I've long admired air-cooled 911s and almost purchased a long hood back in the early naughts but decided that $12K for one was totally out of my budget. Live and learn.
Late in 2021 I had a bit of extra cash and decided I'd had enough of the exhaust fumes, poor build quality and questionable safety of my '69 Corvette 427 coupe and started looking for a potential replacement. I set up email alerts on every car site (including Pelican) and hoped to come across something with a red interior. I was bored of black and wanted something a bit more lively.
There were plenty of grey/burgundy cars but white/red seemed in short supply. Then in February 2022 I saw an ad for a '78 SC that looked promising.
The ad was very low on details - no price, no description - and had terrible photos but it did feature some of the interior I found very intriguing.
Grand Prix White with red interior! Although to be honest it kinda looked more orange which I figured was fading or something. Little did I know what was in store for me.
I called the number and talked to Lou, who had the most stereotypical New York accent I'd heard outside of a movie. He thought it was hilarious some dude from Canada was calling about that old bucket - they mostly deal with newer stuff. He told me they'd gotten the car as part of a trade-in and that it ran but "not well". Couldn't really tell me much else. Price? $35K. I could work with that.
After talking it out with the folks here in terms of what I might be in store for, I decided that even if it needed a full engine rebuild I'd still be in decent shape cost wise, given the prices I'd been seeing for SCs and asked for more photos, which he sent me about an hour later. Based on the quality of those shots I assume he was the original photographer.
Oof. I guess that's a 911? Or maybe he's an aspiring artist. However, a shot of the door made me do a double-take.
What is up with this interior? It looks nothing like anything I'd seen before. Turns out, it has a very rare late 70's colour called "Lobster Red" which is a bit orange, but also features a mottling pattern similar to a lobster shell. I have no idea what sort of drugs they were taking in Stuttgart but it led them down some legit weird paths. Not exactly the red interior I was looking for, and based on my research it's essentially impossible to find replacement parts, but I was in love. It was just so wacky!
The options list was pretty nice - I wanted a touring car versus a hot rod and this one had all the creature comforts, if a bit long in the tooth with over 158,000 miles and the engine leaks to show it. I decided to get the PPI done and go from there - I figured a "specialist" would know what to look for.
What a waste of $600.