red911c2

I almost bought this car from Ken but it wasn't my first color preference so I passed. I hope someone here buys it because it's a special car. Here's the info on it:

For sale 1990 Porsche C4 Targa 911 964 finished in GP white over burgundy. This car recently was returned to me after a virtual complete mechanical/ cosmetic restoration that took more than seven months and cost in excess of $31,000. All mechanicals were removed from the car and replaced with new or like new parts. The underbody of the car was resprayed in GP white to look brand new. Every screw, nut, bolt, bracket was replaced or cadium plated to look like new. No expense was spared. I have "invested" more than $51,000 total into this 911. The car has none of the 1990 issues as they have all been addressed including the cylinder head update with the 1992 pistons, machined heads and gaskets installed. I have a notebook full of receipts and hundreds of pictures documenting the restoration. For anyone serious, I will provide the name and number of the highly regarded PCA recommended tech who completed all the work. I am asking $29,500 or best offer. My cell is (631)948-0219 and my email is kvbesq@optonline.net. The pictures do speak for themselves http://picasaweb.google.com/Liqcaresq/Porsche911964
http://picasaweb.google.com/Liqcaresq/Porsche

Bearclaw

I guess the car itself would be a decent car to have, but:

"I have "invested" more than $51,000 total into this 911."

I have to ask: WHY? For $51K, somebody could go out and buy a showroom example of the same car, and still have plenty of dough left over for upgrades - or a hell of a party. I just don't get it.

CWay27

Very nice car and wish you the best with the sale.

TR6

That was my first thought too.

carrera4esq

These cars are very expensive to repair. The engine rebuild including parts was about $12k alone. This whole project just snow balled on me. I purchased the car for $20k. The ppi was a joke. I immediately needed a new targa top (one on the car was from the wrong year), starter, hood shocks, seat switches, signal switch, hvac control unit, blower fan for passenger side and a few other small things. It was not such a bad start, but I was now into the car for about $25k. I brought it to my Porsche guy & he told me the small oil leaks would cost about $2k to repair. I told him to go forward, after all $27k into the car was not horrible. Once he took apart the top of the engine, he discovered that the leaks were not coming from where he thought because a previous owner had epoxied the leaks with some heavy duty epoxy. Now what to do? have him put things back together & try to sell for $15k and lose $10k, or go forward and rebuild the entire engine for about $5k more plus parts? I figured I would be into it for about $35k & it would be fun to have for a while. As the tech started pulling things apart, more things were wrong, such as the oil lines, thermostat and oil cooler which was over $1k in parts alone. The brakes which included rotors, sensors, pads, etc. was another $1k. While the engine was out, the clutch & flywheel were more than half gone, why not change them (another $1500 in parts alone). Are those fog lights cracked ($350)? Oh boy, 993 wheels would sure look good on this car now ($1300). Oh, there is a leak in the front differential, since he was taking it off and changing the seal, why not change all the boots, change the steering stops to accomadate 17' wheels? Well since we were doing all this, why not change those old shocks ($2k)? Oh yeah, by the way, now the car needs to be aligned and corner balanced ($500)... well since the whole bottom of the car is practically off the car, for a few extra bucks why not paint the bottom of it to look new? Ut oh, those fuel lines & brake cable do not look so good....... and so on and so on. I think you get the picture. This was over a relatively long period of time so it did not seem so bad until I finally tallied up the total.
The thing is, most, of these cars eventually need most of the repairs done to this car. I just did it all at once. Slippery slope theory in practice.

Mike Murphy

I can't speak for the owner of this car, but when I bought my restored TR6, the restorer spent about $25k on it when his wife said, "you know, I just don't care for the looks of it. I'd rather have an Austin Healey." I bought the car for $12k and the restorer just ate the difference.

Mike Murphy

The other thing I should say is that I'm selling my '88 Carrera after putting about $6k into it over a 12-month period. I am selling it for basically the same price I bought it for. Some people just lose money with these cars either in upgrades or in maintenance or in both.

forklift

I think we all fight this to a degree. I have a buddy who bought an '83 SC last year for $10k. He changed the suspension for about $4k, bought new wheels and tires, $2K, roll bar, seats and harnesses, $2k, and just got the car back from a tranny/engine rebuild $12k. $30k later he has a $18k car, or something like that. He looks at it that he has an almost brand new 911 track car w/ 172k miles on it and doesn't plan on selling it, so it was worth it to him.

