Hilton

Well, its been a long time coming - first contacted the owner about his '87 Grandprix White manual S4 in December. Then his '79 was stolen, and the sale of the '87 took a sideline.

Thankfully his '79 was recovered, and we completed the sale.. so all I had to do was get the car picked up from London, put on a boat, and shipped to Australia (well, a little more complex than that - lots of paperwork to satisfy both countries.. but that just takes time for to-and-fro)

Finally got the call this morning to say the car was out of customs and quarantine, and could be picked up. Went along, picked it up and drove it 25km's home to my driveway.

The plan is to get this '87 up and registered, then daily-drive it while I work on the '89 which needs suspension, brakes, paint, dash leather and more.

I've got some work to do to get the new 87 road-registered - from the smell it has a cracked oil breather hose, which will cause it to fail emissions test for high hydrocarbons; our import test center is a sealed chamber that measures emissions from the whole vehicle, not just the exhaust At least this time I know what I'm doing, so I'll probably just pull the intake, do the whole refresh, and then do the emissions test.

Car is an '87 5-speed S4, with a flip-up wing, and black interior.

Option codes are: C16 058 220 302 330 454 490 494 513 538 650

First driving impressions - rock solid (all new gas Boges in 2007), although the shifter bushing need replacing, and I'll have to get a short-shifter for this one too. I'd forgotten how long and floppy the throw is on a stock S4 manual

Most of the work on the job list is small stuff - door arrestors, cruise control, swap out window switches (replacements came with the car), hatch seal.. should keep me busy for a little while.

A heap of parts on order and a few already here.. just need to find time around family and commitments to get on with it

Anyway, enough talk.. some pics!

Number plates from opposite ends of the earth!

jackson101

Beautiful cars, but your daughter is going to need a booster seat to drive safely.

Hilton

That's the passenger side with the door open, for those of us who drive on the right side of the car

Hmm, my 928's, like my daughters, are 2 years apart. Guess that settles any fights over which car belongs to which girl. Now i just need a 928 for *me*

Marine Blue

Your daughter looks really excited, almost acting like the red one is hers now that daddy has the white one!

Congrats and good luck.

ROG100

Hilton,
Great find and good options.
Shame its ----------- you know.
Roger

shmark

OMG you have to go a long way to get a RHD 928, what was the shipping for half-way around the planet? Love the plate on the red car....

hopwood

Hi Hilton,

Glad she got there safely! I guess the shift thing depends on what you're used to, my 79 is like stirring porridge with a broom handle compared to this S4, but hey.. sounds like you have a plan for that.

Enjoy the car - I'm picking up my 79 from Paul Anderson on Friday. New 4.7 engine, crank scraper and windage kit, S4 brakes and suspension... can't wait!

Joel

Hilton

Awesome Joel - sounds like we both get new 928's this week!

The '79 will be a beast with that setup.. for those who don't know, Joel's 79 is the one that was featured in the Feb 2009 edition of the UK magazine "Classic and sports car". It suffered a seized engine at the hands of the crooks, so he's had it worked over while retaining the pascha interior etc.

The shifter thing isn't a big deal - I was just surprised at the huge difference, as I "fixed" my 89's shift slop over a period of a year and never noticed how huge the net change was. My '89 has a aftermarket short-shift lever and all-new bushings so its about as precise as its possible to get. I've already got the ball cup, shifter and coupler bushings for the '87 as they're cheap and its a 2 hour job to rejuvenate the entire shifter assembly.

For those who have a manual car, change all three of these at once: Front shifter ball cup, four shift lever bushes, rear coupler bushes.

Sad (good!) thing is I'm up early and reading workshop manuals to plan the first few little jobs (like moving the seats to the rearmost mounting bolt positions), fitting the replacement hatch seal (included with the car! thanks Joel! )

Another little thing I've noticed - the '87 has a windshield antenna instead of the '89's roof mounted one. Looks way cleaner, and losing the roof antenna is now on the cards for the '89 when I get a new windscreen to replace the original one thats badly pitted after 20 years.

Got to love all the minor differences between each year of the 928.. combining all the best features would be a huge exercise!

sendarius

shmark: Hilton will have to give you the transport charges for his latest acquisition, but as an indicator, my '88 cost AUD $768 to ship from Japan to Fremantle, Western Australia.

At current exchange rates, a little over USD $500 (for ONLY shipping, Australian customs charges and fumigation were extra, as was the flat-bed to the 'shop).

Richard S

CS Club Sport sticker on fender....looks nice on white.

Rich

IcemanG17

Congrats...two is always better than one!!!

Hilton

Shipping wasn't too bad - was about $US 1600 for shipping from the UK. Then add on customs fees, local taxes, port handling fees, it all adds up, but its still worth it. There's very little choice in 5-speeds here - aussie dealers ordered mostly autos and sold dealer stock.

pcar928fan

Had to go back to look at the CS sticker! COOL...well, it is cool IF it was fully turned in to a CS car...not so much if someone just put the sticker on a plain old S4 w/o doing the work...

Hilton, I agree with you... ONE is NOT enough!

robot808

tlsmith1999

James, Is one per day of the week enough???