Welcome to the Porsche Club Insider, your one stop for all things Porsche and PCA.
Here's your host, Vu Gwin, and the Insider crew.
Welcome everyone to Episode 180.
We are back at PCA's national office, and to my right, I have Manny Aubin to my left,
our special guest which I'll introduce in a moment, and at the controls, we have Damon
Launey.
For those of you that are 996 fans, or perhaps Unstock fans, this episode will be for you.
But before we get into that, I want to make sure we thank our presenting sponsor, Pirelli.
Pirelli tires have to achieve the highest levels of performance, safety, noiselessness,
and grip on the road surface, innovative tires that can even satisfy the most specific
mobility needs of the end consumer.
And I want to thank you all of you that are listening.
If you aren't currently a PCA member, and own a Porsche, grab that VIN, head over to PCA.org,
and make sure you make yourself a member.
And for those of you that don't currently own a Porsche, and need some help in finding
that special one for your garage or driveway, try out our test drive program, unlocks
all sorts of resources, maybe even gives you some access to Mr. Manny Aubin to
answer your questions about your next Porsche, head over to PCA.org.
Our guest today, he's back.
Peter Simpson, service manager of Porsche of Owings Mills.
We'll hear a little bit of some day-to-day stories, but he's got this project, the Classic
Restoration Challenge project, that's come to, I would say, kind of to the last chapter,
right?
It's very close.
Yeah, we're almost there.
And thanks for having me back.
These past few months flew by, and I feel like I was just here.
And I miss the unveiling, but I'm looking forward to hearing all about that.
I'm going to give my wheel guy a lot of crap.
Your wheel guy?
Yeah.
I'm supposed to have my cup ones painted.
Oh, gosh.
I dropped them off before I went to the, when we first saw the 996, and he was just taking
it apart, you know?
Yeah.
And now the 996 is done, and my wheels still haven't been painted.
Did you make the mistake that I did and said, take your time?
I think I did.
I said, they never said that.
Don't tell me that either.
So I've sent them emails saying every week on checking all my wheels, checking all my
wheels.
So how was everyone's weekend?
Yeah, it was, we went to a, it's my, she and my wife dragged me to this Chesapeake
region concor judging school.
Judging school.
Interesting.
They teach you how people are interested in becoming concor judges, how to judge,
what to look for, what the roles are.
And yeah, I was checking with them.
I said, I probably have 30 minutes of material for the podcast about the, yeah, I'm sorry,
I think it in a big picture of things when, and it's not just concor, but any hobby, you
know, get people that are really into it and really devoted and the minutia they will
start arguing over.
And we got into a big discussion about decals on cars and whether they should be allowed
or not.
Oh, for points.
Yes.
Wow.
Yeah.
And we got a lot of questions about Alcantara and whether it should be brushed a certain
way.
And what I discovered was a lot of these questions were also very self-interest because the person
asking you would say, are you asking for a friend or do you own an Alcantara?
Oh, I got a friend that happens, yeah.
So if my Alcantara is clean, but it's mad because it's worn, do I get points
off?
Yes.
Oh yeah, it was a pretty good school.
Well attended?
Yeah, very well attended.
So this was to teach people how to judge, not how to prepare their cars.
No, just how to judge because then two of the members, I don't know why, but they submitted
their cars and it was kind of like doing a colonoscopy and having about 20 people commenting
when you're colonizing as the doctor was doing it because they went to town on these
cars.
Yeah.
Yeah.
My Concord career ended with, what was it in Chicago?
What parade was that?
That was St. Charles.
St. Charles.
Yeah.
That's where they, you know, I worked extremely hard to prepare my 2006 Cayenne, worked all
night, took the wheels off and they knew it, but they didn't tell me I was the only
one in class.
Thankfully I still scored high in points, so I got some extra awards, but yeah, I could
have just left the Cheerios and French fries in the car and I still would have
taken first.
But anyways, it was a good experience.
How about you, Damon?
You went autocrossing?
Yeah, I did go autocrossing and it was with a local club, Brandywine Motorsports Club,
which brings in a mix of PCAers.
Pinto was there, you know, and local SCCA members, but they're from Delaware, so it
was kind of like, BMC is a Delaware-based club.
So it was kind of cool.
We get to autocross against some people, maybe you don't always.
It was at Ripken.
So great site.
And my latest project has been to learn how to left foot brake.
And so I've done two autocrosses where I only left foot brake.
I was about a second slower than what I usually would be, you know, compared to some
of my benchmarks, you know, people I race against.
This time, I beat the person that I wanted to beat with while I was left foot breaking.
I did a mix of my first run was left foot to get used to it, and then I tried to set
a time for the second and third runs using my right foot.
And then my fastest time was my fifth run with my left foot.
And I did left foot braking the rest of the way through.
So I'm pretty happy about that.
So when you texted all of us about that, I thought about how, like, when we go
go-karting, not PCA events just to be clear, but when we personally go go-karting,
the braking is like no big deal for me, right?
But in a car, like where I have to, I guess, put my foot on top of the brake pedal
also because you have a clutch there as well, like it's awkward.
Like, I can get pretty awkward, you know, in, let's say, a sweeper, left hand,
left, left turn sweeper, and you have to get on the brakes right afterward.
So you're taking that left hand turn, a lot of g-forces and your
leg isn't, you know, you want to have your leg ready and your foot ready to get
on the brakes right afterwards.
But in the meantime, do you put it on the foot rest, the dead pedal, which is quite
a leap to get to the brake pedal, or do you just hold it above the brake pedal
against the g-forces?
So there are some things to figure out.
That's certainly a skill that I'd like to work on.
And yeah, we'll try that.
I think I give it up.
I can't do it now.
But you can do it in a cart.
I can do it in a go-kart.
But yeah, someone's shuffling in a, to me, our sim racing rig will help with that.
And also, there's something else that I've noticed about this.
So practicing on the Cayenne, where the brake pedal is somewhat soft, you know,
it's not a very firm brake pedal compared to the Cayman.
It's harder to modulate with your left foot and traffic.
But if you're just going for it and your two levels are not on the brakes
or brake really hard, it's not as hard as you might think.
So tell the listeners, what's the advantage of learning the left foot brake?
So the microseconds between coming off the brake and onto the gas pedal
and off the gas pedal and onto the brake.
And also, I would think to trail brake, you can set the front end a little bit
longer because you have your left foot on the brake before you fully let go.
And I do hold my braking in my turns a little bit longer to keep the weight
on the front and make sure, in fact, I was talking to the young guy I was instructing.
Like, stay on your brake a little bit longer to keep the weight on the front
so you can turn in and get closer to the cones because he was letting go
and moving over to the gas too early.
And as soon as he did that, the car just went away from the cone
and wanted to go straight.
So I think if you're able to do both of those by left foot braking.
That's what I learned.
It wasn't the shifting part.
It was balancing the car because if you're just full on brake,
then you're loading up the front end and you're losing traction in the rear
because everything's going to the front.
But if you can stay on the gas and then apply brake to get moves of weight
now to the front a little bit, it balances the car.
Yeah, that's where I couldn't do because remember, it's not.
You're doing this.
You're braking at the very less millisecond you have to break.
So you're already in full and intense and you're going to spend this car.
And if you're trail breaking, it means you're into the into the corners.
So you're even losing more grip.
