Project Minerva: You restomod the Porsche you have, to be the one you want it to be

[evan9eleven]

A bit of linguistic recycling on the title, but it describes my build project well. This is the story of Project Minerva, my beloved 1981 Minerva Blue 911SC and about making it the car I want it to be. I’m doing it my way, and mostly myself in my own garage with just a few exceptions.




I can already hear you groaning. Another restomod/backdate/outlaw/whatever. That’s ok, I totally get you. Some builds are, let’s be honest, more detail-oriented than others to put it gently. I decided from the outset what compromises were acceptable for me. There aren’t many. So here we go, I hope you’ll like my take on things and join me for this adventure!


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[evan9eleven]

A bit of backstory: I’ve owned my 911SC for ten years. As far as I can manage to trace the history, it seems I am—drum roll please—the fifteenth owner of this car. 15th. You read that right. I feel a bit like this 911, in not rare but still uncommon Minerva Blue, has been a bit like the ratty but charming doggie at the shelter that has been adopted away too many times to all the wrong people… and is the worse for wear as a result. At the risk of overdoing the metaphor, the car deserved a forever home and got one with me.

The beauty of owning a car for ten years while slowly upgrading it mechanically, is taking lots of time to consider what, if anything, to do with it cosmetically. Patina is hard-earned, and it was certainly tempting to just drive it forever with the trashed original paint. Worry free! Gravel truck peppers the front end? Who cares, just more patina. Someone vomits on the front fender? Just hose it off! (This really did happen.) As I told Magnus Walker when I showed him the car last year on his visit to Norway for an event, “stone chips don’t slow you down.” (He didn’t seem as impressed with the paraphrasing as I was with my own creativity. I thought I was being pretty clever. Anyway...

Gotta love having barf-proof patina:





My goal when I bought the car was to find a 911 that was good enough to drive but ratty enough to restomod. A bit of a rolling project. My policy is always to do mechanical work first, and worry about making things pretty later, if ever. I found just such a car. During my ten years of ownership I’ve done a whole range of things: full Elephant Racing suspension upgrade, gearbox and LSD rebuild with gears from Guard, EFI/ITB, fuel lines, etc etc. It is a great driving car, just looks like crap. (If you’re interested in the gearbox adventure, here is the link.)

The thing I have never been able to get out of my head is the image of a longhood hotrod reminiscent (but not a copy) of the ‘73 RS prototype. No ducktail. Custom interior, backdated gauges, lots of details.

The Goldilocks car. The one that is just right… for me.

I’m not going for an RS copy, but I have always loved this particular car:



Below are some photos that give you an idea of why my car deserves a new lease on life. I mean, I’d keep it and drive it no matter what, but the thing is, I’m an incurable tinkerer. Leaving well enough alone is not one of my strengths. Doing something halfway is not one of them either, but I did have a good ten-year think on it.











There are plenty more dents and blemishes but you get the idea.



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[turbine930]

Great project, go for it and good luck!

Here my 3.2 1986:

[evan9eleven]

Originally Posted by turbine930

Great project, go for it and good luck!

Here my 3.2 1986:

Thanks, and cool car!

[evan9eleven]

Now here is where it gets interesting. I make it sound like I knew exactly what kind of build I wanted to do and just set about doing it, but even as I got started I had cautious ambitions.

The original leather seats in the car had been re-covered by a PO with vinyl. Stinky cheap plasticy BLUE vinyl to match the rest of the funky blue interior. Cracked leather dash: blue. Torn headliner: blue. A and B pillars? blue. Door cards, carpets, disintegrating parcel shelf: all blue. I think that if a blue steering wheel had been available in 1981 the car would have been delivered with that too! Now don’t get me wrong, I love the color blue, but the line must be drawn somewhere.

So back to the seats— they are awful. So poorly retrimmed that they don’t even feel like Porsche seats anymore. And that brings me to the last straw that pushed me down the slope. On a roadtrip that included a six hour drive, my wife and I arrived feeling battered. She is also a Porsche owner and car enthusiast, and a patient and loving wife I must add, but she made it clear that if I expected to go road-tripping in Minerva with her company in the future, the seats were going to need an upgrade. And down the slippery slope I went. You know what is at the bottom of the slippery slope? A cliff!

I almost called this thread “How a pair of seats drove me off a cliff.” They don't actually look that bad, but trust me when I tell you, these seats suck. I sold them as soon as they came out of the car to a guy with a vintage Opel!



I can smell the 44 year old carpet funkyness just looking at this pic...



I've lived with this for ten years, enough is enough.














So I started to look at new seats (more on this later.) At this point I was still committed to keeping the exterior patina, but thought that maybe an interior upgrade at the same time wouldn’t be a bad idea. After all, that is where I spend my time when driving the car.

About now I accepted that the glass would need to come out if I was going to replace the headliner. So I went to work kicking out the windshield, which needed replacing anyway. Well guess what, some genius thought that using loads of black silicone to glue the seal in place was the way to go. Not the windshield sealant stuff that stays flexible mind you, nope, silicone. And then I found this:





This was it for me. If the glass is coming out and there is rust to fix, I’m painting the car. The slippery slope had instantly become frictionless. Weightless. I went into freefall. Restomod game on, no looking back!




