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The seller of this Porsche 356 claims that it has never been restored. If you have ever tried to restore a car, then you know that is usually a very good thing. Seemingly shiny restored cars can hide unimaginable horrors. Wadded up newspaper in the Bondo, hacked up wiring, and other blotched repair jobs. That isn’t always the case, but if you want to do the job right, it’s probably best to start with an original car. If this one really is as unmolested as the seller claims, it may be worth pursuing. It’s listed here on eBay and the auction ends tonight.
When ever I see one of these,first thing that comes to mind is “less is more”. Meaning the less that is on this car,the more money they pull in. Myself I prefer the earlier examples. But the later built cars do have their good merits. Outlaw styles are nice, sometimes. Oh well they are out of my budget.
Could get tired of popup Purple ads really quick…….
Bid to $52K with 4 hours to go. These are one of the cheapest of the 356 models, with recent median auction prices paid of about $71K. There are no underside photos, so you don’t know how good or bad it is under there, but a lot of the chrome is pitted, including interior chrome, which is never a good sign. It’s a rust belt car, so best to be very careful and allow for some metalwork to be safe, in addition to paint, interior, drivetrain and systems gone through, etc, etc.
The seller gives 2 different VINs for the car, and calls the seats ‘very nice’, which is stretching it, so caution is needed. This looks a risky buy at around $52K, since you only have less than $19K to play with before you have more in it than it might be worth.
It’s fairly obvious by looking through the gallery that one is a Vin and the other is the engine numbers, he includes pictures of both the tag and the stamping on the engine block. Listing both as a Vin is just an oversight. I don’t know enough about these cars to pass judgement on this one, but I am consistently amazed that they bring what they do. My prediction is that someone will spend an ungodly amount of money by the time it’s all said and done.
Right, mixing up numbers in the listing is a minor thing, but it’s one of a number of things that make me uneasy about the seller’s claims. That was the reason for even mentioning it. In considering buying an old collector car with needs, especially a $50+K one, you’re evaluating the seller as much as you’re evaluating the car.
@dolphin for sure. The devil is in the details, and when little stuff like that occurs it always makes me wonder what else was overlooked. My personal favorite is when they misspell the name of the car they’re selling, after posting pictures of the car with the nameplates on it. Makes me wonder what else was “good enough.”
Actually, there are 3 different engine numbers given–806811 is shown in the photo, 806817 is given in the item specifics (under VIN), and 806411 in the text. Presumably 124866 is the true VIN, as that is a plausible number for this age 356, and it is the same in both the text and the photo. It does make one pause, though.
Lots of work needed.
Porsche 356 VINs for that year are 6 digits and start with a “1” if built by Reutter and “2” if built by Karmann.
S90 engines start with “8” or “08”
I don’t see any reason for confusion here.
Audifan–the confusion is that the engine number actually is stated as three different numbers, as I mentioned above. The VIN is an obvious error.
Wow, that is a painful judgement on restored cars. Some of us do it right, metal repairs, correct new harnesses and NOS whenever possible. To bad, a few bad apples have coloured everyones opinion about restored vehicles. Do it yourself, see what real restorers go though to make it right. Then see what is invested at the end of the day. You will regret the disparinging remarks.
Original cars need EVERYTHING. Unless you just want to drive it till it drops…
I’m sure Jesse is referring to those cars described as “restored” or “partially restored” but in reality are far from it. I’d much rather start with a ratty, but unmolested car, than a 20-20 car described as “partially restored 15 years ago.” You wind up taking on a project and have to redo much of the sub-standard work that has been done to date or discover other costly surprises during the restoration. Not everyone has the same standards I (and you obviously) have when it comes to restoring cars, so Jesse’s point is well taken.
Well, I don’t claim to be a restoration expert, but I have owned dozens of classics and inspected hundreds more. We are also doing a frame off on an MGA right now. I can say that a large percentage of the cars I’ve looked at have been poorly restored. You may do it right, but for every one of you there are 10 other guys who slap body filler over the rust and call it a day. The other day we found a Bugeye Sprite that looked nice on the outside, but upon further inspection we discovered that someone had coated the backside of the metal with fiberglass mat and then skimmed filler over the outside to cover all the rust holes. It wasn’t just in a few places either. Almost the entire body was like that! They then found a sucker to buy it and now his widow is going to have a hard time recouping any of their money. An original car may need everything, but it’s still better than starting with a badly restored car that wasn’t put back together properly. You don’t have to fix botch jobs or figure out how things were supposed to go together. There’s a reason that original cars in need of restoration still go for big money at auction. It’s just an easier place to start if you want to restore a car correctly and without any surprises.
Oh, I should have mentioned that the Sprite came from a classic car dealer who is still in business.
Spot on Jesse.
Incredible percentage of so called “restorations” have been done with sheet metal attached with rivets and perfected with bondo.
Personal example: and the worst one what I have seen. And this one I even bought for myself as a keeper, has close to 1000 (no kidding!) rivets, I chopped off 30kg (60lb) of riveted sheet metal / aluminium pieces and on some parts there was 5cm (2″) layer of bondo.
Normally this would make absolutely no sense, but the car being one of 97 coach built cars made in -67 in Italy. I am – sort of – happy to bite the bullet ;-)
Jesse is right on. I once spent a LOT of money for a restored Jag, only to be forced to spend another $20K just to correct things that were done wrong or so poorly as to not be tolerable ( …unless I wanted to see pistons randomly being shot through the aluminum bonnet!). That was one expensive tuition in the school of dumb that I’m not proud to admit.
So hard to believe it is in the $50K range. Needs a lot. In my opinion $20K. Have fun with the restoration.
You could buy a lot of Chevy trucks and Porsche 914s with that amount of money….
Does anyone know where this car ended up? I used to own it.