Scott at Team Harco

Is there an address where we can have flowers sent?



And maybe some South Lyon mud......

mrgreenjeans

Scott:
no need for flowers and mud, but:


Suddenly he began to stir from his chair in the corner of the room,
and began to speak .....

he was wondering "about Jennifer with the '80s 'big hair' and the black Porsche nine fo fo" ? ?

Dino944

In my neck of the woods, back in the 1980's in New England, people drove their Porsches all year long regardless of weather. I drove my parent's 944 through winter weather and storms many times. Not sure if you should get someone to stand near you with a defibrillator ...but one of the worst experiences, was driving out to western Massachusetts in a snow storm. The weather continued to get worse and I was on long stretch of a 3 lane highway. Weather conditions were forcing me to slow down and as I went to change into a lower gear I hit a patch of ice and the car spun around 2 full revolutions. As I was wondering if that was going to be the end of me and the car as there was a Shell fuel truck traveling right towards me. Thankfully, he had enough distance and time to move over a lane and a half and avoid hitting me. Nothing gets the adrenaline going quite like loosing control of a car.

Again, back in the 80's I would regularly see 944s, 911s, and 928s being driven in rain, sleet and snow. For many folks, it was their only car. Today, more people seem to have daily drivers for bad weather and the fun cars stay in the garage during the winter.


I'm not MGJ, but in my region the dealers almost never ordered 944s with sport seats...I only occasionally saw those in 911s or 930 Turbos (and my Dad's Carrera, 928S and 930 were all dealer ordered an none had sport seats). Most 944s in my area were delivered with partial leather, a sun roof, 15" alloys (cookie cutters or phone dials), and some had a rear wiper some did not, and maybe metallic paint. If a customer ordered a car then it might also have a few other items like Fuchs, cruise control, leather seats, central locking, and on rare occasion limited slip, ...but the dealer near me tried to keep the prices somewhat reasonable by not loading up 944s and 924S with options. I can't recall if wheel locks were optional or standard, but all of my parent's 80's Porsches had them.

The 2 options I wished my parents 944 had were central locking and cruise control...although their car interestingly did have limited slip.

Scott at Team Harco

Not my Jennifer? I don't think she ever had big hair. And her current 944 is white.

And just to be sure we're not taking about the same girl - my Jennifer (Dr. Goodwench) does the same crazy s#it that I do.


.

mrgreenjeans

Scott

I am back again after a near fatal attack of that thing the Dr's called "Porscheabusedebiliatoryresponse" or something like it......

When I was speaking of Jennifer with the big hair, I was referring to the video just posted of her winning on "THE PRICE IS RIGHT" ; guessing the value of that beautiful black 944 worth 35,000 and change. ! ! ! ( had to been the most loaded up 'fo fo' to date for that amount )

Sorry, I wasn't speaking about your Jennifer slinging her tail out in that dirt drifter.

Scott at Team Harco

Glad you're feeling better.

I didn't have a chance to look at the "Price Is Right" video. That's almost as much a time capsule as anything else here. Must have been the 'California Emissions' that tipped the price so high. Bob even had to ask again what it was. It's a "Pourshh", of course.

Since you are feeling better - I thought of you - and decided not to take a photo of my Jen arriving a few minutes ago. Her she came, driving her white Pourshh, up our gravel driveway, with a nice layer of South Lyon mud covering the lower flanks. All the while, a steady, wet, snow fell. Her lights illuminated the gloom as she splashed her way though the last couple of puddles at the lower end of the drive. She popped out and greeted myself and our kitty (Frentzen). After making some silly suggestions on what I might do to make dinner, she was off again; trekking across that same torturous trail she had just come from.

So there you go. You can thank me later, when you regain your strength.

mrgreenjeans

No need to pm me, ask away here..... then everyone gets to share their thoughts !

I rarely if ever saw a sport seat car at the dealership when new. I don't think any ever came thru the one in our small town store. Never knew of any that showed up just bought off the lots of other local dealers either, and brought up to our local road course.

Those cars which were special ordered out that way had them, but not the dealership inventory 'fillers'.

After the first few years of ownership of my own special ordered '84 H52 car in Guards Red, I began to understand how few and far between the really 'special' cars were. I only ever saw M030 cars, or M456 Sport Suspension cars with sport seats at the track or ON the track in competition or in the paddocks as back up cars for spares. Of course the comp cars had full cages, and usually lightweight sport seats installed after the fact, but I remember some teams dismantling new arrivals they had just gotten, and installing cages, seats, safety harnesses in the paddocks. Using their time before an event to set up a couple of back up cars to the one or two they were competing with in one of the few series held back in the day.

