picture for attention
I also remember driving it round Knockhill after it was completed, fantastic work my friend!
Met George the last week and he was reminiscing over his SC’s when he saw mine.
Picture for attention
You guys worked in luxury compared to my "workshop" facilities. Pork on a spit would have been oh so much easier on me than burning underseal dripping on my face while gas welding. I still have little white dots burned into my chest from my first day using mig while welding under my then old 912, and when drops of weld burned their way through on to my ovies, I just toughed it out waiting for the burn to stop as it would while gas welding.... Mistake or what..? (-:
Attached a pic of my first Porsche, a real rot box must have taken me about a year to nail it back together, to drag it through an MOT. I cut up and welded in most of a 8x4 sheet to replace the sections of rot. It was yellow when I bought it, and under the yellow it was black and under that it was originally orange... I had "fun" eventually preparing it to lay on a few coats of "guards red,"though admittedly things were a tad simpler back in the days of celly.. (-:
I guess you would think the rot would have put me off Porsche for life, but then I cut my teeth on my old Brit sports cars and the one thing they could do fast.... was corrode... (-:
Attached a pic of my first Porsche, a real rot box must have taken me about a year to nail it back together, to drag it through an MOT. I cut up and welded in most of a 8x4 sheet to replace the sections of rot. It was yellow when I bought it, and under the yellow it was black and under that it was originally orange... I had "fun" eventually preparing it to lay on a few coats of "guards red,"though admittedly things were a tad simpler back in the days of celly.. (-:
I guess you would think the rot would have put me off Porsche for life, but then I cut my teeth on my old Brit sports cars and the one thing they could do fast.... was corrode... (-:
Hi George,
Sorry its taken me quite a time to get back in touch following your earlier contact regains the 993 launch event.
The 993 baton has completed the Scotland section and I was very fortunate to have been able to drive up there from deepest Devon in my 993 to take part. I had a great time, roof down and super weather, not what was forecast. 2000 miles in total and was able to complete the NC500 and a few other great driving roads. I met with several 993 owners in Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Inverness and John OGroats as we completed baton handovers. Its great to meet and chat with other enthusiasts and I have seen that many of the 993 drivers taking part in the 993 challenge have felt this also. I have a 986 which I have owned for 20 years (My 986 and 993 are only five years apart). It fits like a glove and I love its balance. A much underrated and undervalued Porsche. But it was good to spend time in the 993 and get to know its feel, balance but not quite its limits (I'll save that for Castle Combe in September). I met with John Dymond and Andrew Speake at Queensferry and we talked 993's and took some excellent backdrop photos. To follow Derek Russell across the Cairngorms, meeting Al and the lovely Jenny Cook in JoGs and then back down to Queensferry to see the sparkling white 993 of Kris Banks. A very memorable Scottish road trip. I wish I could have been there for every 993 baton handover around the country as everyone that has been involved so far has been a real enthusiast and custodian of a fine part of Porsche engineering excellence.
Sorry its taken me quite a time to get back in touch following your earlier contact regains the 993 launch event.
The 993 baton has completed the Scotland section and I was very fortunate to have been able to drive up there from deepest Devon in my 993 to take part. I had a great time, roof down and super weather, not what was forecast. 2000 miles in total and was able to complete the NC500 and a few other great driving roads. I met with several 993 owners in Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Inverness and John OGroats as we completed baton handovers. Its great to meet and chat with other enthusiasts and I have seen that many of the 993 drivers taking part in the 993 challenge have felt this also. I have a 986 which I have owned for 20 years (My 986 and 993 are only five years apart). It fits like a glove and I love its balance. A much underrated and undervalued Porsche. But it was good to spend time in the 993 and get to know its feel, balance but not quite its limits (I'll save that for Castle Combe in September). I met with John Dymond and Andrew Speake at Queensferry and we talked 993's and took some excellent backdrop photos. To follow Derek Russell across the Cairngorms, meeting Al and the lovely Jenny Cook in JoGs and then back down to Queensferry to see the sparkling white 993 of Kris Banks. A very memorable Scottish road trip. I wish I could have been there for every 993 baton handover around the country as everyone that has been involved so far has been a real enthusiast and custodian of a fine part of Porsche engineering excellence.