And yeah, my mind and when you are trail breaking.
And this is why I try to use it to my advantages.
And we talked about how the traction control spun me last time.
So when you're trail breaking, your front end is going to get light
and you have to be aware of that.
And then, in fact, I use it to my rear end.
The rear end, what I say?
Front end, I was going to go with it for a second.
The rear end, the rear end gets light and it comes around on you.
And in a lot of cases, I want that.
But if you're not prepared for that, that could definitely freak you out.
Yeah. Yeah. And at this point, you know, I'm not blending throttle
and brakes like what Manny was saying.
I'm more just looking for the time in between.
And then the other thing about that is in the middle of a turn,
let's say you need a really small adjustment
and lifting off the throttle, you know, you're already off the throttle.
Maybe you're still understeering.
If you you can easily give a quick stab to set the front end,
maybe for decreasing radius and get the nose to bite
in the rear end to maybe come into rotation.
So it's mostly that at some point I'll start blending.
But that that's like another level of cool.
Congratulations. Thank you.
So, Peter, are you like us?
Like, even though we're like in the car world all week long
and Saturday and Sunday comes, we still do car stuff.
Like, do you still do that?
Or do you get away and be like, oh, I don't want to look at another car?
No, I'm still through and through a car guy.
You know, if I'm not tinkering on something at the shop, I got my garage.
I'm usually mess around with stuff in there.
So my whole weekend was taking our project car for the its maiden voyage.
Oh, nice.
I had to kind of shake it down and also film it for the first time, too,
because all of our reporting was due to Porsche on Monday.
So I submit a video, I submit a recap.
I just submit two different power points on the two events we did with you guys.
So my weekend was all cars Saturday and Sunday.
And then I try to find time for my personal stuff.
I was telling you I have an old E34 and five and my 997 and my 996
actually got a bunch of water damage.
So yeah, it leaked through the cowl and took out my mobilize
underneath the driver's seat.
So I'm doing that right now.
I just I just did the alternator, you know, a month prior.
And then it's always something on old cars.
So you have old cars.
You're always there's always always a list of to do's.
And so right now, the 996 might now that I've got the project car
kind of almost done, I'm going to start focusing on my stuff again.
Nice.
Nice.
Yes, it was for me a rare opportunity to do autocrosses
back to back weekends.
And last weekend, the previous weekend was with Potomac.
This weekend, I was with the B.M.
National Capital Chapter, BMW CCA at Summit Point.
And they had a test in tune, 20 runs.
It was it was incredible.
And it could have been more.
But honestly, I was just like I was tired.
And I also did a couple of road with some people to instruct.
And this is going to be funny.
We a kid walked up and recognized, I guess, my voice or my face.
From the podcast, he said, oh, I'm also a PCA member.
He came up in S 2000 and he said, I haven't been
autocrossing in a while.
I was wondering if I could have some pointers.
I'm sure you want to ride along.
And he asked for Damon, then.
Yeah, right. Exactly.
Damon was not there.
So he had to settle for me.
Thanks for the funny part is he sits and he's like, so.
So how long have you been doing this?
And I'm like, oh, as I had to think back and say, oh,
I've been doing this since like 92, 93.
He goes, man, that was before I was born.
I'm like, get out, get out of the car.
Not just kidding, but it was really cool to see
kind of a new newbies perspective and talking about,
you know, threshold breaking and showing him sort of.
And he he really did take advantage of jumping in from different cars
to see how I see how different cars and different drivers reacted.
The photo that's on YouTube right now is when I was at Potomac
two weekends ago, I was just hoping that I could have
a little bit more grip in the rear end.
And honestly, I just didn't have time to, like, change my sway bar settings
or anything like that.
I was like, so I remembered at one time, did you know that an Mk one
arrow kit rear wing, a.k.a.
the taco wing has adjustable blade positions?
Yeah, I didn't know that.
And I don't know how I remember when Mike Levitas is racing
imps, I guess, maybe if I was one of this lower race groups,
like motorroller or something.
Anyways, he's around uprights with the taco wing raised much higher
than in the factory, obviously.
Yeah.
So, you know, I was like, OK, this is something easy to do before
I head out to some point.
And so I adjusted it to the maximum up position.
And I don't know, you know, how much it helped other than
like the fast sweepers.
I did feel, to me, again, it might just be in my head
because I have the confidence, but I did feel like in the high
speed sweepers, the back end was more planted.
I also changed, I lowered the rear tire pressure by two pounds.
I was running like 28 pounds in the back.
And then I increased the pressure in the front tires, two pounds
because I usually run 28 in the front and I ran 30.
So the combination of 30 front, 28 rear, taco wing, full tilt.
The car ran fantastic.
It really did.
It was very predictable.
You had higher temperature in the front than the rear.
Yes.
I was going to say that's really odd because I because I didn't
I wanted to lose a little bit of grip in the front.
I want to lose a little bit of grip in the front.
So that's why I went up two pounds and I wanted more grip in the back.
That's what you need for comments.
And maybe maybe it sounds like you're trying to adjust
your tire pressures around another problem.
It is certainly possible.
All I know is it equated into the car ran very well.
And actually I ran against a couple cars that I was at least
three seconds behind Apatomic.
And at this run, I was like a second behind.
So it did improve.
Maybe it was me.
Maybe it was the course who knows.
And that's the beauty of autocrosses.
You have the opportunity to kind of play around and have some fun with it.
So let's see.
Let's get into the restoration challenge and just remind folks.
If you don't mind, Peter, remind folks what the rest classic
restoration challenges.
Yes. So the restoration challenges, something Porsche puts on for this
is their fifth year doing it.
They invite all of their dealerships to kind of be challenged.
So we have like certain things we have to meet every year for marketing
spend, and this can be one of those things that can go towards that
if we participate.
And so the dealerships get to choose three different categories to enter into.
There's the restoration category, which would, you know, take a car
and put it back exactly the way it came from the factory.
Then you have a preservation category and there's some mileage
in your restrictions on this.
So it has to have over 70,000 miles on it.
So you can't just find some showroom, you know, queen, that, you know,
there's nothing wrong with it.
You actually have a car that was driven and you have to preserve it.
So you can only repaint 25% of the car instead of reupholstering
the whole interior.
You have to kind of refinish it and preserve it.
And then there's the individualization category, the one we're in.
And this is where you can have your creative freedom to kind of do
whatever you want to any Porsche model that's considered a classic.
I guess they prefer you to use Porsche classic parts whenever possible.
Yeah.
So part of the judging process, there's a whole list of things
we get judged on.
It's the thousand points.
Part of it is the marketing we do throughout the year.
Part of it is documenting the process, the video.
We have to submit and then half of it is the quality of the car.
And so there's certain categories.
So they'll say, you know, engine use of use of genuine Porsche parts.
And so that'd be worth 20 points.
And then you'll kind of go down the list of suspension and brakes.
So there's certain things that will say use of genuine Porsche parts
next to it.
And then there's a certain things that, you know, for wheels,
you know, are they appropriate?
You know, so there'll be certain things like that.
I guess for our listeners, this wasn't always the case of Porsche.
You would never tell anyone to take their older Porsche to a dealer.
Because they would say, these guys have never seen an air cooled car.
Don't take your car there.
All right.
