No matter what era you use as a reference point, it’s always a bad idea to buy the young driver in your house a Porsche. This wrecked 356 cabriolet was purchased for a 16-year-old driver in 1985 and promptly driven into a curb and flipped. To someone’s credit along the way, the car wasn’t scrapped but instead secured with its numbers-matching engine still intact. Find it here on eBay with a Buy-It-Now of $59,900.
Wow – this thing got smoked! I truly admire the person who looked at it and saw some potential future value here. Or perhaps the dad bought it back from the insurance auction and left it the garage for his son to walk past every day, reminding him of what an opportunity he had to drive a sweet car to high school that he destroyed in a single moment of stupidity (I see nothing wrong with this type of punishment, by the way.) It’s hard to tell just how badly this 356 is tweaked, but it’s pretty bad.
The seller has some pretty good insights into how the accident occurred, noting that the accident damage seems to indicate the young racer made a hard right turn and smacked a curb, possibly causing the 356 to roll onto its side. While it’s impossible to spitball exactly what happened, it is pretty obvious to me that this was a hard impact. The question is this: can, or more importantly, should this 356 be restored?
The nose also took a whack, as you can see the driver side front corner is caved in. And, of course, there’s the usual 356 rust that inevitably permeates the floors, heater channels, battery tray, and wherever else an old air-cooled car tends to rot out from. So, you have a desirable specimen in a 356 cabriolet but one that will requires tens of thousands of dollars to repair after the $60,000 purchase price. Is there any chance this car comes back to life as anything more than just a VIN plate swap?
What you have here is a big mess that used to be a rare car that was built in ’60 to replace the ’59 Convertible D. Built in small quantities into ’62 and called the Roadster it was sort of a replacement for the Speedster as was the Convertible D before it. Tracked the trail of the ’60 Roadster race car we saved from the crusher after we restored it in the ’80s and sold it for a market value of $14,000 and last heard about it in the late ’90s where it had reached the $70,000 mark. The street machines are crazy expensive because they were so rare to start with. I have numbers if anyone is interested. Our car is being Vintage raced these days which sort of makes our efforts to save it worth while. BTW, one of our Speedster projects about 1/3 done went to a friend for $15,000 who sold it to a German restoration shop for $30,000. That’s OK, he’s a friend and I paid $1,500 and got two extra engines to boot. Speedster was a lawnmower shed find.
The ’60 Roadster.
In PorscheWorld, $60,000 for this gently used specimen seems low.
Wow $59k for what is now a pile of scrap metal I kinda wonder what it would be worth now if they stored it indoors all these years protected from the elements.
Now you know why we haven’t owned any Porsches since the late ’80s.
$60,000! I want a picture of the fool that pays that.
Are you sure it wasn’t wrecked in 1965 and parked at the bottom of a pond until now?
I won’t read the article because I know how these stories end, but is either Astoria, NY or Beverly Hills, CA mentioned?
Ebay listing says Santa Barber dealer
Thanks. This dealer probably learned his craft at a store in Beverly Hills and realized he too could sell high-end scrap metal.
All it needs to restore is a complete donor car
Sometimes one man’s junk is another man’s junk too.
A finely engineered and very expensive boat anchor…
🧐
This wreck looks like one of the piles of crap the brothers in Ca. peddle from their old man’s junkyard.
A few years ago I was selling a rare vintage Slingerland Radio King snare drum and I got a call from a mother who wanted to buy it for her 8 year old kid who was developing an interest in drums and saw my drum amongst a bunch of other drums for sale.
I refused to sell the vintage drum to the woman calling because you don’t sell an $1100.00 CDN vintage drum to kids that will certainly destroy vintage if you give it to them without conditions of not destroying them.
Never sell to kids or their parents.
Bob
Not to mention selling an $1100.00 CDN vinatge drum to a mom for her 8 year old kid would be highly unethical. She could find a complete kit with cymbals and stands for under $500.00 CDN on Kijiji. Here is my tip: Think twice about buying from Robert.
Grandpa always told us back on the farm when we were kids: “If you give someone something for nothing, that’s exactly what they think it’s worth.”
When I first looked at it, I thought that this vehicle had the ultra rare (1 of 1) “Kuhhaut” exterior finish.
