UPDATE 1/18/19 – The seller pulled the auction before it ended and has now relisted it here on eBay with an eye-watering $95,000 asking price! Do you think it will sell for that much?
FROM 10/7/18 – Parked it, and walked away. With a daily newspaper on the backseat dated from 1971, this 1968 Porsche 911 seemingly was left behind by an owner that either had a bad memory or too much money – or both. Shuttered in a New York garage for decades, the 911 is said to wear mileage of just 15,479, and its old-school New York license plates further tell the tale of a 911 wrapped in mystery. Find it here on eBay with bidding over $35K and the reserve unmet.
The seller contends the 911 is quite solid despite the surface rust blossoming on the car’s top layers. There’s reportedly no rust in the floors and the structure is sound, with no rot holes to speak of. Even better, the 911 is equipped with some desirable options, including a sunroof, through-the-grill fog lights, sway bars, leather steering wheel, and Fuchs wheels. The tires are also said to be original.
The interior is where any doubts as to the low mileage claims melt away. It looks absolutely stunning. 911s of this vintage are usually seen with torn-up carpets to alleviate the moisture trapped underneath, or seats that are mismatched after the original Sport buckets were pillaged. Not here – this one is untouched, with black vinyl (or leatherette) and an original steering wheel and shift knob, and uncracked dash.
No mention is made as to whether the 911’s engine still turns, nor is there any paperwork with the vehicle as the seller purchased it from an estate. Cars like this are a reminder that there are individuals with so much wealth that cars like a fairly valuable long-hood 911 simply sit in storage, waiting to be exhumed after being used for a few years and set aside. Mind-blowing, as will likely be the final price when this time-capsule 911 hammers home.
Also around the time of Vietnam…193 Service Men from NY died 1971 or later, 36 of which were from Islip. Would really like to know if he was one of them.
Thank you to all of those who serve(d)!!
Thanks for that, TCOPPS. It’s so easy to make the cavalier assumption that cars like this are the result of ‘some rich guy’ with too much money forgetting about it, when the actual truth may well be far more poignant, or tragic. Whether or not this particular car belonged to a serviceman who didn’t come back, we’ll never know, but god bless all of them.
It’s also worth noting that the seller indicates that a title is in process on the car.
Title not required in N.Y. for 1973 & earlier motor vehicles. Transfer of ownership is via vehicle registration.
Possible but doubtful unless it belonged to an officer. Most that had the means to purchase a car like this also had the means to avoid service in one way or another.
My first thought; Vietnam, but I don’t know when the “conflict” ended.
I read the eBay ad, it was bought from the estate of the original owner, so I have to assume it has nothing to do with a fallen soldier.
Saigon evacuation was 1975, I remember it like yesterday
up to 65 Large…woo hoo…hasn’t hit reserve. Good luck to the new owner–if everything is a mystery here, sure hope it has paperwork to go with it.
Too rich for my blood!!
Cheers
GPC
Consider this. Say you took the Playboy Playmate of the Year from 1971 and parked her in a shed until now. Would the bidding be high? That is what we have here, a once sought after item that men lusted over, but time has not been kind to it. To me this is worth little. Now, if they had wrapped it in a vacuum sealed baggie after properly draining the fluids and putting oil in the spark plug slots, that might be better today. Just as if we had put our Playmate in suspended animation, the bidding would be far higher there too.
What great patina! not.
yeah! i’ve got a 66 /912 ,with lots of work to do on it(project) ;but heck tha;ll keep them prices high(a grat inflation hedge!
Hold onto it. I honestly prefer the 912 to the 911. Much better handling.
912’s only handle better when driven by novice drivers that don’t know how to adjust understeer/oversteer with the use of power. Porsche’s driven fast are not for the timid. As soon as you loose your nerve going fast into a hard corner and let up……..you are liable to be in the ditch…..backward. When driven by professionals, there isn’t anything on the road that will run with them.
With all due respect for your extensive experience with air cooled P cars, do you think an air cooled 3.2 Carrera could run with a 3.2 M3? Lets talk about a No American 3.2 M3 like an E36 with single VANOS and leave the E46 with the Euro engine out of this question.
