1972 911T at Silverstone Auction
Discussion
Wozy68 said:
roygarth said:
Wozy68 said:
To have a full resto whilst your in there type of paint job is a totally different kettle of fish. But that isnt what the poster was talking about....
The original poster was talking about a car which probably did require a lot more than a simple 'paint job' - I, and others on here who know more than me, saw it, and we all agree it was potentially very rotten.
I've been down this route.
Anyone who says this car can be brought up to scratch with a £4k-6k 'windows out' repaint is wrong. Very wrong.
I'd agree more with Koln-RS & Andyhalls numbers.
I bought a car very similar condition to this T in 2002. RHD Sunroof S Spec. Continuous MOT/Tax discs dating back to the early 80's.
I fancied an old 911. Looked at loads. Most were visibly rotten. Did my homework. Anything that had a hole i could poke my finger through was off the shopping list.. Saw quite a few that did. Targas were also off the list.
Started looking for Coupes. And at the time being young and foolish had a preference for RHD.
My boss at the time had a 2.7RS LWT that he had Autofarm restore. He came with me to view every car, for moral support.
In 2002 the difference between a good driver T-E-S was something like £11-15-24K----RST £50-65k--- RSLWT-£85K+ (IIRC)
In the end i found a good condition RHD driveable T from a client who had recently been made redundant. Looked pretty much like the subject of this post. A few bubbles on the rear bumpers.. Nothing much to worry about. A few bubbles above the alloy sill trims.. No big deal.. Rusty marks on the paint at the door bottoms.. Not that serious surely. Couple of grands worth of paint tops... And it'd be dry stored from now on so the rust isn't gonna get any worse is it..
Test drove it. Felt great. Not far off the E that I'd driven previously. And far better than the baggy/windy Targa-S from Tower Porsche that I'd tried. Sounded great strong engine.. Stopped in a straight line. Very original. Odd bubble here and there but it was RHD..
Bought it there and then.. Found a good local specialist. (Bob at RGA ex AFN Chiswick.) Had Redline Racing sort the geometry and tyres. Simon Leonard at Redline personally replaced the perished 31 year old fuel lines. Bob sorted out the intermittent electrical issues with the windows/fuse panel. New fuel tank sender and oil level sender ensured all the gauges worked. Everyone told me she was a good one..
After 2 years i trusted the car fully and knew it was sound mechanically & electrically, albeit not cosmetically. Put several K miles on it. London to Scotland no worries, several times. Bought some early original sports seats. Bought an Autofarm triple outlet rally exhaust. It set off car alarms in my car-park. It never felt slow. It always felt like an event to drive. It never let me down once. But those little bubbles weren't getting any smaller..
Eventually asked Bob about pricing up a repaint. This was 2004. He had recently given a 1997 993 a full respray for 8k. I Bit the bullet and left it with him to 'sort the bubbles.' Repainting a 33 yr old car is always going to uncover more than a 7 yr old 993 will need. and that 33 yr old car then, is 44 years old now.. Anyone saying £4-6k today hasn't seen a 1971 without paint.
A day or 2 later he called to ask me to come and have a look. My boss came with me. Picking at the bubbles on the n/s rear wing revealed hole you could stick yr finger through. N/s front wing the same. Bubble on the bonnet the same. N/S inner rear wing was rotten. With the Carpet/Sound deadening out the interior looked like an alien had vomited in it. Holes in the rear parcel shelf.. N/S Kidney bowl gone.. the O/S inner panels were much better bit still the outer rear and front wing were rotten.
My boss said i should patch it up.. and sell.. But by now i had an attachment to the car. It was my first 911. I knew she was mechanically sorted and didn't fancy selling , to buy into a an uncertain new car in superficially better shape. After all once you start digging who knows what you'll find..
