Fixing a Little Race Damage in Tijuana

[John Rogers]

My racing budy Ted rolled his 356 at the Palm Springs race this past November when passing a 911 that was running poorly and the resulting damage was terrible to look at. Just about every panel on the car was twisted, tweeked or wrinkled! The guys at Los Ponchos in Tijuana worked their magic in about 3 weeks and all they replaced was the roof which we could not find the weld seams from replacement. Matched the original color that was on the dash pretty darn well I think. Here are before and after picts.

[John Rogers]

A couple more after....

[Cory M]

Wow, that looks great. I like the new stripes and number plates. Most of the body and paint work I've seen from TJ shops is pretty bad, but it looks like you found a good shop. Were they a lot cheaper than the shops in San Diego? I've been building a 944 track car that will be needing paint soon, both inside and out. I haven't been looking forward to doing it myself and have been considering taking it to Carcoa for a cheap paint job, maybe I should look south of the border...


Here are a couple of pre-rollover pics I took of your car at a PCA DE event.

[air-cool-me]

wholy smmoly

[John Rogers]

Not my car, I race a 914, but that's okay. The cost was around $2000 total and I'd say that is about 25% to 30% of what it would have been in San Diego. Took about three weeks to do it. I have been using these guys since 1980 and they are pretty fair. You have to make a list of what to do, go over it well, be respectful of their business and talent and the results are pretty amazing. James (redbeard) had his 911 and 914/6 done there and the 914 had the interior done in leather and it sure looked sweet.

[Cookie Porsche]

Naaahh. $2k to fix that - impossible, including paint?

And here I thought Africa was cheap! I'm going to send our race cars to Tijuana to be fixed.

Good to see she's up and running again.

[Vipergrün]

The key to having anything done in TJ, whether it autobody work, woodwork, ironwork, etc, is good communication and respect. Do not look down on them or the workers and bring them a sixer and things will be fine.

[TRE Cup]

wow! oh wow! i thought that car was going to be a goner given the damage it suffered, incredible job!

[Jeff Alton]

Cookie, where in Africa are you?? In the 70's my dad had a 356 S90 restored to concour level there, the body guy was $35/month!! That was the only part of the project farmed out. Absolutely perfect work!

Cheers

[Cookie Porsche]

Jeff,

Egoli - city of gold (Johannesburg, SA)

Tom

[Jeff Alton]

Ahhhhh, we were up in Nairobi........

Cheers

[Southbay356]

Just wondering how the paint and metalwork look after this short time ?

Has the paint bubbled or anything else not right

anyone have long term results from this shop and how well it held up,

thanks for the info......

[Z-man]

Fantastic work. I am very impressed.

-Z.