Another hot rod

[HughH]

Mark
I agree that RS's and possibly all customer competition variants by that stage (with exceptions for "special clients") went down the production line and were just optioned differently. Of course there may have been some special options that required fitting in Werk1 or off the line. I am not sure if this applied back into the late 1960's production or not, although by modern standards, and probably by most production car standards at the time, the Porsche line was more of a cottage industry with lots of scope for individual modifications. However the cars i was referring to in the post above, as a theory not a statement of fact, were werks rally cars.
i have seen documentation on more than one werks rally car that state they were delivered to the race shop as a shell minus major mechanical parts.
for instance this is the detail on a 1972 model werks car

"the car was delivered 01.Sep.'71 to testing department without engine and gearbox.
Type 911534 (=911S Coupe)
Color 2323 (=tangerine )
Interior 11 (=leatherette black, seat inlays perforated )
no options"

[peekaboo]

I did not even notice/read the text that goes along with the photo of the two RSR's on page 112 that I posted. It states what was happening and exactly where.

"The final assembly of the RSR was done in the repair department of Factory 1" (Werk 1).

The repair facility was run by Rolf Sprenger.

[fryardds]

Boy would love to see that document taped on the ducktail.

Maybe the RSR shells were moved over to Werk One in this configuration. Have you ever seen the Porsche movie 'One for the Road'? It shows a Carrera moving down the line but also shows Werk One with a bunch of race cars, including several RSRs. I will try to find my copy now that I have seen these photos to verify the degree of completion of these cars.

Don't want to derail Tom's wonderful thread, but check this out.

http://www.early911sregistry.org/for...176#post529176

[Curt Hammill]

Nice project, How is that 2.5 L motor? I built up a 2.5 ss twin plugs motors, that I need to source some high butterflies for. I completed my engine a few years back, she has a lot of passion...

Outstanding job

[Pudge]

So this guy calls me looking for stuff. Must have been late 2004 maybe 2005. Sure, sure I tell him after the first five minutes, I mean I don’t have total recall on the parts numbers for the bolts for the roll bar, right? Just send me your list. Sure email is fine. Guy sends me this big long list, musta been around eight pages long. All 1970/71 factory race parts for Group 4 and Rallye. Good luck with that, right? They only made this stuff once and it was all gone years ago. So I just put it out’a mind and moved on.

Look, I like to find Porsche stuff. Like you need a jack for a 550 or an RSK and there’s only two weeks to go before Pebble. No sweat. Need sand cast Webers for your 692? How many you want?

But an entire car’s worth of stuff to create a period correct 71S Competition car? Buddy, that’s a tall order. You can work it and work it and not find even half what you need. No margin in that, no siree. Hey, its not my real job finding stuff, just a profitable hobby really. Time is money.

So ‘ol Flunder calls me about six months later, wants to know if I found his stuff yet. Then starts shooting the breeze, telling me how he got this 2R high butterfly set up with a race pump and a complete race engine attached. Also a legit roll bar in ALU. Couple of short megs and nice Marelli. Guy got my attention you know? Thought maybe karma was in play and his cockamamey project was gonna happen. So I decided to keep my eyes and ears open just in case any of this stuff was floating around.

Anywho, I don’t hang out around here on this board. I’m only visiting this one time really to dish the back story on how Flunder scored a mother lode of race bits for his ride. It was all because of me, ol’ Pudge, the picker, the finder, the ultimate rare parts aggregator. Only the story is pretty strange. Weird actually.

Before I get into the real story, though I gotta ask. Did you ever read one of the those John Le Carre books? You know, the ones about the Cold War and George Smiley and all this espionage stuff. The takeaway for me from all those books is this: nothing that happens in Berlin is as it seems. Remember that.

[mike curnow]

What is this ranting going anywhere Pudge?

[super9064]

What is this ranting going anywhere Pudge?

I think we should put Mike officially in charge of the welcome wagon

[Flunder]

Pudge forwarded the rest of his rant about 2004/2005 from the airport in Calgary to his girl Alice here in N.Y. She says he wants me to post it. Here goes:


"So it turns out I’m going to Berlin to meet up with my partner from Frankfurt, ol’ Eduardo Vasquez. He used to be plain old Eddie back at Bronx Science, but then he wins a GE Science Prize, goes to Amherst on a full boat due to being brilliant, then he gets his masters in EE out at Stanford. Smart kid out to save the world, right? No sweat we turned him to the dark side, you know i-banking, dressing British and thinking Mediterranean in pursuit of the almighty dollar, building a fair temple to Mammon as it were. So now he’s Eduardo. Runs our Frankfurt operation.

