Special early 1964 features on 1965 cars

[pss]

an update a day keeps the doctor away

[pss]

Heard a great story yesterday, based on a visit of a delegation of the Dutch early 911/912 club to the Porsche Archives in Zuffenhausen in October last year. maybe already known here, but it was new to me.

I have wondered why the heads of the shock towers had such poor welding. Also I have seen great variation in the quality of the welding in different cars. It appears that Porsche got some bad complaints of shocks sticking through the front hood after some bumpy road activity. The original design or execution of the factory shock tower heads (is that the right word??) was too weak and needed re-enforcement. Dealers were asked to do the repair or preventive welding to strengthen the towers and the one dealer just proved a better welder than the other.........leading to another 'precious' early 911 feature and one more mystery solved for me.

True story?

[21window]

I have 300359. champagne yellow original paint. not restored. small fuel door release knob like Johns.

One thing you need to add to the list is round end airbox as shown in the early manual (all four corners are the same and no baffles internally).

300359 came with round end airbox

Pretty sure this ended around 400 or so.



This is the later style that most have:

[pss]

Here is a picture of the tall engine grill I received from Frank (705). An odd event in a series of lower grills in 1965, but great to post here. They seemed to grab from the shelves whatever was available indeed! I had never seen one so clearly before. Txs Frank!

[pss]

Hi 21window,

will add the 359 tomorrow as its midnight here. This early one will be interesting indeed.
Cheers, J

[moito]

Heard a great story yesterday, based on a visit of a delegation of the Dutch early 911/912 club to the Porsche Archives in Zuffenhausen in October last year. maybe already known here, but it was new to me.

I have wondered why the heads of the shock towers had such poor welding. Also I have seen great variation in the quality of the welding in different cars. It appears that Porsche got some bad complaints of shocks sticking through the front hood after some bumpy road activity. The original design or execution of the factory shock tower heads (is that the right word??) was too weak and needed re-enforcement. Dealers were asked to do the repair or preventive welding to strengthen the towers and the one dealer just proved a better welder than the other.........leading to another 'precious' early 911 feature and one more mystery solved for me.

True story?

hmm ...read a different story in the book AUTO.BIOGRAPHIE by ferdinand piech .

if i remember right

the chief engineer karl rabe had a power struggle about those shock towers with ferdinand piech.
piech wanted to have adjustable towers but rabe refused to listen to this youngster and continued in the 356 style .

even knowing that there might be(is) some correcting of the wheel alignment necessary after the body was completed....cut and weld

rabe retired in 65----piech who took over rabes position immediatly introduced the adjustable towers....

similar story with the solex...


have never seen reinforced towers only those "cut and weld" ones but might be that the reinforcment story is also true.

[Frank Beck]

All I know is that they are all very ugly.

Probably not a sin to dress them up a bit when re-doing the trunk. Especially if it is to cover the trespass of dealership work.

[Jens]

Jaques, I was in fact thinking of the 901 Barbarossa, so that's not pertinent to this thread. Here's a photo anyway-

[911T1971]

but might be that the reinforcment story is also true.

It is a true story, at least w prototypes.

In May 1965, 901 Prototyp Number 5 (Chassis 13325 hellgelb, Built 1963 by Karmann, the car shown in Paris, London 1963 and Frankfurt, Turin in 1964 and used in Spring 1965 on a European Dealer Promo-tour, driven by Dieter Lenz) was on a test run near Cologne and needed reinforcements by welding additional/thicker metal pieces at the shocktower area, done at the factory. In fact, the Boge shocks disconnected with the shock tower, additional strength was needed by a reinforced chassis structure.

This happened while the 901/911 production already started and it seems (no written document I found so far) that dealers were subsequently informed about this issue.
I assume they thought this would not happen on a brand new car but it was feared that in the long run (Chassis 13325 had 20'000km when the incident happened in May 1965), other 911' could develop the same technical problem when driven under similar (regular) conditions.

[pss]

Txs Jens and Karim, great contributions!