And that has changed over the past, I don't know, 15, 20 years,
maybe since Porsche Classic really came into the scene and they started
pushing like this restoration challenge and Porsche themselves.
I remember with PCA they restored a 73T and they wanted to show the world
that they still could work on their own cars from from the past.
So and I think the end of the individualization is pretty cool
because one of the other things that you're always told was a dealer
will not do anything.
The model, your car's modifications don't take it to the dealer
because they won't touch it.
Right.
And now you're seeing dealers that do do mods and will put stuff on your
car. So it's pretty interesting to see the evolution of the dealer.
That's the exact word I was just thinking of is the evolution of the dealerships
and the evolution of the customer in wanting certain things done to their
car, but then also Porsche themselves evolving to making sure that they
have all these parts available to these older models because without
their support in making this stuff, it would make ownership very difficult.
Right.
Yeah. And it's, you know, in the world of, you know, these finding
technicians that have that experience, you know, I'm I'm fortunate enough,
I have a tech that's been working on and off for Porsche and Audi for the past
30 years. So he's seen a lot of these cars when they're brand new.
And so he's kind of my go to going, you know, hey, I have a 993
Targa that's having issues with their roof.
And he's just going, oh, man, because he's done it.
He knows, he knows what he's done it all for.
And he knows exactly what it takes to take those apart and get them
working right.
And they're factory trained or the training course.
And that's just that process of getting all those little motors in the
back to sync up, right?
So that roof, you know, doesn't bind.
And so is his normal response, close it and disconnect the button.
No, he kind of likes to shake his head at me and just go, oh, but, you
know, we try to, you know, we want to support the classic community.
You know, it doesn't, it wouldn't, it doesn't make sense to say, oh,
no, we don't want to work on those cars.
And that's what I'm passionate about.
I love old cars.
I love analog, you know, mechanical, you know, that kind of, that sensation
you get of driving an older vehicle like that with no driver aids.
But I think that also comes with the attitude or the passion, the dealership,
the dealership owners, the dealership management has because let's face it,
it's much easier to just remove and replace modern stuff, right?
And, and, and just bill out like constantly as opposed to when you
get into these projects, sometimes you're kind of married to them.
So you have to have some sort of passion for doing this and wanting
to provide this service to the customer.
And I think that's what that's what Porsche Classic expects.
And when you become a Porsche Classic dealer, they know that you believe in that too.
Right. Exactly.
They provide the parts.
Yeah.
I forgot how many thousands I think of parts, classic ads.
Yeah.
Or catalog every year.
And I tell people, I go, there's a form, not a form, but a button
on their website that you can hit and you can put on there at a part
that you're looking for that they don't have available.
And if they get enough requests, they'll start making it.
And it's happened to my friend was nine, six, four body party needed.
And they didn't they said, we get five orders.
We'll make it for you.
Yeah, I ran into that with this car, but I didn't have the time to wait.
So actually I had to get 3D printing involved on some of the parts.
Yeah.
Well, hopefully it sends a message to we'll talk to Alex.
When the when the dealer decides to embark on the classic restoration
challenge is the I guess the budget purely on the dealership.
It's up to our discretion what we're willing to spend.
You know, it's not necessarily a fair fight either.
You know, some of these dealerships, I've seen the builds they do.
Like the guy, I think he won last year, that was a very impressive build.
He was in area E.
So I went up against him, you know, for the regional competition.
He went on to win the whole thing.
He was the Grand National Championship and the car you could just tell
that they sunk a lot of money into it.
And it was a beautiful car.
And this is the dealer's car.
This is the customer's car.
That one was a customer's car.
Yes.
So you're allowed to have a customer.
If you're fortunate to have a customer backing the build, like that.
That's that's great for some, you know, on our case,
we buy the cars the past few years, we bought them ourselves
and then we built them and we sold last year's car to a customer
up in Massachusetts and we're going to be doing the same thing with this car.
Once we're done doing the whole challenge, we'll list it for sale.
I think the gentleman who has a deposit on it right now, listen to the podcast
we did last time, called me up a couple of weeks later going,
I loved everything you said.
I want the car without even seeing it.
So where do we submit our commission check commission invoice?
I mean, what's the next project?
Right. So not every dealership, you know, they get to decide
how much they're willing to invest.
You know, because to them, it's got to be makes sense at the end.
You know, it's going to be worthwhile for their investment
and you know, it's going to make the dealership money
and all those kind of things are kind of factored in.
That's awesome.
That's awesome that honestly an insider interview or discussion
led to someone to their next dream car.
Yeah. That's cool.
Yeah. I was blown away.
I was very flattered that he was that enthusiastic of just the ideas
I had for without even seeing it.
So with the last one, once it was brought back,
then you're just putting it for sale like as a as a.
Yeah. Once once the car came back, we were in Chicago last year.
We just, you know, cleaned it up, took a bunch of photos of it,
put it on the showroom floor, took a couple months to sell that one
because it was such a unique build, you know, an off-road, you know,
C4S, but I couldn't have been happier with the gentleman who bought it.
He loves the car. He keeps sending me photos of it.
He's been off-roading. It was a common trend, remember?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
He's he was the he was the perfect guy to buy that car.
I was thinking we might even see that car at one of the ports
when we're at. Oh, yeah.
Mm hmm. All right.
So let's get into the details.
But before we do that, I want to make sure we think our latest
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So before we move on, are you still going to be restoring a nine
fourteen two years from now, just to keep them as a sponsor?
So you can say that every time.
I think it's it is independent.
Oh, or not.
Go of it.
I would say start restoring because you have not started.
I haven't started restoring.
And you've taken a part.
I've taken a part.
Anyone can turn a wrench left.
I know. I guilty of that.
Taking a part of car.
Gosh, why does it?
So I will say the very first part I bought for my nine fourteen
when I brought it home from Oklahoma is because I think I shared with you
that my one of my calipers froze.
And then when I as soon as I got at home, I was like, you know what?
I'm going to put all four new calipers on the car
and get me on my way to my nine fourteen experience.
So my first part that I bought, which was back, this was in 2007.
And they were pretty rare.
It was finding and I'll ask Manny because he'll know the rear brake calipers
were really rare for for nine fourteen.
And why is that?
They're not so much rare is that they're a little harder to adjust
than the than the fronts.
I wouldn't say they're rare, though.
Back then they were rare because I tried.
Well, OK, finding them at a reasonable price, maybe it was rare.
OK, maybe I declare it's been so long.
It's been so long.
It's rare finding a GT3 RS for 100,000.
Yes, I was in my first year of college when you picked that car up.
Oh, gosh, get out of the room, get out of the room.
So maybe that's what it was.
It was me finding the good news, like I've told you hundreds of times
is that the car has gone up in value since you bought it.
Yes, nine four teams now are very desirable.
It's rust free.
It is. Yeah.
So yeah, I think it'd be a perfect project
for a poster owns mills or a store next year.
Hey, I know a guy.
Think about think about all the press, all the press.
You know, all the press they would get from.
Let's talk. Let's talk.
It was nine fourteen.
Yeah, we need a project car for next year.
And then you could have your son drive at this graduation.
Wow. OK.
I like it. I like it.
I've never seen this car.
Never seen it.
Youngest son has never seen it.
My two oldest have pictures in it, but my youngest has only heard
about pumpkin, the myth and the rumor.
