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Just a bit of a confession really. For many years, whilst I’ve actively posted lots of stuff on mechanical aspects of my car I’ve kinda held back on posting anything about the overall project. Largely because I feared that it would dominate any subsequent post.
However after about eight years I think I’m about there and I hope the story might make an interesting read.
So, back in 2008 I decided that I’d like to create my ideal Porsche 911 and I drew up a plan which looked like this:
The idea was to cherry-pick my favourite elements from Porsches, old and new. Hopefully creating something subtle and unique in the process. It was only ever a self-indulgent process and I understand why many would be horrified by the prospect. My first problem was that my favourite shaped Porsche was a 993 wide body, which was way outside my price range (I was working to a tiny budget). So I looked for a suitable base to start from. Obviously I wouldn’t condone messing about with a pristine example, so I found a car that had seen better days.
At the time 964’s were very unloved and people had seemed to get transfixed by the fact that they occasionally dripped oil. Which had brought their price right down. Quite funny when you see the prices they go for today.
In the beginning
Eventually I found a 964 of questionable condition. It had a problem with it’s steering. It had been badly resprayed and loads of things were faulty, broken or repaired with putty! It was a convertible, which to be honest, didn’t really convert. And that turned out to be the tip of the iceberg.
To add to the challenge, my garage was tiny, it had no electricity and this would be my daily drive.
As soon as I’d purchased the car it quickly became apparent that apart from all of the obvious things, there was a raft of more pernicious problems lurking beneath the surface. A couple of sections of the car had red paint underneath, so obviously it must have suffered some damage in the past and been repaired, although nothing was recorded.
I found a number of helpful parts suppliers. Even better when I was picking up some other parts from a Porsche dealer they said that some of the parts I’d changed were covered under a recall and they’d pay for the part if I have the receipt! The parts weren’t expensive so I didn’t take them up on the offer but it established Porsche staff in my mind as damn decent people. All subsequent visits reaffirmed this.
Whilst checking the chassis number for a part they also spotted another recall which hadn’t been done (rear fan resistor) and told me to bring the car in to have it fitted for free. I was too embarrassed by the state of the car to drive it in, so I asked if I could fit it. They said yes, but for safety they needed to see it fitted. So I had to show them the car. Their reaction was a pleasant surprise and they were quick to regale stories of their own projects and restorations, offering helpful advice along the way.
From then on I was back and forth for parts as I battled with; lighting problems, failing coils (one random Ford one fitted by a previous owner!), snapped fan belts, broken sensors, failing wipers, limp home mode, oil leaks, gauges that don’t read, distributor issues, failed wheel bearings, seized oil cooling fans, missing cabin fans, DME errors, broken gearbox mounts, failing spark leads. The list went on and on.

Finally the car seems stable enough to start on the big stuff.
The roof
I wanted a gutterless coupe roof, but there was nothing suitable in the UK and import duty and shipping made importing a GRP or carbon fibre version too expensive.
A sheer stroke of luck turned up a 993 targa roof on eBay which I got at a great price. I briefly considered getting the opening operation to work but, having read lots of websites highlighting the leaks/squeaks and complexity, I opted to seal it shut. This also meant that as well as bolt it on as Porsche did originally, I could weld it to the chassis as well, making it seamless. Sweet.
To add complexity, once I removed the canvas roof, I still had to drive the car to work - rain or shine. My garage was too small to house the car and the roof at the same time and because I had no mains power I had to drive the car around to the front of the house and weld the roof by the kerbside when no one was around.

I had to fabricate loads of parts like the seals around the windows as original parts were prohibitively expensive or did not work in this new configuration.
Porsche designed the Targa roof to let water in and used two internal gutters which exited through the engine bay. I really wasn’t keen on the idea so I made new plastic trim to enable the glass to be bonded in.
The point of no return
I’d been accumulating a variety of body panels to match my original plan; a RUF style bumper from the States (which cost a fortune to import), my girlfriend bought me a 993 turbo rear bumper for my birthday, front and rear wings were made by a company in the West Midlands. The bonnet was a custom made item which had the central vent deleted to create a smoother appearance. The side skirts were also from the States.
OK. No going back now. I had to strip the car and cut the rear wings. Everything was carefully removed and sold on eBay - it was a nice feeling that all the components went to restore so many other 964s. Nothing went to waste and I met some great Porsche owners.

