Hey everyone!
My name is Gabe and I've turned into a fellow Porschephile...
Of the number of cars I've built, I've never had a true build thread. This is probably the most ambitious build I've ever taken on and I don't want any details to be forgotten. You're all such a wealth of knowledge and as fellow enthusiasts, I'm looking forward to getting to know more of you from far and wide.
My wife and I recently bought a house, it's our first house and as such, is also a fixer upper (more on this later). This whole house thing is really what kicked me down this path... Over the last few years we've gathered what anyone would consider a FLEET of cars and to afford this house, we need to downsize. I honestly never wanted 5 cars but there are just too many cool vehicles out there and you can't have them all. Anyways, here is where the fleet stands:
- 2001 Audi S4 Wagon in Nogaro Blue with Sport Package
- 1998 Volkswagen GTI w/ R32 Engine and Syncro AWD Swap SOLD
- 1996 Porsche 911 Carrera 4 Guards Red/Black w/ Aerokit
- 2008 Honda Civic Hybrid
- 1974 Chevy C10 w/ LS1 Swap recent purchase
I think you can tell which car is my wife's...
The plan is/was to get down to three cars while raising some extra cash for house stuff. The Audi is the car I've owned the longest and arguably my favorite, it ticks a lot of boxes. Now that I work from home the only driving I do is around town, for fun [DE, Autocross, Canyon Driving, etc], for house stuff, and occasionally to go meet clients. That said, the truck is SO much fun to drive around town and quite utilitarian, that left me to decide what I wanted for a fun car. The Audi is OK at that and I've done quite a few autocrosses with it. It's powerful, heavy, and rather nimble for being 3800 pounds but it's not what I'd really consider a "weekend/fun" car. The 1996 911 had to go, being worth a lot of loot, it's the primary resource for this reshuffling. That took me back to the drawing board. My 993 has really made me fall in love with Porsche (beyond the 993 GT2 poster I had on my wall as a kid). They're just such driver's cars and are beautiful by being so functional. They're just, so, ME. That lead me to desire continuing to have a 911 in my life.
Being a new homeowner and reshuffling the fleet didn't leave me with a huge budget. I don't have $45k lying around to find a mint example, even if I did, I'm not sure I would. As much as I love clean cars, I really enjoy driving them. I enjoy the story that various nicks, dents, scratches, and cone marks have to tell about the owner that enjoys them.
I gave myself ~$20k to find a 911 that wasn't a POS and had a story to tell. One that deserved some love.
So I scoured the forums, craigslist, autotempest, and the insurance auction sites until something came across that piqued my interest.
*Enter Stage Left* 1986 Porsche 911 with a muddy past (literally)
Green is BY FAR my favorite color. I had a stint with Orange back in elementary/middle school but that was short-sighted. Green IS IT.
I've wanted to paint a project car BMW Urban Green ever since the color came out. That's where the idea for Project Avocado really came from. Although urban green is more Guacamole, Project Avocado has a better ring to it.
This 911 being Moss Green is what initially caught my eye, looking closer at the pictures, I saw that it was built in May of 1986, which is when I was born. I thought that was just damn cool.
After that I googled the VIN and it took me to a listing of the car from 8 months ago where it had been explained to have: Books, Manuals, Window Sticker, Service Records, 2-Keys, Tools, and a Spare as wells as... here just go check out the ad and see that I'm not super crazy:
https://classiccars.com/listings/view/1090470/1986-porsche-911-carrera-for-sale-in-oakwood-georgia-30566
I was like, "daaaaang, this was, up until this point, a really well-maintained car." It was now flood damaged and looked to have had a tree fallen on it but it had enough niceties that made me interested.
So I clicked "watch" on the website and waited. I wasn't actually sure if I was going to bid on it, but the wheels were turning.
Fast forward a few weeks... The GTI had sold and my bank account was feeling fat. I got an email notifying me that the 911 was coming up for auction so it was time to make a decision. I funded my account with a deposit and waffled on what to do. I talked to my wife the night before to let her know what I was thinking and she said go for it, she's really the best and understands my lust for cars as well as someone that drives a civic hybrid can. That gave me the go-ahead and I had the aforementioned $20k budget to play with. LET'S DO THIS!
Like I said, I work from home. I'm a financial planner with a home office that tends to meet with all my clients via video chat, even if they only live a few blocks away, because LA traffic sucks and it's just way easier to do. I had a meeting scheduled for the morning, which was during the auction, but I figured that it would be alright depending on how quickly they went through the cars.
I had my video chat up on one screen and the auction up and muted on the other. I wasn't really paying attention to it until my client had to go grab his laptop charger. So I looked over to the auction screen when he walked away, and the 911 was coming up next! Oh *****.
So I started bidding on it, then my client came back...
I was like, "hold on a second..."
And then the bidding kept going and I was thinking that I had to get back to the task at hand, my meeting, so I said f-it. Set my max bid to $20k and turned my attention back to my meeting. I'd figure out if I won the car once I was done.
Turns out that I DID win the car. The other bidder didn't have the same max I did. I had the high bid at $19,800. Still haven't told my client about that but we can have a laugh about it once the car is running/driving and doesn't look like a POS so they think I'm totally an idiot with money. Not a good look for a financial planner
This auction was an "on-approval" type auction which meant that the insurance company or whoever, had 24 hours to either pitch me another price, accept, or deny my bid. They ended up countering at $24,600 and I said no way, I really don't know anything about this car except the pictures and the old ad (which is really stupid, I should have had an inspection done. Noted.) They countered a second time and I said no thanks. Ultimately, I received an email later in the afternoon that had said I won and had to wire them the funds ASAP. Um, alright.
After that, I feverishly started shuffling money around our bank accounts and organizing a shipper so that I could hurry up and wait. The whole process was pretty easy, if I were to do it again I would just make sure that all the money was in one account and that it was an account that could do wires to a third party to avoid late fees and make this happen quicker.
Alright, I hope you've stayed with me so far. It's been a journey just to get to this point. Feel free to check-in from time to time if you've enjoyed yourself so far. My plan is to keep this updated as often as possible and let it grow into it's own thing. I also mentioned that the house/garage are fixer-uppers too so I'll probably have posts about those from time to time.
To keep you salivating, I'll leave you with a picture of what I saw when the semi rolled up to our house. Until next time.
