The foundation has been laid (i.e. I got the wife to finally agree to let me get another 911)!
So, I am in the planning stages here.
What the end goal is a backdate type project based on a 78-89 911. Looking at converting to longhood, ducktail, possibly sunroof delete, changing to chrome trim and likely a good quality respray. Inspiration is the orange Singer 911.
Car will be a driver, probably not much in the way of tracking or DE, but it would be nice to be able to do that stuff if I wanted to. My initial budget for the base car would be something around $10-14K and I plan to do most of the work myself over the next year or two. My original plan was to get a decent driving car and drive it for 6 months or so before tearing into it.
Ok, so the question is which base car to get? I had a 3.2 Carrera targa previously and really liked that engine but I know the SC is a good base car as well. The G50 tranny has its benefits but I'm not sure it is worth the premium to me.
There is a local car in Craigslist, it's a 1980 SC Weissach which I looked at a couple weeks back. The car is pretty thrashed, paint is faded, there is some damage to the passenger side door and front fender. Driver side door also doesn't close well unless you really slam it...made me wonder about accident damage. No rust that I could see. Engine looks to be losing a decent amount of oil from what I could see looking under the car. Interior is pretty well shot, dash is cracked, seats are split, carpet is bad, headliner is sagging. The car does apparently run and drive although I did not ask for the keys when I looked. The car is at one of those cash for title shops and apparently was repossessed. Title is clean. Originally they were asking $8900, then $8500, then $7900, last listing is for $7500. I was thinking about whether a lowball offer of $5-6k or so would even be worth making given that the car needs significant work. The other side of it is if you are planning to strip it to a tub anyhow, maybe it is better to start with a car that needs a lot of work and get it for cheap vs. buying a good condition car now and paying a premium.
Anyhow, what are your opinions on a base car for this project?