My direct experience with both 3.2 cars—the Carrera and the No American M3—tells me that there is no chance that a 3.2 Carrera would stay with a 3.2 M3 given decent drivers in each car, with the Carrera driver fully experienced with the Carrera’s handling.
I think both cars are terrific….in different ways. And I admit to preferring front-mid engined water cooled cars with 4 valve engines to rear engine cars with 2 valve air cooled engines. The former have better technology than the latter, in part because they are a later design in addition to having different a heritage.
As for this 911L, altho it might have an unfortunate story behind it, it’s a real time capsule and it should sell well, maybe for what a very good 911L would bring despite this car’s needs.
I don’t know much about modern BMW’s. My experiance with them is limited to a 1976 2002, a 1972 3.0CSI coupe, a R90s and my R1200C. When BMW runs in the same class as Porsche, they are non starters. A race prepared BMW rarely runs in the same Class as Porsche but when you see them together in places like rally’s and hillclimbs, the Porsche is always on top. Porsche is so dominant in racing that they frequently kill racing classes when the factory decides to compete. The same can be said for Mercedes. They seldom do factory race cars since the crash in Le Mans in 1955. But when they do…….they are dominant. BMW was quite a good F3 engine when paired with English chassis and they are a good car, one of my least favorite German cars…….down there with Audi that also builds some good cars (all better than Oriental cars). I am picking up a new AMG GLC 63 at the factory in Stuttgart in the spring. My wife will go to the factory driving school with it. I am old and it will be fun running with the fast cars on the autobahn next summer again. It is a superior car to anything fielded by BMW, Audi or Porsche all done in a 4 seater still capable of getting the groceries. I love it when modern BMW’s try to run with my 300SEL 6.3………like the old days when Z Cars tried to run with my Maserati Mistral, or the older yet days when an acquaintance tried To ruń his new Datsun 2000 against my older 1967 911s.
I’m far from a professional driver, and I like driving cars hard on normal roads. I would feel constantly wary of spinning my 911 backwards into a hedgerow. A 912, though, could be pushed hard and wrung out by a non-racing enthusiast driver without nearly as much worry. I’d rather enjoy a car at 9/10ths on a Sunday afternoon than putz around at 6/10ths in a more powerful one.
Dave, BMW has come a very long way since the 2002 and 3.0 CS. There’s a lot more to say here but I’m not going to say it since the successful performance of the M cars has been shown again and again on roads and tracks around the world. You seriously need to drive an M3, and if you ever do keep solidly in mind that every M3 ever made is a 2- or 4-door sedan.
Prices on old Porsches have gone completely insane. Its totally ridiculous.
Tell me about it!
I sold, as I am sure I have said before, my ’70 911 sunroof with dealer installed a/c, a 3 owner Cali car for way south of this by tens of thousands….two years ago. While it isnt an early swb, mine was superior to this one in obvious ways.Sic transit gloria!
Early water cooled are going for good money but other then a few options, low miles and an original interior there needs to be some real documentation to command this price (over $60k, reserve not met). The question is, does this owner have something in his pocket to demand the price or is he someone who wandered into an old 911 and thinks they are all gold.
I love early 911s, but the current market for them is ridiculously overpriced. I wish I’d jumped on an opportunity at a cheap 912 years ago, before the bubble.
Had a similar experience myself many years ago. My wife called me at work to tell me our trusted VW mechanic had an “old Porsche” at his shop for sale. Turned out to be a clean ‘66 three-gauge 912 another customer of his was selling for $7K. After giving the car a quick and very positive inspection, I was about to pull out my checkbook when my mechanic went on to tell me the car had just been sold, as it turned out to the guy driving the pickup truck that was leaving as I drove in. Sigh. That was the say my not being able to leave work early cost me the opportunity to buy my long-desired classic Porsche restoration project.
aren’t those 911 S wheels…..did the base 911 have solex carbs?
This should be the one year only 911L, a detuned version of an S designed to comply with the new 1968 smog laws. I did an identical car in 1977 that I bought from a USAF pilot that had purchased is with his Vietnam Nam Bonus. He took the car to Germany with his assignment to Bitburg AFB. The car rusted and I bought it from him. Parts were easy and restoration went well using factory technicians and parts. I sold it to buy my Maserati Mistral. Great car but in truth, a later 996 drives much better for a fraction of the cost. These are investor cars today………….not a bad thing but different than when we used them as just a nice, fun car.
