Reintroducing a storied car to the Early 911S Registry...

[merbesfield]

Mark,

I was following your restoration tread and amazed with all the metal fabrication and welding you did to your 912. I also sent a message to you through 912 BBS but I realize you don't follow the 912 world any longer since you have 2 911s ;-)

I have a couple of rusty spots and would like to get your opinion in regards to what needs to be done to the car. Maybe I can show it to you once all of us get together one of these days.

Thanks,

Tim

Tim, I did send you a reply on some forum, not sure which one, very late though after not seeing it for some time. PM my your email and we can communicate better via email. I would be happy to look at it anytime. Cheers, Mark

[mibi]

another pic from the weekend. Bryce's car and Tim's have nice paint. Mine had a few sections resprayed 25 yrs ago but still wears some original paint. some buffed down to primer- hard to get original paint to shine like theirs but I love the patina. the 912 Solex's, when properly tuned, are amazing. but everything has to be perfect- float level, mixture, synchronization, throttle linkage, throttle body butterfly bushings, accelerator diaphragm pump injection volume, jets, and timing, and advance. I spent several long weekends, pulling carbs over and over, rebuilding them, and fine tuning, but with great success.

[Tim_78]

Michael,

What a nice shot. Next time we need to include your sepia brown in the frame. She needs some exposure :-)

My car can use a respray also, it looks nice but when you start to look under the magnifying glass you can notice the imperfections.

[Schiefer]

Hello Bryce,
Read the whole thread again today. What a great car and story!
When I started looking for my first car, several people advised me to stay away from the 69S. I´m still not quite sure why, but think this model used to be a bit misunderstood. Over the years reading on this forum, I have started to appreciate it more and more and if I was going to start all over again and only have one car, it would be a 69S

I have never driven one, but in my head it is the best of both worlds when I compare to 2,2S MFI and 2.0S with carbs.

Radmund

[friggens]

I have not read this thread - but I look forward now that I know it exists !! beautiful machine.

[beh911]

Hello Bryce,
Read the whole thread again today. What a great car and story!
When I started looking for my first car, several people advised me to stay away from the 69S. I´m still not quite sure why, but think this model used to be a bit misunderstood. Over the years reading on this forum, I have started to appreciate it more and more and if I was going to start all over again and only have one car, it would be a 69S

I have never driven one, but in my head it is the best of both worlds when I compare to 2,2S MFI and 2.0S with carbs.

Radmund

Thanks, Radmund. I am very fortunate to own this car and still be able to enjoy it as much as I do.

Your comments are very accurate, in my biased yet humble opinion... The 69S is misunderstood by many. It sits in a transition period for the factory between SWB and LWB, the dawn of the first displacement increase and lowering of compression to "compromise" for environmental and quite honestly, everyday driveability reasons (read more "street", less "race").

The engine feels very different from a 67S even. And I have driven and owned others... nothing sounds like a 69S for sure. There is no other engine that has so much race department technology stuffed into it, like the one year only MFI setup, front cooler plumbing, one year only huge valves, one year only pistons, etc. It's a 906 single plug engine for the street, a true factory hot rod.

The challenge with keeping one of these original is tracking down the one year only engine bits. The heads and pistons are hard to come by, as they were often used for different applications in race engines, getting twin plugged, etc. So this could be the reason you have been advised to stay away.

But I am a bit of a Porsche history buff and I do think the 69S represents the last of the original breed, born during the plastic prototype obsession at the factory that nearly killed the company, with all the lightweight trickery of Piëch finding its way onto this car.

I also love that my car was built in the few weeks between these very famous events at the factory. It was an exciting and stressful time, and out of it came my example of their interpretation of the best they could build at the moment.

January 1969 - the Monte Carlo cars


April 1969 - 917 FIA Homologation inspection

[merbesfield]

Bryce, great pic of Monte Carlo cars. Love looking at stuff in the background as well. The Mercedes wagon support vehicle is neat. Also, look far right foreground, is that a 911 covered in snow? If it had been sitting there long enough to be piled with snow like that, you can only imagine what might be hiding under there.

[beh911]

...
Also, look far right foreground, is that a 911 covered in snow? If it had been sitting there long enough to be piled with snow like that, you can only imagine what might be hiding under there.

Rust, most likely

Yes, that pre Monte pic has always appealed to me too. Unvarnished, weekday at the werks photo. An impromptu photo op, very casual. Here's one more from the same session.

It's also not lost on me either that my car's color scheme and side scripts, auxiliary lights, etc were very much modeled after these cars. I know what was on Captain Mike's mind when he ordered the car in the fall of 1968.

[merbesfield]

I don't know about impromptu, those guys in the background were told to stand there looking important. And the time to assemble all those guys at one time had to require some coordination, but still a cool pic. Have you id'ed those people?

[beh911]

I don't know about impromptu, those guys in the background were told to stand there looking important. And the time to assemble all those guys at one time had to require some coordination, but still a cool pic. Have you id'ed those people?

Ok. How about "hastily arranged"?

So the drivers and co drivers are easy to pick out. The brown and green overalls are what I assume to be the werks race department mechanics. It would be interesting to learn if the different overall colors meant something.

I think Rico Steinemann (recent or soon to be head of racing department) could be in the middle in the coat and tie. Hard to tell in this resolution. The rally program wasn't a top priority when compared to the World Championship of Makes and especially the endurance tests (prototypes), so the two suits were the ones very close to the project I imagine.