Yeah. All right.
We'll talk later about that. OK.
But back into your your your project at hand here.
Obviously, we mentioned it earlier.
That's the nine nine six.
Tell us about the condition a bit and then
the process because we talked about it before.
I'm just going to say if you want me to bring up
a specific picture for YouTube viewers, just let me know.
Otherwise, I'm just going to try and find the as we are.
Well, can I say why nine nine six?
Why nine nine six?
It's kind of it's been interesting.
I've never really thought of myself as like a nine nine six guy
until maybe
like last year when I was really starting to look for him
for the last year's project car, and we ended up going with the C4S
in the 2004.
And then just being in that car, I really started to appreciate him.
And you know, these cars for the longest time have kind of like
languished as the you know, the black sheep of the nine elevens.
People just like, oh, the ugly headlights, you know,
they got IMS bearing issues.
They got bore scoring issues.
The interior is awful.
Like they were just anything they could find wrong with a car.
They just would say it.
And so and I think I was kind of guilty of that, too, you know,
especially when the nine nine seven came out right after you.
Like, oh, this is a much superior car.
But I have grown to just to love those cars for what they really are.
I think the the design of them has aged very well.
You know, when they're cleaned up, right?
They look they're a very good looking car, like your car with it.
When it has the arrow, I think it's a gorgeous car.
I always loved it. And I yeah, I've taken the beating, right?
I've taken the beating for decades of owning that car because everyone.
But now I feel like I feel like my
especially the the dot one cars with the original headlights.
Yeah, I think people really appreciate them now.
And in fact, they look at a nine nine seven front end now and they go,
oh, that's kind of plain.
Yeah, I mean, generic.
You don't you don't know what it is.
Yeah, I will buy your plane nine, I seven any day.
And I argue like those headlights are the GT one headlights.
You know, I've been saying that I've been saying that all along.
So we're getting our day.
So I think they're I think their values are going to start coming up,
especially the arrow kick cars. I think they're next.
But they're just especially the ninety nine's.
I love those the most because they're kind of that bridge.
They're that, you know, from transitioning from the air cool nine nine threes.
There's still some kind of older characteristics to them.
I mean, they still kind of feel like a vintage nine eleven.
They still have that analog feeling to them.
They have that cable throttle body.
Yeah, there's no driver assist to them.
They're light. They're by today's standards.
It's a really small, it's a small car.
Small car. Yeah.
And so, you know, if you're looking for that kind of that pure
driving experience where you're going to feel the road,
you know, with the hydraulic steering.
And I just think that's a platform that
they're not super expensive to maintain either.
And you know, there's plenty of parts available for them.
I just I think it's a they're a great platform.
And when we were looking for cars, we went kind of down through the gambit.
I was there was a eighty five nine eleven.
I was pitching to, you know, the dealership to buy there.
I even found a silver rose nine forty four turbo s
that was stolen in eighty nine and had been missing for thirty some plus years.
I thought it was a great story.
But title issues kind of held that one up.
And then we ended up looking at the auction sites and, you know,
this car we found out in Utah, I actually saw it for sale
the year prior when I was bought the C four S and the car still isn't sold.
I mean, it was in rough shape.
I mean, it just looked neglected.
It was a rich one owner, seventy two thousand original miles.
So on paper, it started sounding really good.
I think it was a kind of a pedestrian color.
It was. It was beige on base.
You know, Toyota, Camry, you know, color combo.
But it was it had good bones to it.
It was, you know, rust free, low mileage.
It was kind of like I looked at like a blank canvas and you knew you were going to redo it.
So and I knew that. Yeah.
So, you know, for underneath the car, I knew that I wouldn't have to worry
about structural issues and had never been in an accident.
You know, I was going to have to go through the whole thing entirely,
you know, engine, suspension, brakes, all that kind of stuff.
But we were already planning on doing that.
So it was kind of it fit the bill, you know, and I always wanted to build
like a GT three tribute.
That was the car we never got.
You know, the first generation GT three was Europe only.
And that's my dream car to get one of those.
I love the import one.
Yeah. So I wanted to build something
that was kind of paid tribute to that somewhere in between a base
Carrera and a GT three kind of club sportish.
And then we kind of it snowballed into doing a wide body
because we bought the wrong wheels, but it it ended up doing some of the stuff
that I've always seen on the forums, you know, guys, like,
how can I get the turbo bumper on a narrow body car?
And so that was something I always wanted to do, get those rear,
you know, grills on the rear bumper on a car like that.
And then it just it turned into a very fun build and a rewarding build.
And I'm very happy the way it turned out.
Yeah, that's what I remember from the last time you were here
that the the project sort of took a turn with the wheels,
because I'm getting new wheels, well, you got new wheels,
but they weren't the right offset.
And the solution to that was not getting another set of no solution
to that was doing bodywork. Right.
I think the most I think ever, not to sell the wheel
to get the right wheels, but we're going to make this thing fit.
Yeah. Well, it ended up being we didn't build a restoration around the car.
We ended up building a car around the wheel. Yeah, exactly.
And it snowballed a lot more.
And I thought all the little extra parts that you wouldn't think you'd have to get.
So, you know, I got the wheels.
All right. Well, now I need a wide body rear bumper.
All right. Now I need the brackets that attach to the rear bumper.
I need the wheel well liners.
And then I need the bumperettes because the turbos
and C4S have different style bumperettes.
And then those don't fit onto the rear brace support behind that.
So I got to buy the rear brace support.
It just kept going. I didn't realize that.
And then there's all the little trim that goes around the exhaust.
And then I had to get custom custom made tailpipes
because if I'm using narrow body mufflers,
they aren't the same as the C4S, but it just kept going.
That's like the person who I warned when they cleaned there.
They fixed their speedometer or odometer.
And I go, just be aware that when you get it back,
that car odometer speedometer is going to look brand new
because they're going to clean it, right?
And it's going to look like make your other gauges look like crap.
So now you're going to clean that.
That's going to make your dash look terrible
because the gauges look new in the dash.
So that I said, and pretty soon you're going to have the whole car
taken apart all because you want to fix to go down.
Yeah. So that's what it sounds like.
Before we get to the details of the the wide body and all that,
am I good to show our YouTube viewers what the car looks like now?
Yeah, go for it.
Let's do that because it looks really good.
Yeah, there it is.
Yeah. And you can barely tell that it's a wide body from certain angles.
But I said, as soon as I saw, I said, this is what I think they should have.
I never had a problem with the headlights.
It was the slab sidedness of the car.
Yeah, it lost the career of flares at the nine nine three.
It's predecessor had.
And I think this they did a great job of
many maybe describe the car to people that aren't watching on YouTube.
Well, what color is it?
So it is amethyst metallic is the color we choose.
Our body shop, when the little creative flare with it, they put a flow code on top.
So it makes it kind of have that darker look.
So when you get right on top of you, see all that depth?
Yeah, in my watch, I had a little purple to it.
She said, oh, amethyst, but I didn't see it.
But it's yeah, it's a striking color.
And we'll hear about how they how they widen the rear end, but it's very subtle.
And you probably won't notice unless you have another nine, nine, six next to right.
And that's how the C for us is where when you when you looked at them,
it was a very subtle wide body.
But the rear was really, really awesome.
Yeah. And when you have a straight shot of the rear of the car,
you can really see it looks it looks mean.
