Ironman88

Anyone who may think that the "purist-o-maniac" gauge needle is pegged with some 997 owners, you would not believe what it's like with some of the air-cooled 911's.

When some air-cooled owners have dry ice blasted their undercarriage, they've been criticized within the "purist" community about removing the original cosmoline... "No cosmoline on the engine case - NOT ORIGINAL! You've defiled it!"

997.2GTS

For me, any modification looks great, as long as well-integrated into the design or in-line with the design philosophy. Who here would turn down a Singer?

sandwedge

Kind of how I feel about it too. As I said in an earlier post, problems appear if you decide to sell the car though. As I found out is that you may have 20 potential buyers and with that you may have 20 different opinions of what a " well-integrated into the design or in-line with the design philosophy" is.

alfetta

I think the purist argument only applies in the air-cooled world. Owning a relatively stock old Porsche is about recreating an experience in another time and era. You get to drive a time machine; you learn what it was like to have a great sports in some earlier year.

Most of us car-junkies started out fooling around well-worn Detroit iron. It was required to modify those ungainly beasts, that was the point of owning them. Turning wrenches and painting valve covers.. Anything but stock---you had to differenate your car from your father's. Hot rodding was all about improving the car, some mods I did were silly and others may have improved things marginally.

As a buyer, appropriate mods would not put me off a car but I know you can get punished on resale. The Porsche experience is not practical anyway, so why worry about snarky comments on BAT. Af.er all, I suspect 99.9% of all mini-vans on the road are bone-stock.

sandwedge

Exactly. Found that out with my modified GTS on the market a couple of years ago.

Nope. Well documented by me (trying to be helpful to other sellers) and referenced to again in the response above. I had my modified 997 GTS on the market. Got plenty of inquiries and guess what. Almost all from purists who wanted a bone stock car. A few with ridiculous low ball offers since the car had been "modified" and therefore worth less. Never mind that the modifications on the car total close to $20K.

So since this issue keeps coming up time and again, I'm repeating the same advice: If you mod, hang on to the stock parts in case you want to or have to sell the car. A lot of purists out there and they're NOT just air cooled purists.

SpeedyD

I’m somewhere in between. Tasteful is subjective so keep that in mind.

Petza’s cars, for example, I consider tastefully modified and I like the personalization aspect. Of course he apparently buys for the long haul, so why’d he even care. I respect it and even like it.

My own cars are all stock save for some minor touches (shifter in one non-Porsche, exhaust for one Porsche, etc). I always keep the original components so everything is reversible. I generally prefer stock. Partly the aesthetic and partly the collector in me. I buy for long-term keeping but also realize keeping the stock parts will maximize the range of potential future buyers.