I went down the route of a complete strip down. Cut out any rust. And repair or replace panels depending on the severity of the corrosion. The hours spent repairing a perforated panel can almost equal buying a brand new replacement panel from Porsche Historic IIRC. So i chose the route of buying new panels from Porsche, where the existing part needed more than a few hours of welding/prep, wet sanding etc.. £700 per front wing. £1200 bonnet. £900 per rear qtr ish.. Rear parcel shelf.. Can't remember.. Hourly rate for stripping/repairing/replacing/ fitting obviously depends on who you choose to do the work. No idea how these numbers compare to 2015 prices, but i can imagine.
Porsche Historic was in its infancy back then but most panels were available new except the the o/s rear qtr which was NLA. I found a NOS part from Transend. I believe availability has improved since then with every panel now available. Prices are probably higher.
With a RHD UK car the n/s will be worse than the offside, but eventually the n/s front wing was replaced n/s front inner wing repaired, n/s kidney bowl replaced. N/s rear inner wing repaired. N/s rear qtr replaced. O/S front wing replaced, O/S inner wing repaired O/S kidney bowl replaced. OS rear inner wing repaired, OS rear Qtr replaced. Bonnet replaced.
Had the interior carpet replaced with a Southbound set. After almost 2 years in there having all the rust cut out and new panels fitted she emerged looking like a new car. And has needed nothing since.
I'm not saying what it all cost, but if you're laughing at AndyhallAndyhall you'll pi55 yourselves at what I spent. On a T !
But it was all worth it.
And anyone who can do it for £4/6k deserves all the business they can get..
Anyone who says this car can be brought up to scratch with a £4k-6k 'windows out' repaint is wrong. Very wrong.
I'd agree more with Koln-RS & Andyhalls numbers.
I bought a car very similar condition to this T in 2002. RHD Sunroof S Spec. Continuous MOT/Tax discs dating back to the early 80's.
I fancied an old 911. Looked at loads. Most were visibly rotten. Did my homework. Anything that had a hole i could poke my finger through was off the shopping list.. Saw quite a few that did. Targas were also off the list.
Started looking for Coupes. And at the time being young and foolish had a preference for RHD.
My boss at the time had a 2.7RS LWT that he had Autofarm restore. He came with me to view every car, for moral support.
In 2002 the difference between a good driver T-E-S was something like £11-15-24K----RST £50-65k--- RSLWT-£85K+ (IIRC)
In the end i found a good condition RHD driveable T from a client who had recently been made redundant. Looked pretty much like the subject of this post. A few bubbles on the rear bumpers.. Nothing much to worry about. A few bubbles above the alloy sill trims.. No big deal.. Rusty marks on the paint at the door bottoms.. Not that serious surely. Couple of grands worth of paint tops... And it'd be dry stored from now on so the rust isn't gonna get any worse is it..
Test drove it. Felt great. Not far off the E that I'd driven previously. And far better than the baggy/windy Targa-S from Tower Porsche that I'd tried. Sounded great strong engine.. Stopped in a straight line. Very original. Odd bubble here and there but it was RHD..
Bought it there and then.. Found a good local specialist. (Bob at RGA ex AFN Chiswick.) Had Redline Racing sort the geometry and tyres. Simon Leonard at Redline personally replaced the perished 31 year old fuel lines. Bob sorted out the intermittent electrical issues with the windows/fuse panel. New fuel tank sender and oil level sender ensured all the gauges worked. Everyone told me she was a good one..
After 2 years i trusted the car fully and knew it was sound mechanically & electrically, albeit not cosmetically. Put several K miles on it. London to Scotland no worries, several times. Bought some early original sports seats. Bought an Autofarm triple outlet rally exhaust. It set off car alarms in my car-park. It never felt slow. It always felt like an event to drive. It never let me down once. But those little bubbles weren't getting any smaller..
Eventually asked Bob about pricing up a repaint. This was 2004. He had recently given a 1997 993 a full respray for 8k. I Bit the bullet and left it with him to 'sort the bubbles.' Repainting a 33 yr old car is always going to uncover more than a 7 yr old 993 will need. and that 33 yr old car then, is 44 years old now.. Anyone saying £4-6k today hasn't seen a 1971 without paint.