But as for Berlin, of course I tell Alice, my girl in New York, to book us both into the Adlon. You know, its right down on Unter den Linden just in front of the Brandenburg Gate. The U.S. Embassy is next door, across from the French Embassy. The Brits are around the corner and the Russkies are just down a block. Figured it would get us in the mood for some action maybe even covert action.

Anywho, Eduardo and ol’ Pudge strike out on every deal we try floating across to our clients and by Friday I’m beat. Head back to the bar at the Adlon for a refreshment but its gone dead cold in my honor. No potential for even a letter drop, no detectable field craft, nothing.

Alice has us booked for a table at some restaurant that’s been in same spot since the 1520s, the Zur Letzten Instanz, so I head out to meet up with Eddie. I’m paying the hack his fare when a cab pulls up right behind us and out steps this older gal. She’s OK, you know, but old. I don’t really look at her too closely but for some reason I nearly break my neck getting up to the front door of the restaurant so I can open it for her. Then wham! She looks at me with the most fantastic corn flower blue eyes. Powerful broad. I can always tell.

Inside, the place is tiny and Eddie is already arguing with the owner. Guy claims he doesn’t have our reservation and the joint is booked. This is pure fantasy, Alice could organize the Normandy Invasion in a weekend. No way did she not make our reservations.

I’m preparing to launch into a New Yorkese harangue when the one with the corn flower blues invites us to join her party. Hey I was not interested; she was too old. Anywho she has this table for ten and then I get it: she deuced us out of our reservation to get several tables put together for her pals. She’s telling me: I got clout, but if you really need to eat, you can sit with us. Clout, I get it.

Then I see this beautiful twenty something at the table, all decked out in her party frock and pearls so I turn to the blue eyes and graciously accept the invitation thinking I was gonna park myself next to the sole youth representative. I only turned my back for a second and when I looked around ol’ Eddie had already situated himself in my intended seat. The only seat left was next to the gal with the astonishing eyes.

She orders for the whole table: selections of appetizers, entrees, cheeses etc. Blood this, wurst that, none of it sounds even remotely edible but, hey it ended up passing with top marks. Enough of the restaurant review though let’s get to the Porsche stuff.

As soon as I introduce myself I feel it: she’s got the Tractor Beam on me and she is pulling me along. Then she spills big, her whole life story for pity sake. Mother dies when she’s a kid, old man is gaga for sports so she grows up skiing on the glacier, rock climbing and hiking, hanging out with all his buddies. That was exhausting. Then she’s shooting stag and boar, birds and whatnot. Next she works her way into her career yadda yadda and finally gets quiet after the desert hits the table. Girl could really talk.

Then I feel it. She’s got the Vulcan Mind Probe going and I start blathering about anything that comes to mind. For some reason I mention Porsche and ol’ Flunder’s needy project. She even knows stuff about Porsches for pity sake, sez her old man had a small dealership back in the early 70s. For some reason I tell her that Flunder’s ride is gonna be Olive and she gives me the full shot of corn flower power straight into to the frontal lobe. Piercing.

Eddie is heading back to the Adlon. He struck out with Christina von Zu, she of the party frock and pearls, but everyone else is heading out for drinks back at the place of you guessed it, blue eyes.

She has a swell place. Big, you know, with a four meter high ceiling. Well turned out space too. Antique Aubusson on the floor about the size of a tennis court mixed with really old furniture. Walls are covered with big modern canvasses with gallery spots on ‘em.

I kicked off with refreshments back at the Adlon around 5 PM and its going on eleven and I feel pretty good. I park myself in this antique chair and don’t move again for the rest of the night. Big crowd thins out at 1 AM but I’m still feeling really good so I suggest French 75s to top things off. Big mistake.

I remember she sat at the piano and asked what I would like her to play. Did that really happen? Anyway, I think I remember that she played Schubert. Sonata for piano, maybe it was No. 18 in G minor.

She played like an angel, like it was the hand of the Creator filling that room with music. I cried like a drunk, no comments you guys. Then I passed out.

