[RNajarian]

As stated earlier your starting point is very important. A solid car as verified by a PPI is a great start. Nevertheless, things fail- recently my alternator went bad. I was able to source a reasonably priced replacement (our host has very competitive prices) and with Wayne Dempsey’s “101 Projects for your Porsche 911” and with guidance from this forum was able to replace the alternator in an afternoon. Likely a shop would have charged 3 hours of book time (3 x $120 = $360) and $350 part with a bill around $800. It cost me about $300 and one afternoon as a DIY project.

Two months ago, with parts from Pelican, Wayne’s Book and guidance from the forum I was able to upgrade my front trombone cooler to a Carrera style radiator cooler.

The point is that for most/many people here are DIYers. Occasionally we need to outsource the bigger jobs. All the old timers here love the Art of the Air Cooled 911s. We will post our latest and greatest upgrades and share our experience with others.

Unless your friend is familiar with the air cooled 911 I would take his advice with a grain of salt. I started with a rust free 1975 S Targa and an ‘83 SC motor that I had a good history. Since then maintenance hasn’t been a problem.

As for the Targa top, I got lucky, my 1975 Targa came with the rare factory hard top. I would definitely try and source one of those (or an aftermarket equivalent).

Over the years I have been able to stockpile spare parts. Currently I have both a clean folding and hard Targa top, spare speedometers, tachs, clocks, tail/parking lights, etc etc. 6 years ago my odometer went bad. I had a spare (actually 2) so I swapped the part with one I picked up on eBay for $50. One of these days I might even get to repairing the odometer, probably when I run out of spares.