Then he told us that they actually moved the front out a little bit, too.
Well, those wheels were weird.
They're a weird offset.
So I'm not sure what Gambala was doing back then
if they had some sort of their own arrow kit they were putting on the cars.
But the rear stuck out a little too far.
And even the fronts were out a little too far.
So yeah, you're a nine, nine, six, aficionado.
You're going to notice up right away.
If you're a casual Porsche enthusiast,
you're just going to see a really good looking car with an arrow kit,
aggressive stance, a great looking wheels.
Go go back.
And I six people are probably going to be wondering, how can I do this to my car?
So the Amethyst metallic, the wheel,
Gambala wheels are now gold.
But what kind of neodymical neodymical.
Yeah, the the fenders are flared out
perfectly to the to the edge of the tires.
Well, we had to say that's even a funny story about that too.
So we got wheels that were slightly too wide.
We widened the car to the specs of a wide body.
And I still had to push my wheels out a little farther.
Oh, I'm running a 10 millimeter wheel space from the back now, too.
Oh, so it went further than it went further than the wheel needed.
What size tire did you end up?
It's a it's a two eighty five on that wheel.
I probably could have gone to tonight.
Well, I bought those tires before I decided to go wide body.
That was the biggest tire I thought I could squeeze in a narrow body.
So do you know the dimensions of the width now versus a wide body car?
Is it wider than a wide body car?
The fenders should be almost exactly what a factory C4S should be.
Because you match it to the rear bumper. We match to that rear bumper.
So we think we gained about an inch and a half to two inches per side.
OK, in width, but you didn't use any wide body body work.
You guys did it yourself.
Yeah, because we wanted to do it, you know, something that Porsche.
Would have done. So we just we did it the old school way,
you know, with a hammer and, you know, he did it all by hand.
It was I was blown away by how he did it.
We didn't cut any of the metal, you know, no grafting.
It was just I was amazed on how he was able to sculpt
that rear shape to make it look like it was done from the factory.
So he was able to shape and extend that
without pulling the fender off the car.
No. So if you pretty much he got that rear bumper on there,
pulled the metal out to match where he wanted the width to be.
And then he slowly worked his way up.
That's to shape it to like that nice
car tour to make it look like it was done done from the factory.
Wow, respect.
They look up until this photo.
I thought, I think I can do it.
Yeah, right.
You're like, oh, just take a baseball bat
and run it back and forth a couple of times.
No, but Tim is he's a very talented guy.
And we're very lucky to have him at our our body shop.
Is it still a sunroof car?
Did you keep a sunroof?
Kept a sunroof. Yeah, that I didn't have time for that.
There was certain things, you know, if we had two years to do this car,
you know, I could have gone full rotisserie on it.
And, you know, we could have really like done some custom custom stuff to it.
But within the four months we had to do the car, this was pushing it.
So C4 I see C4S rear bumper,
arrow kit side skirts, arrow kit front end.
And then you also did the taco wing.
Yeah, I love that taco wing.
I know it's it's it's my favorite wing Porsche ever did.
Damon, can you go to the interior?
Because I thought I saw some cool stuff on the interior
because originally it was beige, beige, beige, beige, beige.
Right. But it seems as though you broke it up with some introducing some black.
Yeah. And so I kind of took inspiration.
We had a ST that got delivered a couple of months prior to doing this car.
And, you know, they had a really nice two tone, you know,
they're the brown they were using there was a little darker,
but it was a two tone interior with and it really made it seem
like it was a classy, you know, it broke up that all beige look.
So I wanted it all to glare. Right.
So I really wanted to mimic that.
So that's why we. Wow.
Paint of the dash.
We got a different color steering wheel, black carpet.
You know, we did some you had the carpet on the door panels.
That was a nightmare to do, too.
Those are all plastic riveted in there.
So to disassemble that door panel was a was a bear.
But we got it a really nice two tone looking interior.
And then, you know, the centerpiece is really those seats.
Those are factory replica GT three seats.
Nice. And you they came in that color.
Did you have to have it?
I had a custom order them that way.
So that was they're from England.
OK. And I was a little nervous
because when every any time you're reupholstering a seat,
especially a tan seat, yeah, it's it's really hard to match old tan
versus tan. Got you.
And I had to approve it just by a picture via email.
And they're going, this is the closest we got.
I was crossing my fingers and please, when they show up, please be close.
And I was very happy how close of a match it was to the original Savannah beige.
The you went from a three spoke wheel to a four spoke wheel.
But that four spoke will also looks like the the the diameter of the.
They look like it's a thicker rimmed wheel.
So this I found this wheel on eBay.
I love a three spoke wheel.
I put one in my nine nine six.
They demand a lot more money.
Yeah. But this one was completely remanufactured.
So it had a brand new leather wrap on it.
I like you said, I think they did a little bit thicker.
Yeah, it looks good.
The four spoke kind of reminds me of the very early, early cars.
Sure. You know, so this was a ninety nine.
You know, I was like, it's kind of fitting.
I'm going to put the the very first, you know, early wheel on there
before the three spoke was available.
Yeah, it looks good.
Yeah, the white gauge faces were they already on the car?
Those were factory.
And we kind of toyed with playing around with the color of the gauge faces.
But my sales manager, he was like, Pete, you know, how rare those were?
Like that was a good option to have back then.
So I was like, oh, so we replaced all the little digital screens
in the bottom, you know, how those pixel eight.
So I had that sent out to have those already done.
Did you I see the shifter, of course, the shifter knob is new,
but is the shifter mechanism new?
So yeah, the shifter mechanism, we we took one out of a nine, nine, seven.
Nice. So we put that that's such an easy swap.
Anyone has a best upgrade.
Yeah. Anyone has a nine, nine, six.
It's it really you can do it in a day or an afternoon.
Really, the console comes out fairly easily.
It's four bolts that hold that shifter assembly.
And really, this changed the characteristic of not too short, not too
notchy, but perfect.
Yeah. And then we topped it off with a handmade Carrera GT style
wooden shift knob.
Now, the body kit that is on the air,
it looks like an arrow kit and stuff, but it's by Getty by Getty.
Yeah. At first, I was trying to source an original one,
but to find an original arrow kit, piece it all together,
one that's in good shape that hasn't been beat up.
You're you're shelling out some big bucks, even if you can find it.
Are those available through Porsche Classic anymore or no?
I don't think so.
I think you can get part of it.
I think you can get the front bumper.
I think that wing is impossible to get.
Really? But I, especially in the time frame we had, you know,
you said, you know, I could probably order one from Porsche
and they'd wait till they had enough orders before they would send it to me.
So we went ahead.
Getty's got a great reputation for the quality kits they make.
A lot of our club researchers use Getty, don't they?
Yeah. And they the wing that fit very well.
I was very impressed in how well that deck lid
just kind of bolted right up and we didn't have to do a whole lot to it.
Nice, nice.
The color, the Amethyst metallic, was that your choosing?
Or did you have like a group decision?
Or it was so, yeah, our GM and I,
we kind of sat down and looked at a lot of different colors.
Amethyst is one that it's just such a beautiful color.
I don't know why Porsche didn't offer it more years.
They brought it back briefly on the Cayenne.
I think it was 17 or 18 or something like that.
But it was it's such a pretty color.