318 Poly Swap!
If this was ” left it the garage for his son to walk past every day…” that garage must have been in Atlantis.
Hey I do believe it’s a numbers matching car. I have zero interest, spending zero money with zero liklihood of it ever being in my garage.
Come on guys , a wash and wax and she’s ready to go
Scrap
Whether it’s 1 of 1 or 0 of 1, put it in the crusher. No wait, you don’t need hydraulic cylinders to crush that basket, maybe just a cardboard box and sweep it up. There’s not even metal for $6 in that. And people complaining about Mopars being overpriced. What a fine piece of German Engineering!
Crazy town. I bought a few 356a and b’s back in the mid to late 70’s on the Jersey shore. Most I ever paid for a complete and running car was $1,800. They were common as dirt and considered glorified VW’s.
Totaled, and rusted out. What a deal for a salvage title.
I’m taking up magnet fishing. If I can’t drag up a Porsche I’m sure to catch a Mopar!
That is not a cabriolet, it’s a roadster. They are quite different models. The cabrios had a thick padded top, fixed windshield with wind-wings (frame is part of the body and painted body color) full dash with glovebox, radio, and other amenities. The roadster had a chrome windshield frame that could be removed, no wind-wings, a very simple dash with no glovebox or radio, a single layer folding top, etc. I’ve had a ‘59 Convertible D roadster since I was 16. Somehow I managed to not crash it, and it’s still in my garage to this day-
Mark… Had two ’59 Convertible Ds. One took on a telephone pole and almost killed the idiot behind the wheel (left stub axle was under the dashboard) and a rusty chassis (for $85) that required over 250 hours of welding. Turned it into the best race car we’ve ever owned and if I’d had a choice we’d still have it.
Over 250 hours of welding ??!! Hokey-smokey! was the new chassis made entirely out of weld metal ??
P.T Barnum said it correctly:
“There’s a Sucker Born Every Minute”
I add “a fool is born every minute”. Only a fool would pay $60,000 for this rust bucket. A double fool pays this for a modified VW!
Never understand the appeal for the 356 even though they are “cute” cars! The E-Type had the awesone power AND styling!
Ike,
Yes, while 250 hours is a lot of time, when my shop had cars with almost nothing left of the bottom side, especially on a unit-body car, It’s often a case of spending 15 to 30 minutes measuring and placing a new piece of metal, then measuring again, before 30 seconds of actual welding takes place!
I don’t think that distinction makes too much difference in this case, but thanks for the information.
About 1980 I had a rare 1968 Cougar XR-7, GT-E 428 Cobra jet, red with tan leather interior and vinyl top. Put an ad in a local newspaper, and a young guy called me from Virginia, and made an appointment to come to Maryland to see the car. He arrived with his parents, and after looking the car over he said this is the car he wants, so his parents said OK.
I asked him how old he was, and his reply was he just turned 16! I told his parents the car was a VERY high performance automobile and I didn’t think it was a good decision to buy the car for him to drive as his regular car. His parents still decided to buy it, telling me their son would take care of it.
I wrote up the bill of sale that Virginia DMV requires, and added a statement that the car was NOT appropriate for everyday use, especially for beginning drivers, as it was an historical car that was intended for racing.
A couple of months later I get a letter from an attorney. Seems the kid wrecked the car days after he got it, and damn near killed himself. I asked the attorney if he had seen a copy of the Bill of Sale that his parents and I signed. He had not. I suggested he ask the DMV for a copy.
I never heard from the attorney or the family again.
That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. I would have told the attorney to pound sand (but not so nicely). You sold the car to his parents. You had ZERO LEGAL TIES TO THAT CAR after they paid you the cash and you handed over the signed title and that car left your property. The DMV/MVA would have had absolutely NO interest in anyone’s opinion, period. Is this even a true story? If so, and you really cared so much (which is really strange) then why’d you sell it to his parents? I owned a ’69 383 4-speed/Air Grabber Road Runner that I bought in Silver Spring when I was 15 years old in 1985 and had no problem driving the crap out of it…as a matter of fact, I had my learner’s permit and my friend was 18, so my mom dropped us off to pick it up. I roasted the tires at every stop light and drove the Beltway 500 around the Outer Loop all the way to the Access Road and then out to Herndon at and average speed of about 115 mph.
