356A purchase

[seery]

Hello,
I'm new to the 356 world, have a 1970 911T for a long time. I have a chance to purchase a 1959 356A coupe and would like some advice on what to look out for.

The car needs work and had sat for the last 15 to 20 years but looks fairly complete. the front end needs metal work but the rest of the car seems solid.

What are ballpark prices for 356A coupes in non driving condition, but solid these days, are they more or less collectable than the B or C models?

Thanks for any advice,

[djpateman]

You really need to join the 356 Registry for these answers.

[Daves911L]

A's are very desirable, especially the later ones with better transmission/steering gear. Most desirable, in my opinion, of all the coupes. Hard to put a ballpark value on it without at least a few pics, but pretty hard to get any A, unless its a total pice of crap for less than 50K. Odds are high (almost certain) it will need structural rust repair and since you mention metalwork visibly needed at the front end, I will assume some body damage. Can you do this work yourself? If so it will be expensive. If not, it wil be really really expensive. This is the problem. You can probably buy a very nice correctly restored A coupe for 100-140K. But you may not be able to restore a 50K project for 100K. Of course for guys who like old Porsches, logic and practicality don't matter. If they did, we wouldn't drive cars with 75hp, swingxales, pieces of rope for seatbelts, no AC, pitifuly little heat, skinny litle tires, that rust at the smell of rain, that nobody over 35 can comfortably crawl into or out of, well, you get the picture. But I wouldn't want to drive anything else

[kalinsd]

Love my ‘59 and is one of our favorites in the air cooled collection. We are the 3rd owners of this car.

Purchased this one because it had a great story and wanted to be the next “care taker” of the car. It gets used in all kinds of weather save for when there is salt on the roads.

Above in Dave’s post, he has the pricing spot on, so, if you can determine what the car will need and your desire is strong to own a car such as this , think you should buy it, get it safe to drive, then determine if you want to go with more work on the cosmetics. Once on the road, you might be drawn more to drive the 356 over your T.

Wish you the best in your quest to have an A to own and drive.

[76dno]

I ended up replacing the front end/nose on my A (w/ a Porsche replacement part) because when stripped to bare metal, there was too much bondo repair work and the cost to correct those repairs was substantially more than simply cutting and replacing.

Aside from bondo repair work which may be hard to accurately determine with a paint meter, be wary of rust.

Best to have PPI conducted by someone who is highly experienced with 356s.

A’s are most desirable out of 356s.

[ficke]

Originally Posted by Daves911L

A's are very desirable, especially the later ones with better transmission/steering gear. Most desirable, in my opinion, of all the coupes. Hard to put a ballpark value on it without at least a few pics, but pretty hard to get any A, unless its a total pice of crap for less than 50K. Odds are high (almost certain) it will need structural rust repair and since you mention metalwork visibly needed at the front end, I will assume some body damage. Can you do this work yourself? If so it will be expensive. If not, it wil be really really expensive. This is the problem. You can probably buy a very nice correctly restored A coupe for 100-140K. But you may not be able to restore a 50K project for 100K. Of course for guys who like old Porsches, logic and practicality don't matter. If they did, we wouldn't drive cars with 75hp, swingxales, pieces of rope for seatbelts, no AC, pitifuly little heat, skinny litle tires, that rust at the smell of rain, that nobody over 35 can comfortably crawl into or out of, well, you get the picture. But I wouldn't want to drive anything else

This is so full of truth. I read it out loud to my wife and we both smiled in agreement.