Is this ’72 911 Shell the Perfect Blank Slate?
It’s easy to ask ‘what could go wrong?’ when there isn’t much there in the first place.
We spend an inordinate of time here at the Rennlist offices browsing Craigslist, eBay, Hemmings, and the like for cars we can’t afford. It’s one of our favorite time-wasters, and it may be even more fun than our impromptu Nerf blaster battles.
One of our favorite things to do is dream up fantasy builds based on the cars we find. From completely stock and well-maintained to someone else’s unfinished nightmare project, it’s fun to imagine the possibilities of how we’d finish up the car in question.
In that way, sometimes less is more — an unfinished project means less time undoing the previous owner’s messes and more time finishing things up our way. This 1972 Porsche 911 that we found on Craigslist in Columbus, Ohio, is a prime(r) example.
Completely stripped bare to the shell, this 1972 longhood has been transformed with incredibly wide fiberglass bodywork to resemble a 1974 RSR. Assuming the bodywork is as good as the seller says, it’s not a bad way to start a dream build. It’s a bit hard to tell from a few blurry photos, but for the sake of this exercise, we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.
We’re a bit torn, here. On the one hand, it’s a bit sad to see a longhood cut up like this. On the other hand, we didn’t see what this thing looked like before the conversion started. Admittedly, there’s not a lot of it left!
Then again, with all of the clean impact bumper cars getting chopped up to make Singer wannabes, it feels kind of good to be on the other side of things. Also, buying this gives you carte blanche to build the nastiest 911 hot rod ever — hey, it’s already ruined!
One thing we are disappointed about is the missing external fuel filler door on the right quarter panel. It’s a cool one-year-only feature, and while we understand that it likely wouldn’t work with the wide bodywork or the general aesthetic the car is going for, we still miss it.
Another area we’d want to pay close attention to is the full, welded-in roll cage. It’s apparent that the current owner had racing on their mind when they undertook this project, and we’re actually a bit curious as to what they wanted the end result to be.
The sale includes a fresh set of extra-wide BBS mesh wheels, which are probably worth at least a quarter of the $8500 asking price. While no engine or transmission is included, the clean Ohio title means you aren’t just buying a giant paperweight.
This Porsche shell is full of potential, but is it worth the trouble? Let us know in the comments below!
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