Next morning I wake up still sitting in the same bergere, only the room is all straightened up and the ashtrays emptied. Someone threw an old jacket over me during the night so I wouldn’t freeze to death. Funny looking old loden jacket, a short one cut for a woman, a little thread bare but with a nice set of old German silver buttons. I feel something in the slash pocket and take a look: spent cartridge for a 6.5 Mauser. Creeped me out.

So I am suddenly wide awake only my eyeballs are wearing sweaters and my tongue is still glued to my palate, make that palates. Anyway I am a little nosy so I take a peek at the paintings on either side of this immense rococo fire place: Miro on the right, Chagall on the left. Girl has loot; said she was a hedge fund manager somewhere. Salzburg maybe. Anyhow, there are these big double serpentine French chests on either side of the mantle. Look like they might have been liberated from the Tuileries for pity sake.


On one chest stood three photos in silver frames. Two photographs I made. One must have been her old man: dressed in a bulky wool sweater tied to a sheer rock wall on some mountain, smiling his ass off. The last one was an old guy: aquiline nose and a dueling scar on his cheek holding a big old double rifle, and the initials FvZ on the silver frame. A von Zu I figured remembering fondly ol’ Christina in her party frock.


Then it hit me. Wham. Picture of a matinee idol, Latin variety, down on one knee in front of a C or D series Group 4 car. Million dollar smile, La Coste polo shirt and the obligatory Heuer on his wrist. Big, really big scar on his forearm. The front lid on the 911 all painted up in Signal Gelbe and Blut Orange livery. Yeah, I know, an old school sporty car privateer, but exactly who was this guy and where is that car? Frame had the initials P_C_B on there.

The house keeper snuck up on me; probably to make sure I wasn’t going to liberate the Chagall. Leads me down to the breakfast room, the walls all painted up in this intense shade of ripe melon and it was really hurting my eyes so I couldn’t make out the signature of the artist of this really interesting blue painting of a clown on the wall.

Sitting on the table is a hand written note on buff colored vellum. Note says, “Tell you friend to finish his car. Call Dieter for what you need …” and lists a phone number. OK now I am in my element, maybe we are going to score some bits!

I call Alice pronto and ask her to get this Dieter guy on the phone and then patch me in. She says to hold on, the country code is for Austria so she is gonna need a minute to get the call set up.

As soon as I get on the call I really disappoint myself big time when I drivel my way into this long list of stuff ol’ Flunder needs for his ride. Dieter makes me for a nerd and asks for my email address, it would be easier he explains. Right.

Get his email on my ‘berry two minutes later. Says to wire a pant load of Euros to some account and to provide a shipping address for the parts. Man I am in heat, you know. Alice tags up with Flunder to make sure he has the loot and the guy has the gall to ask us for a list of exactly which parts, “exactly” he says. Problem with Porsche guys is they worry too much about the details.

"Everything you need, buster," is the message I give Alice to pass along to Flunder.

Two weeks later we head out to JFK to open up the container at the freight forwarder. Smells like really stale circa 1971 air inside that container and there are boxes of all this beat up old scheit everywhere. This stuff is not pristine. Balsa lid looks like the Russian Army marched over it; really lumpy. Alu skinned door looks like it was lightened with a can opener for pity sake. Minilites were only ok, not NOS but you know, mag nines are not so easy to score. Scratched up old rear plexi window with a scruffy 2,2 sticker hanging off it: not exactly ready for prime time at Pebble.

I figure Flunder is gonna go into a New Yorkese tirade; this stuff is pretty rough. But wait, the guy is ecstatic! Claims he actually likes this stuff. Like he’s Lord Cadogan and we are opening the tomb of Tutankhamen for pity sake. Go figure.

Couple more things about this deal. The balsa lid is painted Signal Gelbe and Blut Orange. Weirded me out, I mean how did ol’ Dieter get the lid off the matinee idol guy. Where did all this junk come from?

And the vellum note, too. It was signed in violet ink by someone named Marietta Augenthaler. Guess she was the old babe with the corn flower blue peepers. Who the heck is she?"

[Reza]

i dont know Tom. You know, I'm sure you do, that they have Canadiens up there in Calgary, right ?

"ceilings 4 meters tall" and "shite" in the same missive, all are rather worrisome tell tales :-)

good yarn, now we wait for the fogge to clear. are you going to be anywhere near Lake Placid this weekend ?

[t6dpilot]

Tom, Pudge, GREAT yarn. Seems the both of you have the gift of uniquely putting your thoughts to words in a very eloquent way. More please...