Hi Geoff, many thanks for the heads-up on the baton challenge, seems you picked perfect weather conditions to visit the Northern regions of PCGB, and met up with folk who can restore one`s faith in human nature in these testing times. I suspect the old 993 enjoyed being out on the road and covering the miles, and perhaps runs all the better for it..(-:
Thought it only reasonable to wind up this thread by sharing an update.....After much deliberation, correction, too much deliberation and despite my fondness for the air cooled variety of Porsche, I have gone over to the dark side... or should that be the WET side, and bought a 991...?
While I still think an air cooled would have better fitted with my ideals, and the old man I have become might have appreciated the power steering of the 964 and the suspension upgrades intended to make it a tad less ...err..tail happy ...Hmm..? Or, perhaps even the later 993, despite the loss of the view of the top of the wings from the driving seat, could have been an option and which took Porsche comfort, performance and safety to a new somewhat GT level at the time of it`s launch, and which again might be more appreciated by me today, than the slightly ..err.. raw sports car like driving experience of the 60`s 70`s and 80`s air cooled Porsches I owned way back when..Dunno for sure..?
One thing for sure is that the 991.1 seems light years away from the 912 that began my Porsche education/infatuation, I suspect it may take some time/miles for me to become anything like as comfortable in this Porsche as I once felt in my SC, but I will give it my best shot...(-:
As for my air cooled desires, I suspect they still lie deep within, just that the practicalities of life determine otherwise at this time..
While I still think an air cooled would have better fitted with my ideals, and the old man I have become might have appreciated the power steering of the 964 and the suspension upgrades intended to make it a tad less ...err..tail happy ...Hmm..? Or, perhaps even the later 993, despite the loss of the view of the top of the wings from the driving seat, could have been an option and which took Porsche comfort, performance and safety to a new somewhat GT level at the time of it`s launch, and which again might be more appreciated by me today, than the slightly ..err.. raw sports car like driving experience of the 60`s 70`s and 80`s air cooled Porsches I owned way back when..Dunno for sure..?
One thing for sure is that the 991.1 seems light years away from the 912 that began my Porsche education/infatuation, I suspect it may take some time/miles for me to become anything like as comfortable in this Porsche as I once felt in my SC, but I will give it my best shot...(-:
As for my air cooled desires, I suspect they still lie deep within, just that the practicalities of life determine otherwise at this time..
ADDENDUM I have just tripped over this vid that Henry of 911 Virgin has posted which seems likely to be of interest to any of those fortunate enough to own an SC just as once did I..?
Interesting to note that the vid is titled as "The best driving classic Porsche ever"... What happened to the all hallowed 2.7 RS etc. etc. etc....? (-: It also seems that Henry may think along similar lines to myself in that I have stated that the 911 lineage ended when the 964 arrived on the scene..Of course the market will "prove" otherwise... (-:
Anyway I hope you enjoy the vid, and BTW I am becoming ever more fond of my 991 C4S, even though my initial desire on returning to Porsche was to hopefully enjoy some degree of fun in my dotage to drive off into the sunset, was to own an air cooled once again.. Though must not grumble as I have for the past 20 years owned an old car on which I can crunch the occasional gear and experience REAL classic motoring on the occasional balmy day... (-:
https://youtu.be/L1D7oHz51eg
Interesting to note that the vid is titled as "The best driving classic Porsche ever"... What happened to the all hallowed 2.7 RS etc. etc. etc....? (-: It also seems that Henry may think along similar lines to myself in that I have stated that the 911 lineage ended when the 964 arrived on the scene..Of course the market will "prove" otherwise... (-:
Anyway I hope you enjoy the vid, and BTW I am becoming ever more fond of my 991 C4S, even though my initial desire on returning to Porsche was to hopefully enjoy some degree of fun in my dotage to drive off into the sunset, was to own an air cooled once again.. Though must not grumble as I have for the past 20 years owned an old car on which I can crunch the occasional gear and experience REAL classic motoring on the occasional balmy day... (-:
https://youtu.be/L1D7oHz51eg
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