A day or 2 later he called to ask me to come and have a look. My boss came with me. Picking at the bubbles on the n/s rear wing revealed hole you could stick yr finger through. N/s front wing the same. Bubble on the bonnet the same. N/S inner rear wing was rotten. With the Carpet/Sound deadening out the interior looked like an alien had vomited in it. Holes in the rear parcel shelf.. N/S Kidney bowl gone.. the O/S inner panels were much better bit still the outer rear and front wing were rotten.
My boss said i should patch it up.. and sell.. But by now i had an attachment to the car. It was my first 911. I knew she was mechanically sorted and didn't fancy selling , to buy into a an uncertain new car in superficially better shape. After all once you start digging who knows what you'll find..
I went down the route of a complete strip down. Cut out any rust. And repair or replace panels depending on the severity of the corrosion. The hours spent repairing a perforated panel can almost equal buying a brand new replacement panel from Porsche Historic IIRC. So i chose the route of buying new panels from Porsche, where the existing part needed more than a few hours of welding/prep, wet sanding etc.. £700 per front wing. £1200 bonnet. £900 per rear qtr ish.. Rear parcel shelf.. Can't remember.. Hourly rate for stripping/repairing/replacing/ fitting obviously depends on who you choose to do the work. No idea how these numbers compare to 2015 prices, but i can imagine.
Porsche Historic was in its infancy back then but most panels were available new except the the o/s rear qtr which was NLA. I found a NOS part from Transend. I believe availability has improved since then with every panel now available. Prices are probably higher.
With a RHD UK car the n/s will be worse than the offside, but eventually the n/s front wing was replaced n/s front inner wing repaired, n/s kidney bowl replaced. N/s rear inner wing repaired. N/s rear qtr replaced. O/S front wing replaced, O/S inner wing repaired O/S kidney bowl replaced. OS rear inner wing repaired, OS rear Qtr replaced. Bonnet replaced.
Had the interior carpet replaced with a Southbound set. After almost 2 years in there having all the rust cut out and new panels fitted she emerged looking like a new car. And has needed nothing since.
I'm not saying what it all cost, but if you're laughing at AndyhallAndyhall you'll pi55 yourselves at what I spent. On a T !
But it was all worth it.
And anyone who can do it for £4/6k deserves all the business they can get..
Good story, however as already stated a body restoration is different from a straight repaint...its not too long ago you could buy a "t" from a dry state of the US for under £10K, in the early days buying a straight one was easy, the car would be sun bleached but arrow straight, those were the cars you could repaint, replace some rubbers and sell, spending no more than £5K in the process.
So we're all agreed that a full restoration and re-paint of a very rusty early 911 will cost substantially more than a straightforward re-spray of a lightly scratched but otherwise perfect car. The former could be £50k+ and the latter as little as £5k.
I think we all knew this before the start of this thread
I think we all knew this before the start of this thread
squirejo said:
To add a scary but real reference point at the 'lots of work' end of the scale, mine had over 500 hours (the bill says 500, he estimated 700) of craftsmanship into the body in metal alone. Before it even sniffed paint.
Count yourself lucky it is not a 356 - We have one in restoration at the moment. Before paint even goes near the shell, it is 1100 hours of metal work. Nineexcellence said:
Count yourself lucky it is not a 356 - We have one in restoration at the moment. Before paint even goes near the shell, it is 1100 hours of metal work.
how can one man take 160 days non stop day on day to do some metal work on a car that small ?makes you wonder how these numbers get made up really.
All I see is big quotes due to the value of the cars now.
I understand these cars need a lot of metal work, but 160 days from a skilled person non stop I very much doubt.
PorscheGT4 said:
how can one man take 160 days non stop day on day to do some metal work on a car that small ?
makes you wonder how these numbers get made up really.
