Another scruffy garage find Speedster coming up for auction

[HistoryBuff]

This one is scheduled for Scottsdale in January. In their publicity, Gooding makes much of the fact it was never repainted or restored. They are talking over $200K. Here's part of their description, skipping the general history of the Speedster:

1958 Porsche 356 A Super Speedster
(Estimate: $200,000-$275,000 Without Reserve)
"...a 1,600 “Super” flat four engine that produced 75 hp. The car was purchased from the original owner by B. Mitchel Reed, a well-known Los Angeles disc jockey, and his wife. The two enjoyed the Speedster for about 12 years until it was purchased by its current owner in 1970. The current owner purposely resisted the urge to have the car’s body refinished in shiny new paint, believing that it would make his car less tempting to thieves. After draining the oil and removing the battery, he garaged the Speedster in 1974. It sat there for the next quarter-century. He moved in 2000, taking the Porsche with him and again placing the Speedster in his garage until 2016, when he decided to part with the car. This Porsche epitomizes the term “garage find,” having been stored for 42 of its 58 years. A solid Southern California car, this final-year Speedster provides the next owner with a fantastic candidate for a concours-correct, factory-specification restoration."
My question is: why bother to restore a car if it's worth more shabby? If this trend spreads, Pebble Beach someday will look like a junkyard ...

[CASair]

A car can be restored numerous times and to the enth degree but it's only original once.

[356graham]

Maybe never repainted, but over 1/3 of the car is red primer so that hardly counts as original paint condition (my opinion).

The dilemma with this particular car is that it can't be enjoyed as-is. It is definitely un-restored, but is also un-usable. It will need plenty of work to get it to driver level status, and then where do you stop fixing and start restoring?

That will be up to the new owner to decide if they want to get it running and drive a ratty Speedster around town, which can be fun. Glad I won't have to make that difficult decision.