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[Cairo94507]

Excellent; looking to enjoy watching the progress.

[Mad Max]

Thanks for sharing your 911s new makeover...

[Old H2S]

O crap..You pulled the loose thread. I hope your fast because this has been the down fall of many owners, the car is never run or finished.

[evan9eleven]

Originally Posted by Old H2S

O crap..You pulled the loose thread. I hope your fast because this has been the down fall of many owners, the car is never run or finished.

I did pull the thread, and in place of a sweater I now have a ball of yarn

Have no fear, the progress has been good and more updates are soon to follow. I'm seriously obsessive and won't let up until the car is done. Stay tuned!

[fanaudical]

Looks like a fun project! Enjoy making it yours.

[evan9eleven]

A little update before the weekend. 


I don’t do any project without research, and this one is certainly no exception. Remember the seats that kicked this project off? Well, I found a trimmer who had vintage 80’s Recaro LS-C’s in his shop and who could also stitch up the whole interior for me. The seats are the real deal but in need of some serious love:





Which brought me to some basic decisions about the build. There are only four things I’m not interested in doing myself: 1) stitching the interior, 2) backdating and customizing the gauges, 3) refinishing the Fuchs, 4) paint prep and paint.

My reasons are simple: 1 & 2: these are jobs requiring loads of specialized skills and experience. I love to learn new things, but the trimming and gauges are best left to pros. 3 & 4… well, I certainly could do both of these myself, but I don’t want to. I actually despise paint prep, it just isn't a job I enjoy. I know that I would likely spend months on it and still not get the results I want. Off to the body shop it will go.

And that brings me to what I wrote in the first post above above about minimal compromises. This is a running, driving car with EFI and plenty more. Stripping it down to a completely bare shell just doesn’t seem necessary or worth it. The underside does not need took like the shiny side and I can live with that (though I’ll probably dry ice blast it at some point.)

Time to yank out the nasty old interior!










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[Jonny042]

I've been following along behind the scenes, a bit. From what I know about Evan I have no concerns that he'll follow this to completion, in style!

Great to see a build thread started, too!

[Psychepilgrim]

Sounds like a good project to follow, suscribed!

By the way, I've always found this Minerva blue color amazing on a 911, are you keeping it?

[evan9eleven]

Originally Posted by Jonny042

I've been following along behind the scenes, a bit. From what I know about Evan I have no concerns that he'll follow this to completion, in style!

Great to see a build thread started, too!

Thanks Jonny! Might not have taken the leap without being inspired by your work, and certainly couldn't have jumped in with both feet without your help.

Looking forward to sharing with everyone here!

[evan9eleven]

Originally Posted by Psychepilgrim

Sounds like a good project to follow, suscribed!

By the way, I've always found this Minerva blue color amazing on a 911, are you keeping it?

Thanks! Most definitely staying with Minerva Blue! I absolutely love the color, and can't wait to see what it will look like with fresh paint.

[Racerbvd]

Back in the 80s & 90s I would go to what we would call the “Pig Auction” to buy VWs for a local shop. I literally waited a month for a certain Baja bug to come up, and was on a mission. I had a pair of Recaro “Spectrum” seats like the 1st one you posted. They were rough, but complete with headrest and mounts. The wrecked Baja didn’t get anyone else’s attention, so other than one guy who liked to bump the prices, it was an easy buy and I ended up with the seats. Well, my original plan to redo them back to the spectrum ended when I only material was $225 a yard.
I ended up going with a cloth weave that was very similar to the stuff that Porsche used on the RS America seat, and because Mazda used it in the RX7s, it was reasonably priced.
They came out great, somewhere in should have a few pictures

[Uwon]

Great to see another serious restomod, Evan. Already great bones with a few surprises to come, I’m sure. I’ll be following with great interest.
Cheers,
Johan

[Michael.]

Loving this story. Also the writing style is very funny. Keep it goin!

[evan9eleven]

Originally Posted by Racerbvd

Back in the 80s & 90s I would go to what we would call the “Pig Auction” to buy VWs for a local shop. I literally waited a month for a certain Baja bug to come up, and was on a mission. I had a pair of Recaro “Spectrum” seats like the 1st one you posted. They were rough, but complete with headrest and mounts. The wrecked Baja didn’t get anyone else’s attention, so other than one guy who liked to bump the prices, it was an easy buy and I ended up with the seats. Well, my original plan to redo them back to the spectrum ended when I only material was $225 a yard.
I ended up going with a cloth weave that was very similar to the stuff that Porsche used on the RS America seat, and because Mazda used it in the RX7s, it was reasonably priced.
They came out great, somewhere in should have a few pictures

Great story! I love that you bought an entire wrecked car just to get the seats!

Originally Posted by Uwon

Great to see another serious restomod, Evan. Already great bones with a few surprises to come, I’m sure. I’ll be following with great interest.
Cheers,
Johan

Thanks Johan! I’m looking forward to sharing the adventure!

Originally Posted by Michael.

Loving this story. Also the writing style is very funny. Keep it goin!

Thanks for such a nice compliment! You made my day

[WP0ZZZ]

Loved your gearbox thread back in the day. This looks really interesting!