My business plan for my hobby business has been to find a nice car to drive over the summer and then sell it at the end of the year. This year it started in February with a very cheap running Fiat 850 Spider, that I ended up selling before I took it too deep down the project path and quickly purchased this beautiful X1/9.
Was a great summer ride and lots of comments from people that remembered these cars but remarked at how much better this one looked over what they had remembered. I did not intend to sell it but over Labor Day weekend a friend sent me a text.........
"Hey, my uncle just picked up two 911's, he is keeping the 993, but says you need the 911S". Won't give me a price but says come see it and he will give you a deal of a lifetime. Turns out both cars were owned by the Rockville Porsche Audi master mechanic and while rough from sitting, have rebuilt engines, etc....
Car as found, 1977 911S coupe, sunroof, factory airconditioning and sport seats.
Cleaned up and on the lift. These cars are galvanized from the factory, so fortunately rust is limited to two spots, but both will take some work. Front suspension pan had dirt blown up against it, so it rusted through up front, so I'll replace the entire pan. The roof panel was another story, it apparently had been rusting from the inside out, so all around the sunroof reinforcements welded to the outer skin, yet the pilars and windows front and rear are solid. Everyone has told me the sunroofs are a pain and not worth keeping, so picked this up on FBM and will use it to make it a slicktop.
Engine has been rebuilt by the look of the underside, oil return tubes look new, has an expensive set of European heat exchangers instead of the U.S. emission thermal reactors, etc. So the plan is to pull the engine, strip the interior, do the welding and bodywork, paint it and put it back together. Engine will be detailed and checked out but fingers crossed it is in good condition.
Needs a lot and nothing is more expensive than an old Porsche, but I got this for 1/2 market price, so if the engine is good, it will make this worth the effort. Supposedly the master mechanic that owned it had done a bunch of performance work on the engine so we will see what we got soon, wish me luck!