All I see is big quotes due to the value of the cars now.
I understand these cars need a lot of metal work, but 160 days from a skilled person non stop I very much doubt.
you don't go down to your local eurocar parts counter and buy panelsmakes you wonder how these numbers get made up really.
All I see is big quotes due to the value of the cars now.
I understand these cars need a lot of metal work, but 160 days from a skilled person non stop I very much doubt.
custom fabrication of repair panels takes time etc etc. Its the fiddly repair areas that can take time & a 356 body construction is very different to a 911 shell . You see a lot of 911 shells needing 500 - 800 hours metal if being done to a very high standard & not just being patched.
Many years ago I built a show standard modded 1966 VW beetle cabrio , even that had 1000 hours body & paint , admittedly due to a lot of custom work & mods to cope with the increase in power, 5 speed box, bulkheads modded for Porsche brake servo etc & the paint took uop quite a significant amount of hours as it was show standard.
If you want to see how hours can add up on a 911 shell, see this thread on DDK ( one of many full restos on DDK if you have a spare few days to read them all
) page 4 is good example of some custom handmade repair panels
http://www.ddk-online.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=2...
Edited by hot66 on Friday 27th November 10:01
I know the work involved and have seen cars with my own eyes
I just find it hard as these guys are very skilled people and know what they are doing, can spend 160 days none stop just on metal work.
car get moved about, they spend a day here a day there etc etc setup time all come into it as other jobs come in and body work takes a back foot etc.
every hour rounded up and so it drags on.
1100 man hours on metal work alone just seems not possible imo.
just sit down and process that time 1100 hours in metal work alone !!!
remember we are NOT taking striping of car, or ANY other work on any other part of the car, this is peoples quoted body work man hours !
I have been to these places, in fact any company now days, you are paying for tea breaks, deliveries , people come in and chat etc etc, let's not forget mobile phone times which is a killer time loss, be interesting to see how many real hours goes into metal work if broken down.
I may be very wrong, if so it makes restoring a 911T pointless. add in 400 hours to strip and rebuild est, Plus paint , all new parts and engine rebuild, cannot see how a 911T would ever get your money back.
hence my early est of £80k for a restore in this very thread. £80k is 1100 metal work hours alone lol
I just find it hard as these guys are very skilled people and know what they are doing, can spend 160 days none stop just on metal work.
car get moved about, they spend a day here a day there etc etc setup time all come into it as other jobs come in and body work takes a back foot etc.
every hour rounded up and so it drags on.
1100 man hours on metal work alone just seems not possible imo.
just sit down and process that time 1100 hours in metal work alone !!!
remember we are NOT taking striping of car, or ANY other work on any other part of the car, this is peoples quoted body work man hours !
I have been to these places, in fact any company now days, you are paying for tea breaks, deliveries , people come in and chat etc etc, let's not forget mobile phone times which is a killer time loss, be interesting to see how many real hours goes into metal work if broken down.
I may be very wrong, if so it makes restoring a 911T pointless. add in 400 hours to strip and rebuild est, Plus paint , all new parts and engine rebuild, cannot see how a 911T would ever get your money back.
hence my early est of £80k for a restore in this very thread. £80k is 1100 metal work hours alone lol
Edited by PorscheGT4 on Friday 27th November 10:24
not disagreeing as such on 1100 hours on the 356, that does on the face of it seem high, but you'd need to see the starting point etc to jusfge fully .. but the 911 shell in the thread I posted from DDK are in a business that is 'one man & one car' so all the hours charged are worked, but as I said, these shells tend to be more like 500 hours unless exceptional bad ( which seems to be the RHD cars D) )
Sorry - I am talking about getting the car ready for paint, so not purely metal work
1. Dismantling - actually very little time on 356
2. Sand blasting
3. Dipping
4. Metal and fabrication of body parts - remember you cannot buy for 356 - every parts has to be made individually - this is what takes the time.