And I think on a 9-11, it's just my sister's favorite color is purple.
And I remember when they came out with that.
Yeah. And she was also potentially shopping for a Cayenne.
I send it to her and she fell in love with it.
Yeah, it's a beautiful color.
So did the decision to paint the wheels come after the car was painted?
After the car was painted.
You looked at, OK. Yeah.
And I saw I was looking at, you know, googling Amethyst metallic 9-11
to kind of see what, you know, what colors went with each other,
especially with our Savannah beige interior.
I kind of toyed of like, I keep the wheel silver,
then I probably got silver stripe down the side or even a black stripe down the side.
I saw a GT3, I think it was an 18 or a 19.
And it was Amethyst metallic with neodyne gold wheels and and that same
side I can I could order that same side stripe and neodyne gold.
And so that that was kind of the decision maker.
Let's repaint the wheels.
Let's put the matching gold side stripe on it.
And kind of tie the whole car together.
I think it really kind of makes the interior tie together with the wheels and everything.
And it kind of just brings it all all together.
So I like the neodyne color.
I was thinking of painting my M.Y.O.2's color.
But my my question was, how did you get the center caps to match?
Did you paint the center cap?
Paint those two.
Oh, and it's really hard like the photos here.
It's it's a very hard color to photograph in almost color shifts.
Like in these photographs, it looks a little bit more yellow.
Where you see it in person.
It's got more of like a matte finish and the light really kind of reflects off
it differently. So that's painted.
Not powder coated.
Yeah, it's painted. It's painted.
The center caps on those gambola wheels were metal.
So they were pretty easy to paint.
And the crest was elevated.
So we just we just taped them off and painted around them.
Suspension wise, it looks like it's sitting lower than stock.
Yeah. So last time we talked about
Bill Steen's or Coney's and we talked about, you know, M.O.
Three O's Springs.
But after I saw the wide body work being done,
I got really kind of unsure that decision.
I was I really wanted to have control over the ride height
and being able to adjust it all.
So we ended up going with some Owlans.
Well, well, well, well, well, well.
We we joked about my GM and I were.
No expensive spirit.
Apparently after we decide to go wide body,
we just kept saying full send.
Yeah, send it that that whatever the car needs do.
Lovely road and track.
Coilers are the road and track.
Well, those aren't actually super expensive.
Love the choice.
What is not exactly expensive?
So I picked those up for 3400 bucks.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
First for a set of Coilers, J.R.Z.
is going to be 10 to 15.
That's actually and I guess they're probably not as hard
to adjust as a full race.
Right, right.
I could always help you by going unless you got a pit crew
that's monitoring tire temperatures and pressures and whatnot.
That's going to be hard to set.
And I was I was blown away by these.
I actually I installed them myself.
I was kind of shorthanded in the shop that week
and we had a two week deadline to get the car ready for you guys.
So I actually installed them.
I was amazed at how easy it was to put them in the instructions.
They gave me, you know, I measured out everything
a couple of times, made sure it was right, put them in and out of the box.
I drove this car last weekend.
It it handled great.
Oh, yeah, that's I haven't dialed in yet.
When Damon got his and we went out for a test drive.
Oh, man, I was so jealous.
I was so jealous because it it rides.
I would say very much like a GT3 where it's very compliant.
But then when you get on to it and get into, you know,
make it flex and make it do its thing.
It's and that's what we're trying to go for because that's a nice balance.
I really wanted to pay homage to that first GT3
and it had Coilers on it.
Yeah.
So I wanted to something that was kind of going to mimic that.
And I think Olin's were the only way really to go with it.
What did you do with the sway bars?
Sway bars, we left them stock.
You know, this car, I think if if someone was really wanted to go
track it and run it hard, then yeah, you'd probably upgrade the sway bars.
But I think for the street, you know, if you're just kind of going through
back roads, it's funny. It's funny.
I agree.
It's what we did with Project 964.
Having had a 964 when I put big sway bars on.
Yeah.
It's there's a lot to be said.
If most of your driving is going to be a street, right?
Yeah.
So we wanted to make sure the car is still comfortable enough on the streets
where you can still have fun with it, but not, you know, break your back
every time you get in the car.
So what about the heart of the car, the engine and the transmission?
What condition was it in and what did you have to do with it?
It was like when I first got got the car, engine runs.
It ran great. Nice and smooth idle.
I mean, 72,000.
Oh, man, so it had great oil pressure.
Clutch was gone in it.
So I didn't really get to drive the car when we first got it.
But, you know, we took, we dropped the whole engine, transmission out.
So you did the air box upgrade.
I did the air box upgrade.
So it's got a 997 air box.
We did a custom emblem on that, too.
So it says three, four instead of the three, six, nine.
Other than looking better.
Does it do anything else?
Well, I don't know.
People will say it's better air flow, better design.
I don't know how to really to test that, but that's what the internet says.
Yeah, there we go.
And the internet can't be wrong.
Right. The forums are never wrong.
Yeah, but it's more visually appealing air box for sure.
And that's why I wanted to go with it.
And did it already have or did you do the IMS upgrade?
So it had the IMS done at some point in life.
I don't know when we pulled it out, but I put a fresh Ellen bearing in there.
When we because when we had the clutch out, like mine as well,
you know, new rear main seal, all the seals on the engine were replaced.
Anything that was leaking new air oil separator on it, all the all
like the vacuum stuff on top, the engine was replaced, had the intake off,
did all the seals on there, really just tried to freshen it up.
New plugs, new coils, full tune up on it.
Man, so whoever gets it's going to get it ready to go.
This car, yeah.
That person that has a deposit good on you that you you jumped on it
because this is a heck of a bond.
And then it has the the fister mufflers on it, too.
So it sounds amazing, too.
Yeah, I got in it, too, a little bit.
It's got a great soundtrack.
Nice, nice.
And for those that don't know, the fister modifications really
is trying to emulate the very rare, which I'm happy to say that I have.
It tries to emulate the factory sport exhaust.
Exactly. The early nine, nine, six, super rare to find.
But man, they sound so good.
They sound so good.
And the fister muffler.
And they they did a full restore, like they refinished them.
They're I wish I could show them off, you know, with the bumper off the car.
Yeah, because they're beautiful mufflers.
The finish they did on them was just great.
The restoration they did on them for me.
Any any other part of the car that we're
forgetting about that was touched, massaged?
I think those are the kind of the main things, you know, with the
the lightweight flywheel we did.
I don't know if I mentioned that.
Oh, no, yeah, the GT3 had a lightweight single mass in it.
The first one.
So we kind of wanted to do that as much as I could do
without putting a Metzger motor in it, you know, breaking the bank.
You know, we tried to emulate that as much as we could.
So it's like a lightweight fly one as well.
How does that how does that feel engagement wise?
I love it. It's it's a very quick engagement.
It revs very fast.
You do get a little chatter, you know, when you're a stoplight.
But you know, if you're a car guy, you know what it is, you don't really care.
Right. But I love the way when I when I drove it or the weekend,
I was I was blown away how well it was out of the box without me
really having to do any fine tuning at which we're going to do in the next
couple of weeks. And where does it go next?
So September 5th, it's going to get on a transport to go to New York
and Porsche is doing the area east judging at the Classic Car Club of Manhattan.
Oh, OK. So we'll be up there for the they judge it on the sixth.
