Purple engine shroud?! That's fantastic. You should call the donor car Prince. Looks like a cool original color was hiding below.
Purple engine shroud?! That's fantastic. You should call the donor car Prince. Looks like a cool original color was hiding below.
72S, 72 3.5L Signal Green, 914-6 GT Signal Green
The previous owner painted the car in 'Morpheus purple', a Holden specific purple variant, that has sparkly flakes... not a good look for a 911.
What you can't see is that he actually spent quite some effort on the interior to give things like the door-panels and seats purple accents...
The original color was Viper green, as you can see. One wonders why he didn't leave it that. It's such a great color!
"Prince" is not a bad name to honor its past. Or "Joker", seeing the green/purple combo
I hope you kept the engine shroud to put on the garage wall!
72S, 72 3.5L Signal Green, 914-6 GT Signal Green
First thing on the to-do list was the removal of some of the extra holes and slats that the G-series dashboard has, compared to an F-series car. On top of that, the donor car used to have air-conditioning sometime in the past, so those holes had to be filled up too. At the rear of the car, the G-series specific centre piece was removed and holes in the rear body panel that contains the stickers were filled as well.
Other items removed where those baggage loops in the parcel tray and the G-series specific seat mounts.
I already noticed that the chassis was in very good condition; I hardly found any rust and when I did find some, it was surface rust (like on the parcel tray) only. Jason also confirmed that this was a very solid basis that was very original; the still visible viper green color confirmed that the car had never been in a smash. Very lucky purchase indeed.
I ordered the RSR front and rear bumpers, the hood and the front ST/RSR fenders in GRP from Mike Tankard, who here in Australia is the go-to guy for these parts. I had already ordered the RSR rear flares a few years ago from Aase so brought those in to be fitted too.
Jason then removed the G-series bumper mounts and cut out the G-series front wheel-arch pieces, so they could be replaced by the correct F-series panels (Dansk). I had also bought a new front latch panel, so all of these could be welded in.
The next thing was to cut away the lower half of this brand new front latch panel, as the RSR had a central oil cooler which requires a duct to enable air-flow. Elephant Racing offers a duct they claim is based on the original one, so that’s the one we went for. Seeing the easy fitment, they were probably right…
Patrick,
Your car will be amazing, I love how much you are sharing.
Are you familiar with the plaque or “plate” that was the trophy for the targa florio?
‘Targa’ is the word for ‘plate’.
Florio was the name of the man who started the race.
I have seen a few trophies in person, one in Milan at Alfa museum.
It is a marvelous sculpture in bronze, I found it very beautiful.
Years ago, I found out that the participant race drivers received a small plaque.
I have one from 1973, seen in my hand in the photo. It took me 5 years to find it.
There are others out there, and other years.
Also, there is a guy in Spain or Sweden selling 1973 911 RS targa cuff links.
Scott
Last edited by Scott A; 07-03-2019 at 09:26 PM.
Current long term ownership: 63 Cab, 71 911, 74 914
That's so cool. Thanks for adding that info.
Years ago, at the workshop that looked after my 2.4T, I did have a chat with Gijs van Lennep, who drove to victory in R6 in that last official Targa Florio race.
He signed the case of a 1:43 scale model of the 917 that I had with me (knowing he was going to be there) but I wasn't even thinking about building a replica of his RSR back then, so I never asked him the stuff I would ask him now.
He probably still has his small plaque somewhere. Very nice chap by the way who still comes out regularly to drive cars at events for Porsche.
After cutting away the pipes that guide the cables that operate the front & rear hood mechanisms, Jason needed to create various brackets to mount the GRP parts to the body and allow for the (new) metal indicator housings to be fitted. He also pre-fitted the rear metal RSR flares and took measurements from a real RSR to compare if the positioning was OK.
Since extending the flares was manually done at the factory back in the day, I believe there’s no two cars identical when it comes to rear flares, but I think these have come out real nice. Only thing left to do with them is to roll the edges to prevent future tire damage.
Rear shock reinforcements were welded in, as well as the front strut tower braces, but most time this month was spend on getting the panel fit right. I brought in the doors so they could be hung in and positioned too.
Although the overall look of the GRP parts was good, fitment is apparently always a pain, and it was no different here; Some of the bends were insufficient and thus sticking out from the body so fitting took quite a bit of time.
Whilst looking at the result, I noticed that the rear bumper was incorrect; All the pictures of real RSRs I’ve seen had two recesses just under the bumperettes for the double exhaust (megaphones). This clearly had to be fixed if this was going to be as per original RSR.
Talking about the rear RSR bumper, I noticed another little detail.
Most RSs & RSRs seem to have a reflector on the bumper, on the outside of the bumperette. Some RSRs have this too (for example the Brumos #59 car has it, as does the light blue example in Konradsheim’s book, or the green RSR 0894 [pictured below) but not all.
As far as the Martini cars go, it looks as if the #107 car (as per Mike Moore’s build) did have the reflectors, but crucially for this project, R6 didn’t, so this car won’t either.
Second picture of R6 referenced from the Maxted-Page website
Hi Patrick
I remembered you are putting some effort in to a replica and had some questions about graphics so took a few snaps for you specifically while at Goodwood FOS today. Figured I was closer to it than you
Since it has had work by MP not sure how original or authentic but hope these help.
Best
Steve
wow, thanks Steve, that's awesome!
Have fun there at Goodwood.