Cabriolet

A Blast From The Past

/ Jeff / 2 Comments

My first Porsche was a 78 SC Targa that I bought when I still lived in Northern Virginia. I was driving home from college one day and saw a beautiful white Porsche sitting in a grass field with a for sale sign on it. I went home, grabbed my Dad and went to take a look. I had read all about buying used cars so of course I kicked the tires, looked at the battery and opened the engine compartment. Basically I had no idea what I was doing. Fortunately my Dad did so after a thorough inspection and a long test drive we decided the car was solid and I bought it for $10K. I wish that I had held on to this car but eventually I needed some money and I sold it. I always knew that I would come back for another one someday.

I recently mentioned to my parents that I only had one photo of my old 78 SC and it was just a low quality digital capture of a framed print in really rough shape. Well as always my parents have come through and surprised me with some other photos that I thought were long ago lost! Thanks Mom and Dad for finding these and sending them my way.

78SC Side

Looking at it now, it’s no wonder I fell in love with it the second I saw it!

78SC Rear

It might not be as wide as the Turbo-Look but it still looks great.

78SC Front

This was taken on Skyline Drive in the Shenandoah National Park.

78SC Head Engine Bay

The car needed a top-end rebuild and my Dad and I did some of the work ourselves.  Well, we dropped the engine ourselves 🙂  Such fun!

78SC Engine Out

Two things to note about this image.  I had no idea what I was doing but fortunately my Dad did.  And apparently I thought it was cool to wear a Taz hat.  Oy vey!

 

A Great Porsche Day

/ Jeff / 3 Comments

Saturday is typically my morning to sleep in late, but not today. The Redmond Exotic car show held every Saturday in the summer was having their once a year Porsche day and John Walker was having his annual Porsche swap meet. I’ve been looking forward to today for over a month. It required me to get up early, enjoy a fast drive to Redmond and then a nice drive back to the Phinney Ridge area before heading home again. Any excuse to put miles on my car AND spend the day around other Porsches, owners and enthusiasts will work for me.

Exotics at Redmond

This was my first time attending and I didn’t know what to expect so I showed up early, arriving a little after 8 am. Holy crap, there were already hundreds of Porsches there and the main strip was completely full. The big back parking lots were filling up quickly. This was turning out to be a huge show even with the occasional rain shower.  I was directed to my spot by the nice volunteers and then spent a few hours walking the lots, seeing all of the beautiful cars and meeting some really great people.

My car was quite pedestrian compared to the beauties at the show:

Pedestrian but still beautiful.
I arrived early and the lots were already almost full.

The lots were full of row after row of gorgeous air cooled 911s:

Is blue my favorite?
Could be green…
This beauty was parked next to me and rightfully stealing all of the attention.
Lovely cars all in a row. More on the RUF later
A really nice looking 930
White with black letter is always a winner
An eye catching color on a fast 930
Great contrast between old and new at the show today

This amazing RUF Turbo R was a show favorite, at least my favorite, and the owner was a super nice guy to talk to.  I’m glad to know this rare monster of a 911 lives in West Seattle too and I hope to see it on the local roads soon.  No, I won’t be offering to race it 🙂

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And some nice older models:

Stunning, the photo doesn’t do it justice
Great condition.
This looks fun

And some race cars that looked fast standing still:

I asked to drive it but they said no
Will this fit in my car
Ready to race
Imagine this thing coming up behind in your rear-view

Okay, there were also some newer models there as well.  As beautiful as they are they just don’t compare to the older models in my view:

The GT was getting a lot of attention
Beautiful in white
Perhaps more at home in Miami
Go Seahawks!

And finally some non-Porsche distractions.  There were a ton of other cars from Ferrari to Lamborghini, etc. but I was here for the Porsches:

Yes, I put a 911 with a Chevy motor in this section on purpose
My wife’s favorite car so I had to get a picture for her
A fun track day car
Big pimpin
I’m afraid if I drive an Atom I will want to buy one.

