as a second/weekend car...I'm beginning to do research about them but I have one question: can you drive these cars around in the winter? I live in the NY area....

Any color/comments are appreciated.

 

The motors are a little bit easer to maintain but other than that 912s have the same good and bad points to them as same year 911s. Winter use of road salt is a problem to the early cars as they are prone to rusting out.

 

+1. you do not want to drive these cars in areas where there is lots of road salt. i know people who lived in NY back when these cars were new, and their 911s and 912s rotted away in no time due to winter driving and salty roads in upstate ny.

i wouldnt even drive any porsche or car i truely love in snow anyways considering one is more likely to be in an accident in winter weather (you loosing controll or somone else loosing controll and hitting you) and its just the added risk of winter driving, thats unnecessary.

 

That and they have no real heating/defrost system to speak of!! buy yourself a Audi/subaru for $2500 and don't torture yourself. Before I restored mine, I drove it through 3 winters (with and without heater boxes, not much difference) and the car def suffered from the salt and snow. They are pretty drafty as well. cold air from behind the gagues, the speaker hole in the dash, doors windows etc..... Great car for w/e, DE, autocross etc but I would advise against for winter use.

BTW - anybody interested in how a 912 handles and auto-x course, I came across a vid on youtube last night of a neat little gulf blue 912 in the pacific northwest area. Apparently his first auto-x, so he's not setting any records but going along nicely none the less. Even some onboard action!!

 

Thanks for the comments...no winter driving then!

 

Good choice with the 912. It has the look and the low repair $$$$$. Gotta love it!

 

this is a huge misconseption jay. repair cost for a 912 isnt really any lower than a 911. they are just easier to work on is all. infact for all intensive purposes a 912 is a 911, so everything will still cost 911 dollars til you get to the engine. and even then, when you get to the engine, you will pay 356 prices, which due to cost of 356 engine parts being more rare, or useable parts being more rare, it all comes out to be just as expensive as a 911, and sometimes even more. for this reason my engine rebuild was just under $10,000.. thats the same cost as a 911 rebuild. in the end they all cost the same porsche financial units (ie 1 pfu or porsche financial unit, = 1 kilo buck.) the only difference is its easier to work on the engines, just not cheeper.

 

$10-15k for a reasonably good car sounds right or is it too much?

 

sounds fine to me if your definition of good is the same as mine. got pics? with out really knowing about the car, the shape its in, seeing how it looks, how original it is, how its been maintained, how solid/rust free it is, its really hard to tell. to say a car is good means little in valuation. one really needs to feel and see the car to value it.

great cars are going for upper teens to 20's, really wonderful all original unmolested pieces go for 20's-30s. i know one concourse all original museum quality car that went for 40's..
a good mechanically sound car should fetchs 10's and mid teens. of course those that are worse for wear go for less, and the more molested and unoriginal your car is the less its worth. that mostly goes for bastardizations, modern updating upgrades or low quality vw style upgrades.

performance based modifications, while keeping the car period correct are generally (but not always) good for values. it all depends on really how far you go and the quality of the work more than anything.

 

$10-15k should get you a "reasonable" to pretty nice car. Be as picky as you can.
Alan

 

i agree about being picky.. better to spend the money to buy the best car you can, than to buy a lesser car and spend twice as much to make it as nice