Nope, it’s a straight 911, otherwise it would have “911L” name plates and ‘S’ trim package (note thin rubber on bumpers & under doors, also lacking the ‘S’ interior trim). The ‘L’ was basically an ‘S’ with a stock smog pump 911 engine. The ‘S’ was available in 68, but only European version as the factory refused to put the smog pump on it. None of the US Porsches were that desireable in 68 due to the smog pumps making the “L’s” very rare now, but this is not one. Porsche returned with the ‘S’ in 69 using fuel injection to alleviate smog issues (only the ‘T’ remained with carbs- Zeniths).
Outside repaint and done. Beautiful.
Somewhere in that era Porsche put 14 inch wheels on the lesser models. That didn’t last long and the remainder of the 14 inchers wound up as standard on the ’76 912Es. During that time there was also a “deep dish” 15 inch wheel while not any wider at 6 inches was a better looking wheel.
14s were for quicker times off the line on “E” models. Not for lesser end models.
Wow, look at that dash pic. As new as a brochure picture or after a 100pt resto.
Luki… Problem was there were no real good 14 inch performance tires available. Pirelli had all sorts of high speed tires for the 15 inch wheels but nobody but the drag racers were getting super performance 14 inch tires and they wouldn’t quite fit in the Porsche wheel wells.
Maybeit was one of this party boy from New York gifted hundreds of millions from daddy and his conquests set up his girl in an apt who left and hid it from party 🎉 boy 😆😜 on exit ?
Nice car though … but probably going to go way high for the working class who earn their own 💰💰🙃
Couldn’t the KARDEX from the factory point at least to the dealer? I’d start the detective work there…
$69K bidding already and not selling for almost 5 days from now.
Investor car for sure, is it really that special? , I would hope at these prices the bidders have at least done a personal inspection.
Better make sure it wasn’t stolen!
Seinfeld should jump on it. He loves the original and patinaed look and could afford to get it running and just drive it. I hope nobody goes full restoration on it.
I had a 1968 L; It was a Brumos Lauderdale car, came with steel wheels and a 2.0L with about 130HP. Not rust proofed in the early days so when I sold it in 1976 I had already replaced 3 floor pans, rockers, spoilers etc from the iron worms. Ran it at Lake Elkhart 72-73 era and was giggles all the time. XKE’s always blew my doors off in a straight line but I caught them in the curves and late braking. Ive had many track cars since (currently a 996) and there is always something faster out there, which is OK. I can run with some Vettes (as it was with the C2 and C3 Vettes) and not with others (C5, 6 or 7).
Its all good.
The last picture from the ad does not looks that the car has been sitting there for 47 years that the seller claims.
Who’s coming back for work and after parking his 3 year old and 15K miles Porsche forget to use it or drive it until the day he dies? Family, friends, employees nobody notice the car all this time?
this should be a Ripleys believe it or not posting.
I mean no dis-respect,but this website should have two sections.
one for guys like me who live in the real world, and the one’s who
live on DS9.
ok, here is one of those “I had one of those…” comments. in the early 80’s, I had a 65 gray market Porsche 911. from what i remember, and this could be in error, is that the 1965 911’s were not imported into the USA unless you went thru some kind of shady gray market thing, of which I believe it had no steel door panels, maybe some other safety features that were required on cars at the time, so the earliest ones available in the USA were the 1966 models. It had 2 never-rebuilt solex carbs on it if I remember it right. what I do remember is having to replace the spark plugs all the time because the carbs were just junk and unmaintained. with that being said, I believe it had about 130 hp, which may not sound like much, but with all its faults when you put your foot in it boy would it take off! and there is nothing like the smell of the inside of an older 911. to say I was a fool to part with it is an understatement (I don’t remember how much I sold it for, but I doubt it was more than a few thousand), but it seems like back in the later 60’s and early 70’s a lot of us had no idea of how valuable these cars would get and they all got either wrecked.
