HELP - early car help with vin# and other numbers...

[G50911]

hi all. i just got reunited with my first car. it's a 1967 911. more on that story later (see post #6).... i need some help with the VIN# and wondering if anyone can help me with it. numbers are:

VIN# 308439
door tag says 9730868L

[DaveE]

A 911S will have an "S" after the 6 digits.

[G50911]

thanks daveE. what about the paint code?

[pors1968]

Burgandy red 30868 code 017 66-67 color

[djpateman]

Yes, a 1967 911, but not an S; the TYP on the VIN tag would have 911S otherwise.
Burgundy is correct; the 97 is high temperature paint process, and the L is for Lesonal (paint supplier).
Love to hear the story on the car.
If you want to obtain the Kardex for the car, please contact me.

[G50911]

here's the back story i hinted in the OP...

for as long as i can remember i was a porsche fan. my dad was a super car freak and owned everything from german sedans to classic american muscle cars. he would restore old cars and/or mod them to go faster etc. my brother and i use to hang out in the garage with him and i vividly remember smelling gas, exhaust fumes and hearing cars start up early saturday mornings when he'd go out for drives. one of his cars was this 1967 911 which he acquired when i was in high school.

when i turned 15 he taught me to drive a stick shift in this car and eventually gave it to me for my 16th birthday. i drove it throughout highschool, later transforming it from stock to an ST-look and then eventually turbo flaring it out and putting a slope nose kit on it (it was the 80's what do you expect?!?!? ) i drove it that way for 2 years and gave it back to him in 1990. at some point after that he sold it to my brothers friend.

about 15 years later my dad was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. he went quick. all kinds of emotions filled my head, especially the "one day i want to build or restore a car with dad" notion. my dream was to find a 65 mustang fastback and work on it with him on weekends. well, that didn't happen.

fast forward to 2012 roughly 7 years after my dad passed, i've acquired a few porsches by this time and the urge to restore one was strong so i picked up a 1968 912 roller with plans to build a hotrod. during that time i kept thinking about my dads car and always thought how cool it would be to find it to restore. a mere pipe dream since the early cars have been skyrocketing in value. i thought anyone who had it would be nuts not to keep it. but, i've always been an optimist so i tried... i searched using the old license plate, talked to countless PI's just to get an idea of how they would go about searching for a car and one day i actually made some progress. i got a hold of our old insurance company and got the vin#. i had to convince the "retired" agent to search his files but he got it for me. i contemplated on hiring real pro's once i got the vin (but didn't) and so i kinda hit a wall with the search.

then one day completely out of the blue (around 2013), i thought i'd ask my brother if he ever kept in touch with the guy we sold the car to. he said no but he knew his name and gave it to me. i searched, of all places, facebook to see if i can find him on there. well, there were about 20+ or so guys with his name so i didn't bother. but a month or so later a "recommended friend" popped up with his name. the profile pic looked kind of like him so i decided to send him a message (why or how this popped up i don't know since we don't have any mutual friends)... a couple months passed and low and behold i got a response to my message! first thing he said to me was "how's your father?". i told him the story and he told me he recently lost his father too and was sorry to hear this. we seemed to have had some kind of moment. we wished we had more time with our dads and talked about what we could have done differently, etc. we chatted a little more and i eventually asked him if he still had the car (it's been 25 years at this point). he said the last thing he knew it was in his brother in laws shop but not sure if he ever did anything with it. i couldn't help but get my hopes up high at this point. he gave me the address to the shop and my heart just about stopped when i was able to make it out on google earth!

not knowing how long ago the image was taken and/or even if it would be available, i tried not to get too excited. i asked if he would consider selling it and our conversation went ghost. i thought "did i piss him off?" cause we literally stopped communicating. surely enough, about a week or so passed and we started talking again on facebook. he broke down and literally cried to me and said, "your father was a great man" and that he slept on it and really wanted to call me at 3am when we made the decision to sell it back to me. so the next day he called his brother in law and confirmed it was still there BUT there were multiple offers from buyers that had come in weeks and months before. apparently they have been leaving messages on their house phones' voicemail (which he never checked). he returned some calls and he told them that he was going to sell it to me and that i was going to pick it up the following day. i'm sure with multiple buyers this guys could have gotten more money for this car but being the stand up guy he is, he honored his word and sold it back to me. i was super emotional on the drive down to pick it up. every turn (especially the last couple before i got to the shop) i thought is this actually happening?!?!? when i got there the guys were expecting me. they were all excited for me and i must have shared the story 3 or 4 times to different people.

so after 25+ years, my first car i've ever owned, something passed down to me by my dad, i shared memories with my wife (then girlfriend) , something i tinkered in the garage with my dad with, etc. is now sitting in front of my house! it still feels surreal to me.

[mikehinton]

That's a moving story! Looking forward to seeing your restoration progress.

[G50911]

here's a pic of the google earth image... (he said at some point some paint work and mods were done to the car and as he described it i was able to make it out)


a pic of the car as it sat for 25yrs


loaded up...


back home...


what i found in the glovebox! (dad's insurance card from 1989)

[vintagecarlover]

Very kewl story. Congrats. It's jupiter and Mars thing. Planets are in line right now or ur Khama is great.

[G50911]

i thought i'd share this quick one too cause i recall someone telling me a story about karma...

this is absolutely a true story: last weekend (june 27th/28th) while coming back from a 400 mile mountain run in my 68 a drunk driver hit me. i asked for his license but it was suspended due to a prior DUI. he had no insurance too. i was speechless and needed to cool off a little so i went back to inspect the damage on my car. he clipped my drivers side rear and appears to have barely grazed it so it did very minimal damage. my rubber bumper strips tore off and it looks like his bumper swiped my turn signals.

i asked him to pull into a gas station (along with 2 other eye witnesses). when he got out again he pleaded with me to not call the police. the poor guy was crying and all and kept apologizing to me. i really had to make a decision at this point so i took a look at the damage one more time and thought, i can probably fix this myself. so i looked at him and said, i'm going to give you 2 options, 1) i call the cops and you go to jail or 2) i will take your word that you will get your **** straightened out and to consider this your lucky day.

he went with option 2 needless to say. i decided to exchange info anyway and left. later that evening he called me and told me how much of a life saver i was and thanked me for giving him a pass. he said he want's to send me some money to help pay for the damage. i gave him an address and i guess we'll see. while part of me thinks i may have just enabled him (hopefully not) the other part thought sometimes you just need a break. i was ok my decision and moved on.

then this happened on monday...