Well, after around 17 years of ownership the time has finally come to pass Ferdie on to a new owner.
He has been part of the family for so long that it is going to be huge wrench, and a very sad day when he leaves home, but another car is on the way and I just don’t have the garage space.
I do have a couple of other dilemmas though.
First, he is a very rare car and I know he would be worth more now if I had kept him completely standard. I could put him back to various levels of standard as I have kept all the bits that have been "upgraded” or changed over the years, cosmetic as well as mechanical, but then maybe someone would want him as he is with all the mods. Hence dilemma no 1. There is also a time cost to putting him back to standard and I could do with selling him in the next few weeks really as I don’t want one car to have to sit outside.
Secondly, although he had new sills and wings about 10 years ago, together with a full respray, there is a little bit of rust on the bottom edges of the doors and a couple of stone chips, one of which has rusted on the edge of the nsf wheel arch. I had wanted to get those attended to because it's the right thing to do, but would a purchaser rather see the imperfections so they know exactly what there is, rather than worry about what has been "touched up"? Plus, they may prefer to do a full respray so touching bits up would be a bit of a waste, and I could probably knock £1k off if I didn’t have any paint done. Again, it would take time to organise and most places seem to take weeks to fit things in.....
I’m not too sure what he should sell for either. I know the values of 944 Turbos have gone up a lot over the last couple of years or so, but again, originality is probably important. He is a genuine ’88 Turbo S though, in a great colour with black leather sports seats, and had a full engine rebuild only a year ago (which is really only just run in!) with new forged pistons & rods, polished and balanced crank, skimmed and balanced flywheel, head skimmed and rebuilt, ARP head studs etc, plus all new seals and bearings of course.
The Engine was refitted with new clutch, water pump, oil pump, radiator, header tank (lovely and white rather than dirty brown!) and belts.
At the same time, we also put on new discs all round, new brake pads, handbrake shoes, brake pipes and braided flexis, suspension bushes, steering column UJ, tyres all round and new wheels. (RSR 3.6 split rim copies from memory - nice whatever they are!)
He’s been fully undersealed and just had a new battery too.
On top of the performance mods below, and the Turbo S status, this must make him a special proposition for someone – but what does this make him worth? All the original parts will go with him of course.
Or I could put him back to the AFM and standard Turbo airbox & snorkel with an appropriate performance chip for the hybrid turbo? Or leave the MAP system in place and just refit the standard airbox & snorkel?
He's in for service and MOT at the moment, but I need to make any changes and then get him advertised when he comes back in a week or so
What would you do??
He has been part of the family for so long that it is going to be huge wrench, and a very sad day when he leaves home, but another car is on the way and I just don’t have the garage space.
I do have a couple of other dilemmas though.
First, he is a very rare car and I know he would be worth more now if I had kept him completely standard. I could put him back to various levels of standard as I have kept all the bits that have been "upgraded” or changed over the years, cosmetic as well as mechanical, but then maybe someone would want him as he is with all the mods. Hence dilemma no 1. There is also a time cost to putting him back to standard and I could do with selling him in the next few weeks really as I don’t want one car to have to sit outside.
Secondly, although he had new sills and wings about 10 years ago, together with a full respray, there is a little bit of rust on the bottom edges of the doors and a couple of stone chips, one of which has rusted on the edge of the nsf wheel arch. I had wanted to get those attended to because it's the right thing to do, but would a purchaser rather see the imperfections so they know exactly what there is, rather than worry about what has been "touched up"? Plus, they may prefer to do a full respray so touching bits up would be a bit of a waste, and I could probably knock £1k off if I didn’t have any paint done. Again, it would take time to organise and most places seem to take weeks to fit things in.....
I’m not too sure what he should sell for either. I know the values of 944 Turbos have gone up a lot over the last couple of years or so, but again, originality is probably important. He is a genuine ’88 Turbo S though, in a great colour with black leather sports seats, and had a full engine rebuild only a year ago (which is really only just run in!) with new forged pistons & rods, polished and balanced crank, skimmed and balanced flywheel, head skimmed and rebuilt, ARP head studs etc, plus all new seals and bearings of course.
The Engine was refitted with new clutch, water pump, oil pump, radiator, header tank (lovely and white rather than dirty brown!) and belts.
At the same time, we also put on new discs all round, new brake pads, handbrake shoes, brake pipes and braided flexis, suspension bushes, steering column UJ, tyres all round and new wheels. (RSR 3.6 split rim copies from memory - nice whatever they are!)
He’s been fully undersealed and just had a new battery too.
On top of the performance mods below, and the Turbo S status, this must make him a special proposition for someone – but what does this make him worth? All the original parts will go with him of course.
Or I could put him back to the AFM and standard Turbo airbox & snorkel with an appropriate performance chip for the hybrid turbo? Or leave the MAP system in place and just refit the standard airbox & snorkel?
He's in for service and MOT at the moment, but I need to make any changes and then get him advertised when he comes back in a week or so
What would you do??