And finally I ended the day driving to Phinney Ridge to check out the John Walker swap meet. I arrived pretty late but there was still a lot of activity. People talking cars, people selling parts and one guy so excited about his new Fuchs that he jacked his car up in the parking lot and swapped them right there.  I was too busy looking around to take many photos but for some reason this collection of brake calipers caught my eye:

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My First “Project”

/ Jeff / 2 Comments

When I bought this car I had images of wrenching on it myself, doing all of the maintenance, teaching my two boys all about how to work on cars etc. But the truth is that I have no freaking clue what I’m doing. My Dad is a genius when it comes to working with his hands. He’s built race cars, custom knives, beautiful furniture…the list goes on and on. Somewhere buried deep in me must lie some dormant genes just ready to come out right? This car is going to help me discover them. Slowly.

The Project

My car needs new shocks, it’s bouncing all over the place. No, I’m not actually going to replace the shocks myself, that’s a 201 class and I’m still in 101 territory. I just needed to confirm a few things about the suspension. I just needed to know the type of front struts that I have and I needed to know the size of the rear sway bar so that I can get some replacement bushings.

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Tools ordered, car jacked up for the first time and the best helper in the world ready to lend a hand!

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The front wheel is off, just look at those beautiful 930 brakes!  Now time to discover who made these struts…

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It’s Boge for the win!  A set of Bilstein HD inserts made for the Boge struts will fix my bouncy ride.

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It turns out my M491 Carrera has the standard 21mm Carrera rear sway-bar and not the 20mm 930 sway-bar.

Time to order some suspension parts. I know this might seem like the stupidest little project but for a guy that isn’t use to working on cars it was a nice confidence booster that getting the car in the air and handling simple work is no big deal. Maybe I’ll try to tackle this suspension upgrade myself after all…

 

Northwest Porsche Saturday Breakfast

/ Jeff / 1 Comment

After staying up way too late and enjoying a few too many gin and tonics my alarm rudely went off at 6:30 am. But I jumped out of bed ready to go because I was setting out for a nice long drive. Sun rising, cool but warming temps, the top down. Better than coffee to get me going in the morning. Okay, I needed some coffee too.

I set out to meet up with a group of Porsche enthusiasts that drive from the Snohomish area down to Issaquah on back roads and end the drive with breakfast and car talk. Since I was coming from West Seattle I got to enjoy a 45 minute drive to the meet. I arrived too late to make the convoy so I had fun carving up the roads from Snohomish to Issaquah all by myself.  Literally, there was nobody else on the roads.  It was beautiful.  Thanks to a good group of folks for including a new guy in their tradition, it was a great morning. Here are a few pictures of the cars that participated:

Obligatory all in a row shot
Love that color and the 3.2 he just put in there.
My Cab in the background
Love the green
Gorgeous 911T
So clean and well maintained
Stunning 912

No More Miami Vice Rockers!

/ Jeff / 8 Comments

I had to leave town for most of this week on a business trip which gave me the perfect opportunity to leave my car in the capable hands of Mark from Eurotech Bodywerkes.  The task was simple but critical.  Remove those boxed rocker panels that to me scream Miami Vice and put back the standard 930 rocker panels.  Mark did an amazing job and the car is back the way it was meant to be!  Now I have nothing against boxed rockers on an appropriate car, like the late 70s slantnose that was sitting next to me in this photo:

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Ahhhh!  It’s such a relief to get the standard 930 rocker panels back on the car.  I’ll leave boxed rockers to the slantnose cars.

And here is a reminder of what the car looked like from a similar angle with the boxed rockers:

Front

They Didn’t Forecast This

/ Jeff / Leave a comment

It’s been hot and sunny in Seattle this week and I went to bed with a forecast of slightly cooler but sunny weather for today. I hit the garage in the morning, put the top down, snap on my top cover and head out for my morning commute. West Seattle is a tad gray but not too bad. The temp is nice enough but with a slight chill, giving me an excuse to see how my heat works. It works a heck of a lot better than my AC 🙂 After going through the Mount Baker Tunnel expecting to see blue skies, blue water and Mt. Rainier I’m greeted with this:

weatheronthewayDark skies above me and even darker skies ahead! Rather than pull over and put the top up I step on the gas pedal and decide to race the rain. I’m happy to say that I was pulling into my building’s garage as the first raindrops fell and for today I beat the rain. That isn’t always likely to happen living here in Seattle.