With the car touching one wall of the garage, I had about two feet of room to work. But still no electricity.
To start with I set up a solar panel connected to two 12v batteries, which ran a big 240v inverter. However the power tools I was using soon burnt out the inverter, and after replacing three of them I decided to start buying/making 12v power tools (see below) which worked much better. I installed some 12v lights so I could work late at night and in the winter I used a camping gas heater to stop the metal tools freezing to my hands.

There wasn’t really enough room to move a jack leaver when the trolley jack was under the car, so I tried to make a manual operated lift which would raise either the front or rear of the car (see image above). But sadly with the car pressed hard over to one wall I couldn’t reach the handle to raise the jack. So I soldiered on with the trolley jack.
Over the next few months/years the car started to take shape.

It was still my only car so I drove it around looking pretty much like it did in the photo above. It passed it’s MOT test every year… one of the boxes on the test certificate was ‘body colour’, which the tester diligently completed as “Black/white/grey and blue”. The police that stopped me were less believing that the car was roadworthy, but in all honesty, by this stage, despite it’s appearance, most of the components were new.
Finally all of the body panels fitted pretty well and I was ready to have the car sprayed. There was no way I was doing that myself. I had made up my mind – that was a job for the pros. So I took it to six different companies expecting them to relish the idea of a project car, but sadly nothing could be further from the truth. Most said it was too big a job (they all said they made their money repairing single panels with a high turnover rate) and those that would take it on wanted £7000+ ($9500USD). I’d budgeted for around half that – after all, this was a ‘fun’ project, not a ‘Robert Linton’ build.
So now I was stuck. Spraying it myself was out of the question as I couldn’t run an air compressor on 12 volts and I didn’t have the space to house the compressor anyway.
At the time I was also renovating our house and I’d been using an HVLP spray gun to apply the wood stain to the decking. It was impressive how evenly the stain went on and this got me wondering… if you could find a finer needle for the gun and mixed the correct viscosity of automotive primer maybe I could prime the car myself. The only remaining problem was compressing the air with 12 volts. I can’t remember how I found out, but inflatable boats, like RIBs have the same problem and use a low voltage compressor which gave out similar CFM and pressure as the mains powered compressor. So I managed to rig up a combination of elements which worked great.
I primed the car, first with an acid etch primer, then a high build primer. Each panel had to be detached from the car, then the car was pushed out of the garage and the panel sprayed. The panel was then placed on the roof of the car, which was pushed back in to the garage to dry.

It went really well and after several weeks of priming, applying guide coat and sanding over and over again it was looking pretty good. At this stage I guess I could have gone back to the spray companies to do the colour and clear coat. But surely if you can spray primer, you can spray paint? And if you can spray colour, surely you can spray clear
So I ordered enough paint and sundries to have a go. Using the same process I applied the paint and clear which, considering I was using equipment that was originally designed to spit creosote on fence panels, worked pretty well. The only snag was that in order to get the clear to flow I had to apply it liberally which resulted in orange peel which took weeks to wet sand out by hand.

I’d managed to find a huge set of second hand alloy wheels (13” wide Victor Equipment), which filled the arches nicely. So I sprayed them BMW Space Grey with a matt lacquer over the top. I cut the side skirts in half and extended them just so they could sit at the same level as the bottom of the door – I loved the fact they had a 'shark fin' curve that was a nod to the original 964 detail.
Over the last few years I’ve tried to keep refining the car and I think I’ve got as far as I can go. Here she is:

I left the badges off because I reckon that the shape already has ‘Porsche’ written all over it.
I’d just like to add that I’d have been forced to give up long ago if it wasn’t for the technical help (and moral support) offered by the members of Rennlist and the Porsche community at large. Thanks so much for all your help.
Having seen the car in the flesh at various stages throughout the build, I can confirm that albeit perhaps a little insane, Rich really is a talented bast**d!!
09-05-2016, 06:43 PM
Dark secret (not for the purists)