I just put a $12k suspenion when one of my PSS9s broke in my $35k? 91k RSA last year and when I need a rebuild (hopefully 2 yrs off) on the engine AND tranny, that will be around $20k+. A cage someday at $3-4k. If I take out the sunroof, $3k. If I add a R&P and Guard LSD to the tranny rebuild, add $4k?, Big reds maybe w/ new pads and rotors? $3-4K. 18" wheels and tires, more. I don't plan on doing any of these right now, but as stuff wears out, it will be tough not to make it go and stop faster. It is a track car.

I don't think pouring money into a Porsche ever makes sense unless you plan on keeping it for a long time. If you are doing it for resale reasons, then you will lose your a$$.

As long as the mortgage biz doesn't tank any furhter, I will keep my car for years to come. If it gets much worse, it could be on rsa.net in the next year, but that's not the plan.

Marc Shaw

To paraphrase the famous quote:

"To make a small fortune in Porsche restoration, start with a large fortune"

I suspect that red911c2 copied and pasted his friends ad and his friend wrote the original ad with the word "invested" deliberately in quotes. Nobody in their right mind "invests" that much money in a 964 so he probably had his tongue firmly planted in his cheek when he wrote that.

I know that I have already spend more in "upgrades" to my car that I orginally bought the car for (shhh...don't tell my wife ) but I am not planning to sell for a profit so it does not bother me.

Marc

springer3

$51K? The poor fellow got hosed. The interior looks tired. What is the total mileage? Look at the exhaust studs. Some are not long enough to get through the nut. Others are too long, and threads project two diameters past the nut. Pulled studs were replaced using the wrong size? This was don by a professional mechanic? It is tempting to cash in on the misfortune, but I don't think the problems have ended. I would not go near it.

Bearclaw

The word "invested" was in quotes and I did not take it literally.
Semantics aside, he still spent $51,000 on a car he optimistically hopes to sell for $29,500. At that point, I'm sure he obviously only expected to get a fraction back out when he sold the car, but dang... the extreme numbers made me curious. I was just basically wondering aloud, "What happened?!!!" Was it a ground-up restoration that he lost interest in, or did he move on to a new challenge? But I understood after he posted with more a of a nightmare scenario: either keep going to fix this mess, or end up with an unmarketable rig.

I paid $23K for a 58K mi. car a year and a half ago, and I've spent around $1200 on tires, alignment, oil changes and odd little bits that made me happy. The car runs great and that's a reasonable amount to have spent as far as I'm concerned. I have no plans to use the car as a DD or track car.

This thread actually illustrates the two ways these cars can empty your wallet. The first are unforeseen problems that you must fix, and as stated, these cars are not cheap to repair. The second is the "slippery slope" I hear so much about; the voluntary walletectomy that involves suspension, brakes, exhaust, etc, etc.
Investment? No. Make ya happy? Sure.

Guy

Hmm, hard to say, its a bad photo and a tough color to keep nice. They always looked faded and dingy

Good luck with the sale, its obvious that a ton of money went into this car.

carrera4esq

To all, of course I meant "invested" tongue in cheek. One more investment like this and, as per my wife, I will be involuntarily divested of her and my three small children.
To answer a few questions, the car has just over 90k miles on it. The person who did the mechanical work on the car is Peter Potzinger, a PCA Metro Region Tech Advisor listed on the PCA web site. He has an impeccable reputation and has worked on many high end cars of people I know to their satisfaction. The exterior and interior of the car was worked on by Matt Zakarian, also a PCA Metro Region Tech Advisor, also listed on the PCA web site.
I originally, albeit naively, bought this car for the purpose of using it as a relatively inexpensive daily driver. I have an SUV for bad weather & a 2003 M3 convert as a garage queen (bought in 2003 & has 8k miles on it). The 911, in its current condition, is way too nice to park at my work (a busy retail parking lot) and will inevitably get ruined. I have only a three car garage and my wife wants the car gone.
The price of the car is negotiable, it was difficult to determine an asking price, but you have to start somewhere.
In life we sometimes do very stupid things, the only thing we can do is learn from our mistakes and move on, which is what I am attempting to do now. Some more pics http://picasaweb.google.com/Liqcaresq/MyM3

Smokin

This was not a slippery slope... It was an icy cliff!

I have receipts for my car where the PO spent $26k in the prior 4 years before I bought it. I paid $27.5k... That was almost 5 years ago. I've done the same thing in smaller scale before... I know how it goes...

KirkF

Honestly that sounds like a helluva deal. I have no problem understanding how the $$ got put into it. Many of us are jumping off cliffs of various heights. And in the end you have to write the $$ off as the cost of your passion / hobby.

Best of luck with the sale.

Kirk