advice on purchase, 71t

[Rwm514]

I found a 71t that has a a 1977 911s engine swapped in. calif car -minimal rust. Unrestored. It is in the color I want, orange, hopefully signal, waiting on pics, owned by current owner 20+ years. Original paint still. Cheap, 13k. I'm pretty excited but I've been thinking...
I am definitely going to be wanting to do a pretty major restoration because I want it to be beautiful and run perfectly. The idea of enjoying it and doing something of a rolling restoration over the next 1-2 years is pretty appealing. I'm thinking a mild hotrod, rs door panels, gts st seats, rear and side porsche decals, maybe something around 200hp What is the best path to take here? Does it even matter to find a 911 or should I just be looking for a cheap 912 roller to start from scratch on? or maybe an already restored car? I dont want to spend 30k on something that will only be worth 20 down the road. Please.. for those of you who have figured all this out, what should I do?? Thx

[Flieger]

If you are worried about value, buy a real, restored 911S.

You will spend WAY more than you will get out of any project car.

My advice is to find a car with the least rust and that is in decent running condition so that you can upgrade as you get time and money to do so. 911T is a great place to start for a hot rod, but a 912 is good as well.

If you are just worried about not putting money in and not loosing value, buy an already restored car of your favorite flavor. Say 90 points, drive down to 80, but enjoy every mile. Nice thing about buying someone else's hot rod is you do not need to worry about ruining value of a real RS or S, and it is a ton of fun to drive without much work needed to get it to where you want it.

[Tom F.]

Not enough information to say. IMHO, an original paint car should be kept original. The new thing in old cars is originality. A decent original paint, California car is a bargain at $13,500, even without the original engine. You could find a good 2.2 T core pretty reasonably, and bring it back to life.

If you want a hot rod, without spending a lot of money, I am going to say something heretical on this site - get a good 911SC, and soup up the motor. Fast, reliable and far less expensive. When you strip out A/C, the weight of an SC is respectable, and the 3.0 liter motor is much, much easier to deal with.

If you want to spend the money on an early car hotrod, then I would suggest that you find one that isn't original and go from there. Personally, I think that you'd be killing your value if you modified an original paint, unrusted early 911, unless you spend huge $$.

[popowitz]

Agree with Tom on the SC route. There is one on the Bird for $12.5K.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsc...1sc-coupe.html

-Dave

[Rwm514]

Not enough information to say. IMHO, an original paint car should be kept original. The new thing in old cars is originality. A decent original paint, California car is a bargain at $13,500, even without the original engine. You could find a good 2.2 T core pretty reasonably, and bring it back to life.

If you want a hot rod, without spending a lot of money, I am going to say something heretical on this site - get a good 911SC, and soup up the motor. Fast, reliable and far less expensive. When you strip out A/C, the weight of an SC is respectable, and the 3.0 liter motor is much, much easier to deal with.

If you want to spend the money on an early car hotrod, then I would suggest that you find one that isn't original and go from there. Personally, I think that you'd be killing your value if you modified an original paint, unrusted early 911, unless you spend huge $$.

Thx for your thoughts on this. That makes sense to me, I wasnt really thinking of anything like cutting up the body work. I guess I was unclear on what having a non-original engine does to the value. I just figured the originality was lost with the engine swap. What value do you suppose a longhood that is original with the exception of a correct but non-matching engine is compared to a matching number car? 80%?