"The Lavender car"

[Schiefer]

Hi guys!
I have been promising to start a proper thread about this car for a couple years now, but excuse myself all the time that I need a little more time to investigate, find more pics, write something in ESSES first etc etc, but now I realize I will never start a thread if I continue my "preparations" at this (slow) pace. I figured out my S-Reg post #911 should be better than average and after all this is the story about a guy & his car on a journey and not about a perfect finished project, so finally here we go!

The 6. May 1997 this tired old 67S cleared customs in Norway and I believe this picture was taken the same day when the first Norwegian caretaker opened the container at the harbor. I´m grateful the other car strapped to the roof did not fall down during the voyage over the Atlantic!



I have two more pics that show what it looked like when it arrived. Hopefully one day someone will see these pics and remember it because I have not been able to find any US-history so far. All I know is that it was sold new in California and probably brought to Norway from Texas.





My best chance for someone to remember this car is the unusual Lavender VW-color.



Why did the original owner choose this color?? Maybe he had previously owned a Lavender Beetle or Karmann Ghia and decided it would look great on his new Porsche?? I think he made a good choice!!



This is approx what it looks like today. I have not been able to find a beetle/Ghia to check if the color is an exact match but believe it is pretty close. It had already been partially resprayed before it came to Norway, but it seems to me that the US-paint job was a bit too "Gulf". I have found some small areas with what I believe is original paint, but more on that later.

Numbers and options:
VIN: 308022S
Engine: 961867
Gearbox: 104846
(engine and trans original to the car)
Color: Lavender: VW-L 397
Interior: Leatherette black
Invoice date: 11.May '67
Distributor: VW Pacific, Culver City
Options:
- Webasto
- Tinted windows all around
- Leatherette headrest left and right
- Steering wheel with elevated hub
- Blaupunkt "New Yorker" with antenna and speaker
- Travel kit
- Talbot mirror

Cheers, Radmund

[Schiefer]

Early in the winter 2009 I got in touch with a nice gentleman who had some parts for sale. It turned out they were all SWB, so nothing of interest for me with my 2,2 project. In his ad there was some pictures of a car in a strange blue color so asked him about it and got the paint code, but not a picture of the tag so I did not know what the stamping looked like. I quickly found out it was a VW color and thought it was pretty cool that someone back in the 80´s had repainted their car in a non-Porsche color and so serious about it that they even stamped the tag. I was tempted to ask if he was interested in selling but did´t because I already had my dream car and did not need another one. Instead I tried my best to help him get rid of his parts, not knowing some of them came from what would one year later be my car!







In 2010 my 2,2S project stalled because the mechanical and structural challenges were more serious then I had hoped. With my limited skills and budget, I realized it would take time to get it properly repaired and decided it would be smart to start looking for the cheapest possible 911/912 driver that I could sell when the 70S was back on the road. Two seasons without a usable car was enough, a third would be unbearable.



I never considered a 67S. We have only a handful of these cars over here and already at that time I thought they were too expensive. But no basket case 911 or 912 came along and suddenly this strange blue car was for sale on our Norwegian Craigslist. Not my friend with the parts who was the seller, so I immediately regretted I did´t ask him about the car when I had the chance. Now I had to compete with everyone else. (He later confirmed he would have sold it to me if I had only asked).

Timing was not the best because I was sitting on a ship in the middle of the Baltic ocean with a crappy internet connection. Terribly annoyed I tried to forget about it and would have managed to if it had not been for my brother bombarding me with messages about the cool SWB for sale. I tried to explain timing was not right and I was not sure I could afford it, but when he said he was willing to sell the E he had inherited from me, but not yet payed for in case I ran into problems, It gave me the confidence to give it a try.

I borrowed the captains sat-phone to make some necessary calls. Arriving Stockholm the first thing I did was to call the seller, basically telling him I thought he had a pretty valuable and special car, but with the limited information in his ad, and because I had to buy it unseen, I would make him the best offer I could calculating in all the factors. The respons to his ad had been quite massive and the whole early community in Norway was buzzing about this strange blue car, but lucky for me it seemed the guys who had already called had tried to get the price down from an already very fair price (if it was a solid car). I think the seller realized I was a guy just like himself with all the right diagnoses and that he did not have to fear seing his car on Ebay the next week. All the money was not the most important to him because he had got the 67S in a trade and was not especially interested in Porsche, collecting vintage motorcycles, E-types and American cars. I offered him all I had and said goodbye, not expecting to hear from him again. When the phone rang later that day, I thought he called to make me raise my bid something would not have been possible. To my great surprise he said "You got the car!" I almost fell off the ship! :-)

Looking back this was a no brainer, but all I knew at the time was what I could see from these pics. I had no info about the condition other than the chassis had been "restored", engine and trans "rebuilt". No info about options or pics of the important numbers, so did´t actually know if I had bought a real 67S. Thanks to good friend John/Zithlord, I knew the engine was in the range but slightly off. The color I assumed was not original, but I did not really care about any of this. I just loved the car the way it was.



















The only thing I regret from this little adventure was telling my better half what I had done. I had planned to just come home one day with a new car to give her a shock, but my brother said this was insane and that she might freak out, so in a weak moment I called her saying: "Hi sweetie, I have done something (again) that might be very smart or incredibly stupid..." Lucky for me she is extremely cool about my Porsche obsession, so there was really no need to make that call.

[Schiefer]

More here soon!

[steven71]

What did you have to change for driving it in Norway? Miles to km???

[Schiefer]

I did not have to change anything to drive the car here. It came with a broken 912 speedo and cable, so changed that to KM. Sometimes people get trouble with the MOT people because they would prefer these old cars to have European turn signals, but it is not required so for now I´m happy the way it is. (European turn signals are on my wish list but a bit pricy, so we´ll see)



Changing the speedo cable was a bit more tricky than expected, but with a little help from my brother we got it right in the end.





The other car is my old 71E: http://www.early911sregistry.org/for...for-US-history

Cheers!

[Reza]

Unik for sure.

[210bhp]

I love this car (and all it represents).

Hope to see it in the flesh someday.

Regards
Mike

[Schiefer]

If you want to see it Mike, I promise to drop by next time I´m in your neighborhood!



Regards, Radmund

[210bhp]

Yes please,

It's about time we had a European 67S get-together. They do it in the 356 world every year I notice.

Regards
Mike

[steven71]

you're right Mike. It doesn't have to be that big. Would be great if we had a handful of cars together!!