Quote:
Originally Posted by Baz
That was in your Mom's garage?
NICE!
Turbo?
What year?
What's the back story?
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The TL;DR version - Dad bought it, after he died it rarely got driven, has been parked and not moved for 6 or 7 years....
The long version -
Yup. Dad had a '63 356 that got totaled in early '65. He scrambled, and bought one of the last 356s made and the only one available in Florida... #222522 - which I still have.
In the early 80s, Dad said "Hrm... id10t will be getting his license soon and taking over his mom's station wagon... I've been driving the 356 for almost 20 years... time for a new car for me." Unfortunately (for every car salesman in the world) Dad *really* takes his sweet time buying a car. So... 3 or 4 years later, after every issue of Auto Trader, after driving several 911s of various vintage, a 928, a 944, and even looking at non-P car options (a few Mercedes were tested), Dad decided on a 911. So then he spent almost a whole year after that finding *the right* 911.
He aquired this one in late '87. It is an '84 m491 optioned car - factory turbo look. Turns out 420 were made in '84 (of which 350ish were for US/Canada the rest mostly went to Japan), with just over 1000 made total from '84 thru '89.
Dad drove it "some" until he got Lou Gherigs disease, around 92 he couldn't depress the clutch pedal anymore. Became my job to drive it around the block (we have a LARGE block) once or twice a month. After Dad died in '94, the car sat for a bit until Mom decided to drive it. It was more car than she enjoyed driving, so I started to casually look for a buyer. Unfortunately, no one else knew what the m491 option was, what it was worth, and wanted to pay us about half the parts value for the car - before Shaun, even when the car was running the highest offer I was given was $7k 'cause the guy was going to have to gut it out to make it a race car...
We kept driving the car every so often, until one day 6 or 7 years ago 2nd gear went AWOL. Apparently a known issue w/ the 915 transmission around 72k miles, the car has 72568 on it. Car was parked - Mom didn't want to spend the $ fixing it, she didn't want to be driving it, I couldn't really drive it - too much to insure, and I've got a wife and a couple of kids to worry about. No spare $$ in my life for the luxury of an expensive occasional driver.
Knowing what I know about the car, what it would take to make it "perfect", I've had a very firm price in my mind - it was higher when it was running, but I'm a realist. Earlier this year I did some server work for Shaun, and then noticed how he kept posting about getting disappointed when he'd go look for "the right 911" for himself. A quick phone call with some details and Shaun laid dibs on it - not even questioning the price, totally unseen except for some beauty shots take in my mom's garden several years before when it was running. I insisted on full disclosure, told him everything I knew about the car being wrong, broken, or needing attention, and gave him a video tour of it.
So... now after a REALLY LONG DRIVE... Shaun is the custodian..... I'll miss the car, but it was more of an albatross for mom - she didn't want to spend the $ to fix it, she never really liked driving it (and to be honest my 77 year old mother does NOT need to be driving a 911!), she didn't want to sell it local and see it running around town, she didn't want to sell it to her doctor "friends" that wanted to gut it out and turn it into a racer - she wanted to sell it to someone who realized just what they were getting and would appreciate it. I think we've found that in Shaun....