I read this great story from the Facebook group Air Cooled Porsche 911 and 912 and thought people here would like it. It is written by Mark Starr
EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN!!! TO BACKDATE OR NOT? With the proliferation of 911 Backdates, I got to thinking. I have been buying and selling Porsche cars for over 40 years. Since the early 70’s. Longer than I’d like to admit! I started buying cars in Brooklyn where I am originally from. I would get the NY Times Sports Section on a Saturday night and rummage through the car section. I’d also get the Buy Lines as soon as it came out. Kids, this was long before the internet. I was buying 356’s and early 911’s for less than it would cost to have a major service performed today.
So, the best I can estimate, is I have owned, sold, restored, traded from a low of 5 cars to as many as 75 cars per year for about 43 years. I think it’s safe to assume that I have had over 1,000 Porsche cars pass through my life. All types of Porsche cars. If I found one that wasn’t too ratty or rusty, I’d bring it by the Porsche Gurus at that time for service or to put back together. They didn't want to work on the rust buckets. There was “ Coney Island “ Ralph Landolfi who worked primarily on Dragsters but also loved Porsche cars, Mark Tashjian who now has Formula Motorsports, John Howe of Seacliff, Long Island, The Paterek Brothers in NJ and others. At that time, if you had a 356 that needed an engine, the coolest thing to do was to upgrade. Especially if you had an underpowered 60 HP variant. If you wanted to get your car quickly, it wasn’t uncommon to install a 1600 Super or SC engine that was freshly rebuilt and sitting on a shelf. Your engine would be next in line and get installed in another car after it was modified down the line. Putting in a hot rodded 1600 engine, a 912 engine or an engine from an SC was the thing to do. Numbers matching??? No one cared back then. As a matter of fact, back then if you had a Soft Window Targa, the first thing you wanted to do was to change it to a Glass window. I know, I know……It was different then. Having a 3 Gauge 912 was like having a Biscayne as opposed to a 5 Gauge or an Impala. Why people talk of a charming 3 Gauge is due to someone who must have posted photos of a car they owned and tried to convince people that the 3 Gauge was simpler and more charming. Why then did Porsche put 5 Gauges in a 911? Having more info is always a good idea. At least that what I feel. Logic should prevail. So here is what I am getting to………Back then, people wanted to make their cars as cool as possible. Kinda like we are doing today with the Backdates. But back then, people were taking the early cars ( the term Long Hood wasn’t invented yet ) and converting them to the cut off nose look of the new G Series cars. Imagine that. There are still lots of those conversions popping up yearning to be converted back to their original form. Later on in the later 70’s, along with my business partner then Lance Ojeda, we started shipping Porsche cars from the East Coast to the West Coast where they were much more popular and brought higher sales prices. We had several cars that we shipped there that were color changes. Painted Black or Silver from those crazy undesirable colors such as Conda Green, Signal Orange and Aubergine. Again, imagine that……….Later on, I saw lots of cars in the 80’s getting converted to Slant Nose cars and adding Koenig, Strosek,Gembella, B&B Conversions and RUF modifications and lots of things that we don’t see now. ( THANK GOD ) Some worked and many did not stand the test of time. As a matter of fact, I was one of the first guys to import Grey Market cars back in the early 80’s. I found a cool place in Affalterbach West Germany ( yes, there was an East and West back then ) . It was called AMG and I was one of the first guys to import those cars and modifications to the US. I was actually on the Today Show back then talking about the upcoming trends in Automobiles. So here we go. Today you have those who want all original numbers matching cars and poo poo all the cars that are not. We also have automotive engineers and designers today that are brilliant. Rod Emory of Emory Motorsports, Singer Vehicle Design and Magnus Walker and many others who take Porsche cars and bring their own ideas and vision and recreate them. No one asks if a Singer or Emory car is a matching numbers car. They are brilliant, beautiful designs and are appreciated for exactly what they are. Today we are taking cars and Backdating them, recreating them, re imagining them and adding our own personal touches. I am not belittling any of that. I am embracing it. I think that Porsche cars have and always will lend themselves to modifying, improving, personalizing, reinterpreting as well as racing and collecting. I wanted to say, be careful what you do to your car. Time has a funny way of showing us the hits and misses. It’s all good and you should do what speaks to you. Be careful what you do to a car. I liken it to getting a spectacular diamond straight from the mine. You will study it prior to cutting it to make the best use of that diamond. I think the same is true for Porsche cars. If it is originality that is important to you, there are cars that have matching numbers with a service history or are a limited production car that should be brought back to it's original condition. There are others that don’t have matching numbers and a service history. It doesn’t mean that you have to crush them and make them into coffee tables or that they are worth much less. Now if you come across a " BARN FIND " you might not want to remove the dirt and grime " Patina ". Years ago, they were called rats or rust buckets. It only means that it might not be what you are looking for or want out of a car. It might have some modifications or a hot engine that you wanted to do anyway. It might not. Each and every car, like diamonds are different and that is what makes this hobby so incredibly interesting. To each his own. It’s ALL good. So, I’d love to hear all of your positive thoughts on this topic and see some photos of your modified, backdated or restored to original car or barn find cars. Remember, EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN!!!
I am a buyer for all interesting 356 or 911 cars.
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