Page 40 - KCRPCA Jan Feb 2018

fast as I could on the car of my dreams. Of course, it had already been sold. And, so the hunt would continue. Swap meets, car shows, even junk yards g- ured into the search. Not now. Not with the mighty “interweb”! It also doesn’t matter necessarily where the car is to be shipped from. Now, with professional enclosed car transporters a car can easily be delivered from LA to KC in two days.
eral and, in fact, during the All German car show just a few weeks ago, I got a lead on a very nice car in Colorado. It was an all original numbers matching car that had been used for years as a dai- ly driver. It was in need of a new paint job, new tires and brakes and probably an engine and transmission rebuild was in the works. A complete new interior with all the gauges restored would be in order and of course the clock and radio didn’t work. Wait a minute. For what they were asking and what had to be done to be the car I wanted, it would cost more money than what I was willing to spend. By the time all that work was done, it would be more expensive than
buying a completely restored car. Deci- sions, Decisions.
After many nights of hunting on the internet, I nally came across a car that satis ed almost all of my criteria. It was a 1965. It was a SC not a C. It had
a two-year bare metal complete tear down restoration. It had a new engine, clutch, brakes, interior, etc, and it was in the colors that I liked. Due to an added bonus of Carrera 2 exhaust along with an original license plate, my ultimate choice made the move to the top of the list. Hey, maybe this is the one. OK, I’d better sleep on it and mull it over. It was on eBay and as a lot of things on eBay, it’s here today and gone tomorrow. I de- cided to take another look and yes it was gone. OK, missed that one and the hunt continued.
I couldn’t get that car out of my mind. I used it to now compare to anything that I came across. Nothing was even coming close. Another story of my life,
I zeroed in on dealerships that carried Porsches. Most did not have 356 mod- els and if they did they were always over 200K. By joining the 356 Registry, I was introduced to a whole new group of peo- ple who loved playing with 356s. They have a talk forum to
answer questions,
a parts for sale sec-
tion and, of course, a
whole group of cars
for sale. Open cars
command the most
money and the early
356A cars are also
way up there. Luck-
ily for me, the lat-
ter models with the
disc brakes are also usually the lowest in price. Doesn’t make much sense consid- ering that it is an acknowledged fact that the last two years produced the absolute- ly best models of the entire run. (Sorry Sean, just my biased opinion!)
Along with nding many dealers in California, one can also start identifying the best restoration garages. Everyone has probably heard of Wilhoit, Emory, etc. These groups produce the very best in their areas from full concours to re- ally wild 356 Outlaws. Jay Leno has a YouTube channel that has featured many of these great builds over the last couple of years. I also discovered that original survivors with a patina were command- ing a very high value. I did look at sev-
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