They'll have the VIP event where they announce the class winners.
And then Sunday, it'll be open to the public
where you can come vote for people's choice. OK. Or my car, you know.
Nice. Exactly. One in the same.
Yeah. If you prove yourself and do well there,
the finals is should be out in California.
I haven't looked at the details on that yet.
I don't know if they've announced the time location on the nationals.
I don't think they had when I was looking. Oh, yeah.
Maybe. OK. But did we already go over what the winner gets?
Oh, yes. So it's pretty interesting one.
Yeah. So they changed the rules a bit this year
because last year it's tough going and you walk home empty handed.
Yeah. But this year they kind of sweeten the pot.
So if you make it to the judging, so if we make it to New York,
you get awarded another sports car allocation for your dealerships.
Oh, nice. So that would essentially mean probably a Boxster or a Cayman, I'm assuming.
If you win your class, if you win your restoration or preservation class,
you get a 992 turbo allocation.
If you win people's choice, you get another 992 turbo allocation.
And then you get to go to nationals where you get a whole
another round of if you win your class, another 992 turbo allocation,
people's choice, another allocation and grand national winner, another allocation.
So you have the potential.
Say if you want everything, you could win five cars for the dealerships.
That's huge. And that would especially those cars, especially those cars.
You got to look at it from a sales standpoint where the profit they make
on this because we they're just allocating.
We're not getting the car for free.
Right. You know, we're buying the car from Porsche.
But it's the unexpected that you weren't expecting.
Yeah. Because you have the waiting list.
You know, guys are in line for a 9-11.
Oh, yeah. Now I have an extra car or an extra two cars
to give to our customers. That's that's huge.
And you're getting a turbo.
You're getting all the nice sweet options, right?
PTS, if that's available, you know, we'll be building it up.
Exclusive stuff on there. Yeah, that's a big deal.
And then, you know, hopefully in dollars and cents,
why is it kind of offsets how much you've spent?
I think so. Yeah. I mean, we're still going to sell the car.
You know, so we will make money from that.
We'll make money from that.
I bill it out at cost, you know, for the dealerships.
I'm not, you know, doing a full book, but we'll build the car.
You know, what we have into the car, buying it, what we have in the body,
working paint and then mechanical upgrades.
And they'll sell it for a small profit.
But that so that have its own little, you know, incentive there.
But hopefully we walk away with an allocation or two for the dealership.
That'd be amazing.
How many hours do you think you've talked about billing?
I've kept track, roughly.
I'm probably without the body shop, just on my side of it.
I'm probably into it for like 40, 50 hours.
Oh, that's not bad at all.
Yeah. Wow.
Well, some of it was I did myself.
I didn't bill myself.
Oh, wow.
Anything that you would have done differently now that the car is done?
Um, it's a tough one.
These were all kind of boxes.
I was able to check on things I've always wanted to do to a nine, nine, six.
Would I if I could have had more time and more money, like I said,
I probably would have rotisserie the whole car and just redone the whole thing.
But I'm very happy the way the paint turned out.
I'm very happy the way the body work turned out.
The interior, the whole car kind of came together.
I was very pleased with it.
Yeah, I think it goes so wider audience of this.
Whoever put the deposit doesn't buy it.
It's still an easier car to sell before you modify it so much.
Right.
So you visualize that.
And that's that's kind of my own personal taste with cars.
I love some cars I've, you know, my nine, nine, seven.
I haven't changed the thing on except the radio.
I put the PCCM plus in it.
That car is 100 percent stock.
My M five, I've done some suspension work because the car sat too high
when it was from brand new.
But I love to do mods where you can't really tell if that was factory or not.
Yeah.
And that's that's that's what I like to do is like you have to really look at
the car and go, was this the hell came?
Or is this something that was done after the fact?
Yeah, that's the best one.
They're like Easter eggs.
Like you have to look for them and you know, oh, that's a nice little touch.
Yeah, that's all in the details.
I try to do a lot of little small detail work.
We're like, oh, that's a nice touch.
They did to it.
You know, that didn't that shouldn't be there, but it all goes together.
Well, congratulations to the person that has the deposit
because you are already the winner.
I'm just going to say that right now.
But best of luck in the competition.
I hope you make it to finals where we'll get to see the car again.
And yeah, yeah, well done.
Very well done.
And I wish there was a way to get that car to unstock too,
because I think that would do really well letting the West Coast.
You can troll the other ways.
West Coast.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
Exactly.
All right, folks, I want to remind you to head over to PCA.org
and sign up for PCA's newsletters, performance news, e-brake news
and Martin Fresh news.
And let's get into the news.
The first item we have is Pinsky Motorsports at Road America.
So they did not win.
They finished fifth.
And did you know that Pinsky has never a Pinsky card
never finished below fifth in imps of this year?
Wow.
Wow.
And I mean, their second car finished, I think, 11th,
because they got to stop and go penalty.
But even though they finished fifth,
they still moved up in the standings.
So they're still leading the championship with the three races,
I think, to go.
Well, let's hope they get another imps of championship.
Very cool.
And this has been the next news item has been all over social media
because people have been clamoring with the idea
that the gas-powered McCons were going away
and we are faced with just EV, so to speak, in that class.
But is it true?
Is it true that there perhaps might be a gasoline power?
This is based on an investor call
and Oliver Blumma indicated that they would be coming out
with a not a McCon again.
I think they want to keep the McCon line with the EV.
But another SUV, small SUV gas,
which leads to a lot of speculation,
it's got to come from the VW Audi family.
And we went to all the presentations
when the McCon first came out
and how much work they had to do.
And actually everyone said it was just a Q5
with new bodywork, but it was actually a lot of work
they had to make to make it like a Porsche.
So I would imagine they are working triple overtime
in the Y-Sock right now to get this car
up the market pretty quickly.
And I know people are probably saying,
why don't they just keep on making the McCon
since they're making it, but I believe that's the reason
the reason why they stopped making that
and it came in was the European laws.
It's not a simply just saying, let's keep the machine,
let's keep the assembly line running.
It doesn't meet the new standards.
Exactly, yeah.
So I guess the question begs is
if the McCon was, people are saying Q5
and you need a smaller subcompact SUV,
then that's the Q3.
Well, I think the Q5, they just came out with a new version.
They're still making that car.
Yeah.
So, I thought about the Q3 and I'm like,
whoa, that's really small.
Yeah, it's small, yeah.
But there may be, because the Q5 or so,
that to me would be, if they have an updated version.
I see what you're saying.
That platform, the question will be.
The new Q5, they call it.
But don't call it the McCon.
Yeah, I mean, the McCon seems like the easiest
so they already have an established market.
But what to take away from the EV and...
How interesting the market, EV, gas and,
man, can you imagine being the manufacturer
trying to dial all this in?
That's true, for sure.
Trying to forecast quantities and production and,
man, someone's earning their bed.
It will be interesting to see if Oliver Bulma
is still the CEO of Porsche at the end of this year.
Right, within a year rather.
Because I think it's still BBW,
but will he still hold both positions?
That's a lot of pressure.
And he's, I mean, who would've thought two years ago
that we'd be talking about tariffs?
You know, it was something I don't think
that they thought was gonna really happen,
but it's really happening.
Yeah, wow.
All right, upcoming PCA events.
PCA's open house is September 13th.