Some of the cars they were also taking parts off of were severely bent up at the event held just prior, and they were getting stripped down with donor stuff going on the new car. Boxes from U-Haul were filled with carpeting, seats, interior fittings no longer needed..... brand new stuff. There wasn't any Ebay then, so what happened to all of this, is only conjecture. Did it get saved ? Is some of it just now coming out of storage and going up for bids and us buying it today ? OR, was it long gone, years and years ago ?

So, watching this unfold and learning how few M030 , M456 cars seemed to be made, started me on a pursuit of those I have collected over the years. I love the sport suspension stuff, the LSD, Sport Seat, sunroof delete, the cars which were never seen back in the day and seldom seen today. The ones with raised hub steering wheels, deleted interior fitments, the ones with no alarms and those with FUCHS wheels and yellow Koni Shocks. It has been a long pursuit with hundreds of cars looked at. VERY few considered have the special options I desire, making me think Sport Seat cars were always a bit scarce, especially those with burgundy interior colors, or script seats, or Berber Tweed, or the patterned cloth usually prevalent in Europe. Most of the sport seats I have seen are black leather and I have a few of them. My last purchase of the series 2 car with Burgundy leather Sport Seats and extremely low mileage , was part of a special offering called a Sport Touring package offered in '86. NEVER have I ever come across this until just last January.

Photos of that car are in posts 69 and 75.

mrgreenjeans

And the most commonly ordered out dealer 'lot' fillers were the cars with few options pertaining to sport. I had dealer's salesman say they didn't get LSD cars because of the so called 'noise' they emitted.
Alarms were common, good stereos, and comfortable seating. A fair amount were automatics to sell to women or guys who didn't want to shift. ( most of these have been scrapped due to a poor transmission with a troublesome past ). Almost all the dealer lot cars were sunroof and I think it had to have been 75% were Guards Red because the promo literature featured this in all the TV ads, magazine ads, and enthusiast magazine articles. Not many of the 'lot' cars came with anything which would nix a sale, like a harsh ride or somewhat controversial color, or a car with NO sunroof or deleted goodies. Lots of cars were sold with the standard cookie cutters and far fewer were seen with FUCHS, and far fewer yet with color matched FUCHS or paint to sample cars.
White cars tended to be seen in the hotter south than up in the northern climates, like the upper Midwest. Black cars seemed very prevalent the further north one got. I don't ever remember ever seeing a black car in the deep south when new, and certainly not a triple black car like my 951.
I am sure they were there , it's just that I never saw one or did I think they were popular there. ( the series one cars were notably a hotter car due to their lack of a comprehensive air-con system. Porsche seemed to get a lot of 'heat' thrown back at them because of this, and thus the Series 2 car had a better cooling aircon than ever seen before in a Porsche, save the 928.
At least this is my experience from what I remember.

951Dreams

That scared the crap out of me! This was the first post I read today, and with the quote from "Mrsgreenjeans" then that, I was about to freak out! LOL

I had to read back and see what was going on....

Dino944

Yes, I forgot about the factory alarm. My parents 85.5 had the factory alarm with the key opening for it on panel just after the drivers door. A lot of the cars at our local dealer seemed to have the factory Porsche alarm.

As for colors the dealers seemed heavily stocked with red, black, and some silver. But on occasion I would see a few in Copenhagen blue (non metallic navy), white, I think ice blue (sort of a light blue/green), ruby red, garnet, and a gold car (that the dealer seemed stuck with). I once saw a 944S on the lot in "Summer yellow"...but I'd guess that was a car someone ordered.

WizPorsche944

I have the alarm with the key but never actually tried using it.

Dino944

We stopped using it at least on really cold days it would sometime freeze in the on position. So we always had to carry lock deicer just in case.

951Dreams

I've got the lock, but no key. Haven't dug into it yet to see if it's caused issues and been bypassed yet. No record of it in my history, I'm kinda betting it's still functional.

Kinda been kicking around adding some electric locks to mine with keyless entry, trunk pop, and a decent alarm, it is a Porsche after all. I was thinking of having a locksmith cut me a key to fit the factory alarm switch, and using it as an override.

Or not, I'm not keen on doing ANYTHING with the wiring on these, it's got enough troubles as it is.

odurandina

saw 4 or 5 every day. Maybe more. they were expensive for the times, and people in Massachusetts could afford them. they were good BELOVED cars - and they were EVERYWHERE. THOUSANDS of them here. Almost as common as Mazda RX-7s at leaast it seemed like. i had an almost new '87S. it was a great car for the time/s. the 944T was one 3rd or 4th best of the '80s.

Dino944

The key for the factory alarm was pretty long. From what I had heard years ago, it wasn't really anything great. Back then the best alarm system seemed to be from a company called "Clifford."

Probably best to live with things as they are.

I used to see a lot of them around Boston and Chestnut Hill. Also saw many of them around Providence, RI.