Michael Berkemeier,
Yes, it’s a real story. My partner and I bought the Cougar at the big Atlantic City antique car auction the previous February.
As for refusing to sell the car to the parents [they bought the car, not the kid], I had an old car shop and also sold vintage cars, so as a business I could have had a problem if I refused to sell the car to people who wanted it and had the cash.
I had a very uneasy feeling about the kid, today I would think he had ADHD and kept saying things like “I can’t wait to make those tires chirp”. So I covered my ass by writing that disclaimer.
As for the DMV reference, it sounds like you were a Virginia resident, and would know that the VA DMV required a separate bill of sale with notary seal, this was before the titles had room on the back for the notary. The buyers would have turned in the original bill of sale to the DMV as required by VA law. Once advised of the wording on the paper, a smart attorney would request an official copy of the paperwork from the DMV, proof positive I had indeed provided a warning.
It was pretty clear to me that the family was ‘upper income’, they came from the Great Falls area, and as I recall, they drove up in a Jaguar XJ sedan, and were very well-dressed.
I’m speculating here of course, but from my recollections, the kid was alive but really messed up from the accident. In cases like that, the attorney was checking out all the leads, and was looking for people to share the blame for the kid’s poor judgement and driving skills.
I’m a court recognized transportation expert and have been working with attorneys for decades, and while I have no formal law education, I’m fairly familiar with how they go about gathering info prior to filing a lawsuit. I was pretty sure that once the attorney had a copy of the bill of sale, showing the parents had been warned in writing, it would shift the possibility of blaming me, back to the parents. As I never heard back from anyone, I’m sure he decided that trying to blame me was a dead end.
As for your R-R purchase, you’re not the only guy who drove the Dulles access road at triple digit speeds back then, I did it with a Studebaker R2 supercharged GT Hawk, a 1966 GTO, a 68 440 Road Runner GTX, and a couple of Chrysler 300 letter series cars [and probably a few other cars I forgot about].
Back then that road was sparsely patrolled because it was [and still is] a US federal government owned property, and I used to run out to the airport to see if there were any police cruisers, then hitting some great speeds on the return trip.
I had an 82 El Camino that I got a little carried away with. On the chassis dyno it was putting 375hp at the rear wheels.
I had it parked in my driveway with a for sale sign on it and a woman stopped by to ask about it. She said she wanted it for her son who just turned 16.
I asked her if she loved her son and would like to see him turn 17 and she said “Of course I do.”
I told her not to buy my car.
He kid, standing idly by insisted so mom asked me how much she could put down to but it.
Pay attention here;
I told her that I get 50% down and then there’s 50% interest on the total amount. Payments are IN CASH and due on the first of the month by 5pm and they’re equal payments of the total, including interest. There’s a grace period of 5 minutes and, if you’re late, the late charge is everything you’ve paid up to that point.
After they make the last payment they can take the car.
She asked in amazement why they didn’t get to drive the car until it was paid for and I told her that if the kid wrecked the car I’m positive that the first thing running through her mind wasn’t going to be “I’ve got a car payment due on the first, and it would be, “Well, that guy got screwed.”
If it were $599, I thought I might think about it, but on second thought NO! A total POS.
This thing looks like an Appaloosas pony that needs to be put out of its misery and sent to the glue factory. Poor creature…well at least it will live on holding things together, ironically..
Can that be buffed out?
Make up a wilder story with a famous personality and I’m sure a well known Las Vegas Auction House will sell it.
The asking price for that wreck is a sure sign of drug abuse.
There ought to be a law against dealers trying to rip people off,
such as this one. Any way you look at it $50K for this pile of rust is fraud.
@George- Then the Capitalism world/Free market is a fraud. (Haven’t made up my mind on that yet!) A willing seller and a willing buyer are allowed to decide what a lump of metal is worth. You make those choices every day. I was at my local supermarket today. I picked up a package of ravioli. It was $14.00 USD. I put it down.
No good even as a parts car. Some years ago, there was a horrific incident locally. Kid took his dad’s new Porsche for a joyride (without permission, of course) for a joyride on one of our twisty mountain roads and wrecked it. The kid died.
Read GM lost money on these. Great RV’s, though.
Oops! Wrong thread. Meant GM RV.
What you gents fail to realize, is that is patina. The new paint, paint without paint.