Registration is open.
Treffen at Sea, our senior anniversary cruise
heading out of New York, August 30th to September 6th.
A little plug in for our locals that are listening here
in the Maryland DMV area.
TPC Racing is going to be hosting Alan Springer.
Alan Springer's coming on the cruise with us,
but he's gonna stop by here at the PCA National Office
before he hops on the cruise.
And TPC has invited him and the Chesapeake region
and the Potomac region.
There should be some details out for you
to be able to end there.
It's gonna be a Friday evening.
Should be a nice time.
We're doing some charity parking, so on and so forth.
I'm smally because if you've never heard Alan speak,
he's the most straight shooter person.
Unfiltered.
Holds nothing back.
Unfiltered.
He has some great stories about how things used to be,
but like I told Bill, I said that this morning,
I said, well, he's gonna be able to tell us
behind the scenes of the 963 program
goes up until like last, last year.
I think he was going to every race as a consultant.
So it's not like he ended in 1980s racing.
He's been involved ever all through the 963.
He's in the paddock.
He's in the paddock.
They rely on his expertise a lot.
So I think if you come to the event,
it's gonna be, is it limited to how many?
I think they're limiting to 100 folks.
Oh yeah, fill up fast.
So it'll fill up fast.
And if you have any questions,
just drop us an email, we'll get to the details.
Unstak, we talked about that earlier.
Perfect place for your car.
But if you can't make it,
but those of you in the West Coast can,
it's gonna be November 16th at Porsche of Santa Clarita.
Beautiful facility.
And we should have a great time.
We've got lots of vendors are gonna be there.
We've got all the modified Porsches
from the West Coast is gonna be there.
And yeah, looking forward to that.
Latest video drop, the Elva Porsche.
Yeah, so you might recognize the name, Joe Busetta.
He raced in the, he was a Porsche factory driver,
I believe it was 64 to 69.
He won the 1,000 kilometers of the Nurburgring
in a Porsche 910, which is one of their last
street legal prototype race cars.
And he raced everything, you know,
on the lower end up to the 910
and also for other manufacturers.
One of the cars he raced was something called
an Elva Porsche, which Elva was a company
in England, they made the chassis
and then you could put whatever motor you wanted into it.
And I think a couple of them,
this one in particular had a Carrera 4 cam engine in it,
flat four 4 cam engine.
And at some point, Joe Busetta, Junior,
the original son ended up buying it and he owns it now.
So we went out and filmed a video
and I think it was August 2023, before Renz 47.
And we just released that video.
And Joe Busetta, Junior just goes through,
talks about the car.
We were at the Ingram Experience, was that it?
Yeah, it's a driving experience.
You're in the Ingram Magazine.
Yep, so just a little bit of history about the car.
We don't dive too deep into it,
but it's an interesting car, fascinating.
It has a flat six now.
So it's not completely original, but you know, Elvis,
they had all sorts of different engines.
Then we have one lap of VIR.
It's not the greatest lap, that was a shakedown run.
The camera angle's phenomenal.
Yeah, the camera angle's great,
but they were still working on the shifter
and he couldn't select fourth or fifth
all that easily in the lap.
So don't expect, you know, a flying lap,
but if you wanna go see an Elvaporsha
from the 60s driving around VIR.
All I could think of was how crazy it was
to drive this car.
The angle he's at, you see his shoulders,
you see it's a great angle that Damon set up
and I just thought, oh my God,
there's like no protection, it seems.
Oh, no.
And it's all fiberglass, so it's a,
but back then, you know, I explained to people,
if it wasn't like 550s, we're sitting on dealers lots
waiting for someone to buy them.
You know, it was like a GT3 RS.
You had to know somebody or what not to get one.
So to fill that hole of people who couldn't get one,
these other manufacturers like Elva would give you the chassis
and then you supplied the engine
and a lot of these guys were putting the engine
and found out they were lighter than the spiders
and under the right hands, they became faster.
I think this Elvaporsha, what did they say?
It's like a thousand pounds.
It's scary.
It's scary.
Yeah.
And like tubular space frame with really thin tubing
and then, you know, a spear that they put a steering wheel
on top of.
I feel like that car is more dangerous than a motorcycle.
It was like winning the first safety circuit.
Yeah.
There's things in that car that could take you out.
A motorcycle, at least you just kind of pop off of it,
right?
So it's a great different era.
Great, exactly.
Angle of the camera and to learn a little bit
about a car that they used to race back in the day.
Well, speaking of racing, if you want to try your hand,
in the evenings, on the weekends,
fellow PCAers, we have PCASimracing.com.
And check out the site.
We've got different races that are coming up.
We've got a series event.
And also that we have, they have EDEs,
which is basically showing the newbies,
kind of how to get started.
So there's someone on the SIM Racing Committee
that can walk you through from step one all the way
to full-time racing, sort of like in the Cold Race series.
Frank, is your left foot breaking?
Yeah, exactly.
Well, that's the fear of hitting a tire wall.
Exactly, exactly.
And if you're looking for PCA Insider swag,
head over to PCA Web Store.
We have the t-shirts.
We have the mugs.
We have the bottles.
But if you're looking for just decals,
you can send us your address information
to podcast at PCA.org, and we'll send you a set.
You can show off your support of the show.
And again, I really do appreciate
seeing everyone at events.
And when you come up and you say you like the show,
because really, we do this out of pure passion.
And we love having guests like Peter.
And let us know in the comments if you're enjoying
what we're doing, if there's other topics,
or maybe some other people that you might want us
to have on the show, we'll take them under and buy them.
My favorite comment is they go,
oh, you really work for PCA?
Yeah.
But they see me doing something on the show.
I'm like, yeah.
You answer the phones.
Podcast is a fun thing we do.
That's not my job.
Yeah, and it's a lot of work.
And Kudos to Damon, who's constantly fighting the AV gear
to make all of this work and doing it in a timely manner.
And we are at episode 180.
Can you believe it, 180?
I was telling Brian that, I said,
I've had to find 180 topics to talk about that
or just portion related.
And Mandy's been on every single show.
I have to.
I don't know what comes up with the idea
that's what we're gonna talk about.
Yeah, you come up with the idea.
You better execute it.
Anyways, everyone, until next time,
thank you for listening.
Be sure to like, comment, subscribe,
consider sharing our show with fellow portion enthusiasts.
Stay safe and we'll catch you down the road.
Thank you guys.
Thank you, Peter.
About this episode
Exploring the journey of modifying a 996 for the Porsche Classic Restoration Challenge, this episode features guest Peter Simpson, service manager at Porsche of Owings Mills. The discussion highlights the evolution of the 996, detailing the project’s challenges and triumphs, from sourcing parts to the creative bodywork that transformed the car. The team shares insights on suspension upgrades, engine enhancements, and the aesthetic choices that make this build unique. Listeners will appreciate the blend of technical knowledge and personal anecdotes that showcase the passion behind Porsche restoration.
Peter Simpson joins us again to reveal the 996 that Porsche Owings Mills prepared for the Porsche Restoration Challenge this year. The twist with this car was that they had to make it a wide body to accommodate the Gemballa wheels that had purchased. They didn’t use C4S fender flares. Instead, they widened it themselves along with many other mods. It’s a enlightening podcast that sheds light on this popular competition among Porsche dealerships.