1968 911L roll call

[rgrimm]

a couple people have chimed in with normals, so I'll add mine and give the thread a bump...

[pcpaternie]

okay, here's my normal that's now part S and part R and 100% fun

[raspy2point2]

I like that green-- Let me guess-- that is a 1974 Lime green color. Chris

[beetle08]

Present:

[pcpaternie]

Actually it is signal green, which was an optional color in 1968 altho my car was originally blood orange under silver and yellow when I bought it
It is a hard color to reproduce digitally on screen as it appears in pix to be lighter than in person

[Auto*Legends]

I just got the correct gold Sportomatic logo for the deck lid.

[Jules Dielen]

Here's our '68 L - original paint sand beige. The Coupe had been sitting for about 20 years in the AZ sun. The other '68 is a 'non-L' softie in factory light ivory.

[Mat 911]

Hi,
I bought this car from Bring a Trailer (BAT) where it was auctioned in January:




http://bringatrailer.com/listing/1968-porsche-911e/

The car was now shipped back to Germany, and I would be happy to find out more about the car's history, especially between end 1980's and early 2000's.
As Tom Tweed's states above it appears that PO Mr. Alan Ruzicka had the car modified at TRE of North Hollywood in the mid 80's installing the 1983 3.0 CIS Euro engine and trans. After Tom's ownership (2005 - 2014 ?) the car was sold to Trissl Sports cars and then acquired by BAT.
I hope BAT puts me in contact with Mr. Ruzicka, as according to his message in the auction: he still keeps a lot of records on the car. Would be interesting to find out where there car was in between, there were some hints that the car was in the La Jolla area when Tom bought it. If anyone knows more, please let me know (PM or in this thread) - Tx & Greetings from Berlin Matthias

[reedminor]

On a drive last year - up to Sydney (from Melbourne) for the Porsche Rennsport Australia meeting. It came 2nd in the show and shine (which was a lovely surprise) given I'd driven it 600 miles and cleaned it in the dark (with the help of my iphone flashlight!).

VIN 11810329. ROW RHD Australian Delivered 911L Coupe 5 speed.

[911L Guy]

Props to Mat for bringing this thread back to life after 6 years in hiding . It's actually a very timely revival of this topic for me because I am getting back my 1968 911L (#11805200) from a complete engine and gearbox rebuild on Friday (I was supposed to pick it up this weekend but we're away). I've been holding off on posting a thread on the story of this car, but I figured that it was worth throwing out a "Cliff Notes" version on this 911L-specific thread...

This is basically a personal barn-find story since I put this car in storage and left it untouched for ~20 years before pulling it back out to get it back on the road. The car is a US-delivered 1968 911L coupe in Tangerine Orange (Blutorange), which has been known as "Chester" since 1992 due to it sharing the same color as Chester Cheeto from the Cheetos ad campaign. This is all numbers matching and completely original (expect for the Alpine stereo I stupidly installed in 1993 and my equally stupid decision to install door speakers!), and has been in our family since 1972.

Long story (kinda) short: My uncle bought this car from the original owner in 1972, and kept it in pristine condition throughout his ownership in Northern California. I remember this car well as a kid because he was always the "cool" uncle who drove a bright orange Porsche, and I remember more than a few rides in it as a kid. Fast forward to 1992 when I got married. My uncle decided it was finally time to pass the car on to a fellow gear-head, so he "sold" me the car (with a HEFTY family discount!) as our wedding present. So after a series of wedding showers in Northern California, we threw all the wedding gifts in the back of our sweet new-to-us 911L and drove 3 glorious days out to Chicago where it would live ever since. As fate would have it, 2 years later, I took a job to work for a French investment bank is Paris, which was supposed to be an 18 month gig before moving back to the US to work in their New York offices. So we dutifully packed up all of our stuff and threw it all into storage (including our beloved 911). Well, that 18 months stretched to 4 years in Paris and 10 years in London, with 3 boys born along the way.

While we returned to the States in 2006, life was simply too hectic with the 3 boys and a brand new life in America to adjust them to, so I left the car in storage for another 8 years. Then, almost exactly 20 years after we stored the car thinking it would be a brief stay in Europe, my awesome wife secretly organized to get the car out of storage and surprised me on my birthday with the simple gift of a set of our Porsche keys and the directive to "Go restore that thing!". That was 3 years ago, and my wait finally ends this week now that all of the mechanical work is complete! I've attached some pics from 1972 when my uncle bought it, to 2014 when we pulled it out of storage after 20 years, to driving it 2 years ago before the total rebuild that we just completed, plus the kardex. I'll post up a separate thread in a few weeks with more details when I get all of the photos of the rebuild, but I couldn't help but throw this out here now on this 911L-specific thread....

From my uncle's slide collection, taken in 1973:


Having just unwrapped the car after 20 years in storage and heading to the shop to see if we can turn the engine over by hand:


Driving it in 2015 after the initial restoration, pre-engine rebuild:


Kardex: