1974 Carrera Restoration - Family owned since 75

I purchased this car from my brother in law in 2009 with the intention of bring it back to it's original glory. He bought it from a friend in 75 and has driven it off and on and stored it ever since. It's #448 and all original (sunroof delete coupe) with the exception of the rear wing and the scheel seats. It's never been hit and has little to no rust but it needed mechanical and paint work that he didn't want to deal with. I liked the fact that it came with the 7's and 8's and things like the side mirror and orange hood badge were still left original.

I saw it as a solid base to start from. It was very cool to keep it in the family. I always saw it as a special car even though they have sort of been forgotten by many. The following pics show it as it was in his garage in 2009.

Here it is when it arrived at our house

As you can see, the interior needs work. I found a set of period correct sport seats to replace the worn out Scheel seats. The floor mats are beat but the original carpet and back seat areas are actually in very good shape. The door pockets need work but amazingly, they aren't cracked where they attach to the handles. The original door panels are in great shape.

I plan to remove all the dealer installed A/C parts and install the OE knee pads under the dash. The original "fatty" Carrera steering wheel is still there.

I replaced the wheel with a nice 3 spoke wheel and found out that the rim is smaller than the original. The original Carrera wheel is 4.125" around the rim with no underlying padding. A little research informed me that the 74-76 US and Euro Carrera cars recieved a very fat rimmed wheel. It's the same wheel that came on the aspirated and turbo race cars through the 70's. Even my 77 930 has a slimmer 3 spoke wheel rim. The grip pattern on the back is different than the 930 and later SC wheels and the hub is exactly in the center. The standard 3 spoke wheels are made with the rim shifted higher than center to add leg room. Apparently, this fat wheel is the "sport" 3 spoke wheel as aposed to the standard 3 spoke wheel. It's going back on after I get it recovered. My standard recover kit won't fit around the rim so I'm cutting one custom for this wheel.

The purple window tint is going to be fun to remove! It's got that Brady Bunch look to it.

Cool Ride.....for a short hood!

I am restoring a 74 Targa Carrera. It was like one I owned in 75'. Your lucky to have great history with the Fam owning it for so long. These Carrera's will take a shorter ($$) run than an 73 RS, but I bet they will go "Bonker's" in the "Value" department because Porsche didn't make too many of them.

It won't be cheap if you re-do the car to OG specs tho. I have more than 12K in the interior alone (Targa has more inside goodies), kinda sad.......especially when I paid 14K for the car! I won't tell you about the cost of the engine gearbox and paint...............cause it ain't cheap!!!!

When your done with the Fam car I sure it will be worth every penny you put back in it to make a "Cool Ride"!

Post photos as you re-do-it.........

Kevin Jeannette

Thanks for the words of advice. I agree with all of your points. I paid $13K for the car and travel to get it here to Fremont, CA. I have already spent a fortune locating the sport seats, super clean 74 original duck tail and other bits. I have already rebuilt the motor, suspension, steering and other mechanicals. The car is actually very low miles so the transmission was left alone. I'm getting quotes for laquer strip and paint north of $15K (really good shops that don't come cheap). I figure I'll have more than $50K into the restoration. I'm OK with that.

I've seen 2 of these cars sell to ship to the UK in the last 6 months for over $75K. They were not that original or particularly nice but they were shinny. I know of 2 of these cars in CA, Bay Area in paint shops getting bare tub up restorations and one in LA that was shipped over from Holland doing the same. The long hood Carrera's are out of control pricy and they are driving up the Euro short hood cars with the US Carrera's following fast behind. Many of the Euro and US cars are rust victims. As you stated accurately, they didn't make that many to start with and I know several race teams in california who were buying them stolen and recovered to make race cars out of them as fast as they could to flip for cash. Many of them fell to that fate.

Very nice to find such an original US Carrera. I am surprised to read that a US Carrera sold for over $75K. Are you sure of this? I know the Carrera 2,7 cars have been over $100K for quite some time, but have not of heard of sale price this high for a US model. Have fun with it.:)

As a fellow '74 US Carrera owner, thanks for keeping another one the road. They've been the red-headed stepchild for a while.
You are correct about the steering wheel - they are difficult to find. Can I ask where you found a ducktail lid? Mine's currently running a repro. A previous owner did exactly what happened to yours and replaced the ducktail with a later (bigger) one.
Also, what are your plans for the old seats? I know a BMW friend who is looking for that model Scheel.
Good luck with the restoration... and keep posting photos!

@Kevin - Congrats to Gunnar! very good year.

Nice find and keep us updated on the progress. The non-sunroof cars are quite rare as far as I have been able to figure.

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Originally Posted by rmakosaito

They've been the red-headed stepchild for a while.

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One of these days I'm going to post my 'white paper' dispelling all of the inaccurate information and confusion about the performance of the USA 74 Carreras :D I had mine out for a nice drive today - it never fails to impress.

Attachment 196106

Great looking base for a resto over on pelican they had been debating the value of a not so stock '74 carrera and it actually sold on ebay in the low '60s I believe!
yes those scheels are in demand over on the CS forum in fact I'm looking for a set for my '73 Euro CS contact me as well once you decide to remove them ..I'll take them as is,
Bert ecrobinson1726@msn.com

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Originally Posted by fryardds

Very nice to find such an original US Carrera. I am surprised to read that a US Carrera sold for over $75K. Are you sure of this? I know the Carrera 2,7 cars have been over $100K for quite some time, but have not of heard of sale price this high for a US model. Have fun with it.:)

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Brian,
You know how sales price data goes. If you didn't sell it yourself, you can't be sure. However, I saw a light yellow 74 US C car at a classic car dealer in San Francisco priced at $78K about a year ago when I was trying to decide if I wanted to do a restoration now and how much to spend etc. A month later, it was gone. They indicated that they got full price and it shipped to England. About two weeks later, a friend of mine sold his also to England in that same range. Harvey Weidman (wheel restoration guy) told me he has heard of them going for $85K. I'm told that nice long hood RS cars are getting $250-300K, the short hood OUS Carrera's are now seeing $150-175K and nice US cars are following fast behind. If you have a real RS, you likely know better than I do on that. I know good 73 C's have sold for over $100K for at least 15 years now. I also know someone who recently purchased 3x 73 RS cars together for $300K total but they were all swamp rats that practically need VIN plate swaps to other chassis'. For my car, I'm basically comparing what my car will be relative to spending the same money for a contemporary car and I think it's going to be a good value. It helps that I will do the mechanical work myself. However, it still adds up fast.