5. Corrosion protection
There was a 356 body that sold for £42,000 recently that had been through the process. Just the shell, nothing else, ready for paint.
356 is not the same as doing a 911 for sure.
1. Dismantling - actually very little time on 356
2. Sand blasting
3. Dipping
4. Metal and fabrication of body parts - remember you cannot buy for 356 - every parts has to be made individually - this is what takes the time.
5. Corrosion protection
There was a 356 body that sold for £42,000 recently that had been through the process. Just the shell, nothing else, ready for paint.
356 is not the same as doing a 911 for sure.
PorscheGT4 said:
I may be very wrong, if so it makes restoring a 911T pointless. add in 400 hours to strip and rebuild est, Plus paint , all new parts and engine rebuild, cannot see how a 911T would ever get your money back.
hence my early est of £80k for a restore in this very thread. £80k is 1100 metal work hours alone lol
Everyone I know who restores a car does it for the love and generally don't really think about wether they will be getting money back out as the plan isn't to sell. Obviously once the body & paint is done, the rest of the car can be restored over time so it isn't a big bill all at once. hence my early est of £80k for a restore in this very thread. £80k is 1100 metal work hours alone lol
Edited by PorscheGT4 on Friday 27th November 10:24
I did the same with said VW beetle ... put shed loads on money into it , sold it at the 95% finished stage having never driven it , for less than 1/2 I'd spent
I've never had a sensible hat on when it comes to spending money on cars If you went in with a business head to buy , restore, then sell , then yes you would struggle to justify a T as a starting point ... but then again cheaper 911's bought by trade or individuals purely to punt on won't ever be restored to this standard or detail.
To a certain extent its a bit of "What the market can stand" I have an old Morgan which I am rebuilding and I'm always shocked at some of the prices for parts and servicing costs that the specialists charge especially as the modern ones use standard Ford engines etc, but because they are slightly specialised vehicles and the majority of owners of "modern" Morgans are retired with a goodly amount of disposable income I feel the prices are artificially high because the dealers know that the owners will just pay up.
An interesting car as I also own a '72T of what would be called 'driver' standard. Well used (maybe abused!) but possibly more solid and in better mechanical condition than this one. This car sounds like a couple of condition steps above (but not that far above) mine when I first bought it. The steps from there to now are in my readers cars thread.
However could my car still do with a full body rebuild? Probably. Will it get one? Probably not. When I had it painted many years back (Ironically what I now know to be the 5k blow over mentioned early!) I was then worried to use it in case it got scratched. I got over that eventually by scratching it...
That a car in this condition is worth £45k (by the fact someone paid that) is another worry as it means I need to up my insurance again...
The comments above on resto costs moving at the same pace as the value are correct. At the end of the day it's just made from metal, the mechanicals are pretty straightforward and all DIY possible, even the engine, but it's so hard to buy anything without 'Classic Porsche tax' being applied.
A recent discussion on DDK concerning how £25k for a 'spare' engine might seem like a good idea (not mine!) is one example on how things have gone a little sideways since the values have gone stupid.
But of course they aren't making them any more are they? And are they are awesome. Even the lowly 'T'
However could my car still do with a full body rebuild? Probably. Will it get one? Probably not. When I had it painted many years back (Ironically what I now know to be the 5k blow over mentioned early!) I was then worried to use it in case it got scratched. I got over that eventually by scratching it...
That a car in this condition is worth £45k (by the fact someone paid that) is another worry as it means I need to up my insurance again...
The comments above on resto costs moving at the same pace as the value are correct. At the end of the day it's just made from metal, the mechanicals are pretty straightforward and all DIY possible, even the engine, but it's so hard to buy anything without 'Classic Porsche tax' being applied.
A recent discussion on DDK concerning how £25k for a 'spare' engine might seem like a good idea (not mine!) is one example on how things have gone a little sideways since the values have gone stupid.
But of course they aren't making them any more are they? And are they are awesome. Even the lowly 'T'
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