or sold for very little. For some reason, most of us just did not care. weird. I do have my grandmother’s 1971 olds cutlass tho that she bought new, so my son/myself are the 2nd owners, after my son wore it out when he was a teen (he is now 37), we parked it in the barn (junky shop actually) around 2001. Just last year, I put a battery and gas into it and started it up, no smoke or anything! idles rough but still drives… and with plugs, points, plug wires and condenser I am sure it will run great. it is not an “S” or convertible, but it does have the original “rocket” 350 and a perfect condition “landau” (is that how you spell it??) top. I got a spare monster 455/turbo 400 and some vintage “flower” mags for it tho to when I get around to it (problably never will tho) ahh, the memories… maybe I will sell it here… ???
as little likely it seems that a vehicle like this is just parked and forgotton for decades, with no relatives or friends to pick up the pieces, it does happen. Remember it was only about 100 years ago Carter found King Tut’s tomb… nobody had known where it was before it was discovered. you would think that with all the hundreds or thousands of workers involved in such a huge project like his tomb, that over 4,000 years, generations of some of the workers/dads or whoever would remind their kids or whoever “hey, over there is King Tut’s tomb”. Now how does one forget THAT?
What a neat car with a good story. I love these original cars in less than perfect condition. All this car needs is a comprehensive mechanical rehab. Leave the body alone. Anybody with a checkbook can make it look new again. That’s not what this car is. It’s condition and the story is what makes this one so unique. Leaving the body as is will take some effort to stabilize it to keep any further deterioration to a minimum. It’s not for a lazy owner. It would fit well with someone having imagination and foresight. Kudos to the current owner for leaving it alone. Two thumbs up on this one.
I’ve had several 356’s and a couple of older 911’s. My girlfriend in college had a new 1968 (I think) 912. Yep I’m old. While 356’s and 911’s pretty much felt balanced between handling, weight and horsepower, the 912 felt woefully underpowered. My girl was not an aggressive or particularly experienced driver, she loved it. So different strokes. I never let her drive my ‘65 356 SC. lol
License plate is coded from Brooklyn K means Kings County
This is a great find! Like going back in a time machine. Good deal at any price!
Sidney that is an extremely sexist comment. I know most of the folks here are, well let’s say in their “Golden Years” and lack these sensibilities. But there are females that love cars and are due respect. Just sayin’
Actually, not sexist at all, really more of a metaphor. You do know what that is, don’t you son? Or did the school spent so much time teaching you touchy feely things that they forgot big words like that. Your generation can’t take a joke. My generation has proven to be the most successful one in history, what will become of yours with all your drivel and convoluted thinking? Certainly not successful enough to buy a car like this. I know I sure could (not that I would want to), and I got there by spending time first learning the three Rs and later detailed technical things that made sense to learn, even if somewhere they hurt some distant persons feelings. Know what we did when we read something we didn’t like? We closed the book, we didn’t try to change the world. Your generation has been trying to shove political correctness down our throats to the point that many of us can’t hardly breath. Don’t make life so complicated son, live and let live, you will be happier, and those around you will too. Tolerance is a good thing. BTW, do you really think that the ladies don’t say similar things about us? If you believe that, there may be no help for you. Men and women by nature have base emotions that go to the primitive part of the brain, and the species needs them for survival, but many are trying to remove this. In med school we understood base biology, I wonder if they are still allowed to teach it today?
Well put Sidney!
ha. my goodness you’re sensitive my friend. So if its a metaphor why didn’t you use some hunk. Oh I know, you’re homophobic too. If you don’t know what that means pull out your Websters Dictionary.
Sensitive? How does one become that when responding to an obvious inaccurate comment? Homophobic, where does that come from? Where does it say that a person that can appreciate a beautiful woman has no tolerance for others who do not feel the same? I can see that you too were taught at the school of political correctness. You tend to box people into categories in your tiny minds. How about doing the grown up thing and taking each person as an individual? I know good and bad people from all races, walks of life, skin color, religion, you name it. My Papa told me a great long time ago that a real man makes up his own mind about another person and doesn’t let general consensus do it for him. Try thinking for yourself friend. You need to meet and talk with a person to size them up, making blanket assumptions does you, nor anyone else any good.
Aye yi yi! Buy 9 or 10 Boxsters!