PowerFlower

After trying almost everything all of you were kind enough to suggest... I gave up and took it to a local shop. They had it for a week and had almost everyone look at it (including their body guys) but they couldn't figure it out, either... which gave me some vindication that it's not due to my lack of skills

Then they finally did it, and when I asked "how did you manage?" they replied "with great dificulty"

Pretty much as described elsewhere: they used two air wedges to lift the hood enough to see the lock; and then took a hammer and chisel to it. Broke the lock but yay! Finally got it open! Wasn't going to reuse that lock anymore anyway.

They also installed a new lock, and after conferring with me, found an "easier" way to replace it than taking off the nose and grill. (Lots of 14 year old screws and fragile plastic bits that could break off in the process.) Had to cut some plastic but it was the wise choice. (Though to be fair I would never have agreed to that on my RS60 Spyder, but that car is more special to me.)




...from the top.

They charged me €290 for the whole thing -- including the new Porsche lock -- which all in all was more than reasonable! The car drives again. Without the oil light on, after adding a liter

thesteve

Glad you got it!
I'm also glad I purchased an air bag thing after locking my key in the back a while ago. No plans on needing it, but it sounds like a miracle tool that works wonders.

unclebilly

I did this a month or so ago on my wife’s 955. It was a terrible job but I was as patient as I could be and damaged nothing.

Use a inflatable bag thing as mentioned above. Get a flex head ratcheting wrench, this will get 2 of the bolts on the hood latch. I found that using another wrench to manipulate the first wrench was good too as my fingers were too big. I bought an endoscope and taped it to some wire so I could see what I was doing for the back nut. It was a bitch. I used a bent welding rod to hold the ratchet wrench on the nut and basically turned it one click at a time until it was loose enough to spin free with a bent welding rod.

it wasn’t fun but in the end I got it and damaged nothing. I highly recommend a $20 Bluetooth endoscope.

PowerFlower

Respect for getting it done without any kind of damage! And yes, I am considering getting the air wedges and a cheap endoscope after this ordeal. If you can't get to stuff and you can't see what's going on it becomes impossible to fix things.