Ed Hughes

So, I spent most of the day in SF today. I was astonished at how many thrashed 911's I saw today! 6 all told-but I finally got smart at the end to snap a couple of pics. I mean all of them were distressed. I see a lot of daily driver 911's in SoCal on an almost daily basis, but they are typically pretty well kept.

The black Coupe just looked rough overall, the pic doesn't do justice. The real thing here is that it sounded like 3 cylinders were shutting off and on constantly during idle. Then, I cringed when I'd hear the guy start to slip in the clutch 20 seconds prior to a light turning green. I shoulda taken some video to capture the sound.

The Targa? What can I say, not all red Targas get pampered, I suppose. It had current tags, so I can only assume it was a driver.

This all really struck me as strange, kind of a different dimension.

Ed Hughes

The rear of the Targa:

whalebird

Ed, I know where your coming from. If I may say, It speaks of the car and the people who drive them. I can tell any of the guys posting their prospective 911 purchase here that a 911 fits like a glove and becomes a natural extension of the owner/driver. They won't believe me until 10 years down the road. Only the veterans here can TRY to describe it. I suspect those cars are loved although it pains me too see somebody neglect such a gem. I have stumbled over many 911s like that and started calculating how lowball I can buy it for. Typically they are not for sale.

rusnak

I promised a nice lady who helped me out when I was stranded that I would not bad mouth the east Bay, so I guess I'll have to say something nice like, "at least the food is good there".

whalebird

If your vegan.

aadrew10

I agree. what a bunch of low-life doo doo heads.

ofishbein

Distressing to me too, but I bet if you asked the owners they would say it's a patina. At least they're being enjoyed.

w00tPORSCHE

Ouch..that really hurts. Ed, what an eye opening thread. I suspect that many such cars have fallen into the hands of people who can't afford to keep them well maintained adding to a high toll of cars that have zero service history, lousy interiors and leaky engines. What a shame.

Ed Hughes

This certainly wasn't a scientific sampling of 911's in the bay area, but it hit me like a hammer as I kept seeing these beaters, all in a total of 15 miles of driving spread out over several hours going between appointments. Again, I live where allegedly greater than 1/3 of Porsche's NA sales landed, and you just don't see wounded cars like this on the SoCal roads. I really wish I would've snapped photos of all, and got some sound from that black Carrera.

Makes me want to go home and get a certain loved and pampered, but THOROUGHLY enjoyed red Targa, back on the road to keep some balance in the world.

geta911

Leave a NICE Porsche on the streets of San Francisco very long, and it will get trashed. Nobody wants to trash a car already in distress. The nice 911s in SF are in garages....

Jim

Ed Hughes

That's what they make Hondas, Toyotas, Kias, Hyundais, Fords, Suzukis, Chevys, Nissans, etc for.

race911

And that tells the story. 30 years ago it was trashed 356s sitting around. But as the climate is (relatively) mild, the cars built after '75 survive 20, 30, or more years later.

The '79 I ended up with in '92, I mentioned it in the 993 forum where guys were asking if we had owner history on the cars (not just service documents). That '79 was a black, 1 owner car with 100K on it. It was also oxidized to the point the roof was white. The vinyl (!) interior was ripped, the carpet beyond salvage. Oil leaks EVERYWHERE, and the car probably only had 5 oil changes in its life. Oh, a heart surgeon owned it. Though I never worked on the car, the guy stopped by to offer it to me as it was obvious to the world I was running a 911 repair shop out of my garage. Punchline was he sold the car to me for $5K when the floor for pretty much ANY SC was $10K. And I didn't even have the money to buy the car, so he dropped it off a few days later with a signed pink slip telling me to just pay him when I could.............

As a testament to the durability of a 911 engine, I busted it down and everything was just fine inside. I believe I made that engine into a Euro 3.0, but probably would have only needed to replace the valve guides.

Ed Hughes

I just saw a nice SC Targa on High St. and 880 in Oakland, so there is some redemption.

Daniel Dudley

God bless you Ken.

I used to be a Fiat mechanic, so I long ago had the urge to save unloved cars beaten out of me. The thing about the low end sports cars is that people with passion buy the one they can afford, but then have no more money left for maintenance. You are seeing it here with 911s, but you really see it with 928s. And the thing is, these cars are so very robust that they can go on for a really long time.

I was the Fiat mechanic in my small city. Eventually I had a fairly large elephants graveyard full of dead Fiats. As a matter of fact, last year I sold all of thirtyfive years worth of tusks, and bought Carolinatrophy's car off the Pelican for sale column. A less than perfectly pristine DD, but a heck of a runner.

I have to say that some of the worst looking 911s really are the best runners, and it is also possible to learn the hard way that some of the best looking 911s are really poor runners. I needed a new tinker toy anyway, what with all those Fiats gone...

And I guess I owe it all to Pamela Brown.

rusnak

I used to know a local Porsche SCCA racer, Brig. Gen. James Kilpatrick, USAF. He drove a 911SC that he had painted white. The body shop did such a poor job that all of the paint peeled off. And the 911 had exposed metal, so it began to rust. The body shop refused to re-paint the car, so the general, in his way of quietly protesting, continued to drive the 911 every day. He knew tons of people of course, and they'd ask him why he didn't repaint his car. He told them about the body shop, and how they screwed him. And he got his sweet revenge.

I should add also that he raced a Speedster that was featured in Excellence and had a 356 GT with original Rudge knock off wheels. It sold for north of a quarter mil when the general died.