No worries. It's easy to get confused in writing. For years I've been saying that while Singer brings panache to the 964, their actual impact with respect to cars averages about 10 a year, which is nothing.

To the other point, it's all relative. Anthony has quoted the numbers of US 964s before. It was a lower percentage than in previous generations. There were times in the early days when US market got 75-80% of 911s in certain years. And while 30k may seem like a big number, when compared to the nearly 200k G body cars it's really not many at all.

Factor in attrition and folks buying them up in the last ten years and it's a lot harder to find a nice one than it used to be. My "not that many left" comment, while I didn't contexualize it very well, was also intended to apply to the current cars being discussed, C4s. IMO, they never got the same love and care that the C2s did, and as a result nice ones are really pretty uncommon on the open market.

Not sure how this morphed into a Singer debate but OK EDIT: I admit I did not read the last page before posting.�� Matt has accused me of being a bit argumentative and he is right especially when I am off my meds and have procedures which make me a bit cranky. Lucky you it is that time again. ;)

Yes there were 21,903 C2/C4's tips/M coupes non WB or speciality cars produced and spread out over the ROW. I have no interest in most any of them. Anything I have seen imported isn't worth investing in and most misrepresented IMO. If you want to group cars spread out all over the world with the US market go for it but not many I know are interested and those that did were deceived. The Japanese cars are the best of them and I wouldn't touch most of the ones I have seen up close at least not for the selling price. These end up being like the cars I looked at in the 80's when I helped with over 70 911's brought over during the grey market years. One in 10 I looked at were worth buying maybe.

There were only 5106 US spec coupes C2/C4 etc delivered to Canada and the US. Many of these were chopped up and parted out or turned into track cars that were eventually parted out or crashed. In the early 2000's up until the GT3 was released these were The DE and Club race car of choice. There were several forum members here on Pelican that were parting these out nearly weekly for a while and selling the parts off long before singer was a thing. Not very different than the 914 market in that respect.

I base my comments on my personal experiences. I look at an average of a car a week for potential buyers and in many cases sellers looking for advice so they can get more out of the sale and have been doing so since 2000. I have helped put hundreds of owners together with their cars over the years. It started with the turbo 3.6's and moved over to C2/C4 coupes and some targas. I would estimate it at +/- 1000 964's. This does not include those I work on for friends and others. I would put maybe 100 of those thousand are cars I would consider top drawer and would sell for 6 figures these days, of those 90% were 10 or more years ago. I have only seen a handful of #1 cars. I consider most to be #4's and the rest have no category as they are need everything cars.

I have seen over 20 coupes and a targa that have become singers and each one IMO was nicer than the average car I have looked at these past 5 years. Several were in unique rare colors and was IMO a waste of a decent 964. Looking back I should have picked those up and restored them. It would have been far easier than restoring most of what I look at today. Of the US spec C4's, my sample would put that at around >20% of the C4's converted to C2's I look at which to me is many.

Call my info Internet myth if you want. I know the cars and the market quite well and I see it differently than most. IMO there are very few cars remaining in the US worth buying and those that are in relatively clean crash free decent condition are approaching or exceeding the 6 figure mark. Anyone who owns a nice example has no interest in selling. So if you want to risk buying a car from overseas or buying most of what is sold here especially many of the cars I have seen sold on BaT that is your call.

I spent 30 years manufacturing aluminum and magnesium sand castings and part of my job was to test these materials for corrosion. I never tested for brake fluid but to my eye the corrosion is too uniform to be leaking anything it would need to be repeatedly submerged in some solution or contaminated waters to corrode that badly.

Interestingly my C4 frunk showed no signs of seal or water damage yet the pins were badly corroded while everything else was in VG condition. Although the insulation in the car itself was always wet for a number of years causing a high humidity level in the car. There are many reasons these get wet and I do agree what you say is one.

This is very well written. It's been a long time since I have posted or even looked on this board, and when I did today and read this, this is what this board is about and gives some serious insight and specialized knowledge. It takes time and thought to write something like this and I thank you for it.

Glad to see ya back Sal, thought maybe the covid or something got ya.

This really isn’t worth the time, but here we go-

So the only good 964s are in the USA? The other 75% of production are all not worthy of the mighty USA cars. American exceptionalism extends even to the upkeep of German sportscars, interesting.

“Many of these were chopped up and parted out or turned into track cars that were eventually parted out or crashed.”
Again, “many” is not a number and personal anecdotes based on small numbers are meaningless. Basic statistics really should be taught in high school, I digress.

“I would estimate it at +/- 1000 964's.” I see lots of 964 pictures on the internet too. Not sure what any of the remarks over condition have to do with ~100 Singer cars eradicating the 964 market?

“my sample would put that at around >20% of the C4's converted to C2's I look at which to me is many.” If roughly half the, 5,106 US-only (because only US cars are any good), coupes are C4s, then 20% of 2,553 cars would be 510 cars. That’s a lot of “dozens” of converted C4s. Maybe we exaggerate a bit?

This is considered “specialized knowledge”? Internet forums have their own very special Dunning-Kruger curve. Carry on :)

What are you on about?

Up until the 964s hit 25 years old a few years back, you couldn't import one. It's about market liquidity. Even now, the market is far from liquid when it comes to quality drivers. I see guys importing 964 Cups and RS variants, but you don't see many "grey market" imports for sale here or guys bringing them in.

Fair point Matt. Context was the Singer decimation of available cars. Singer has been around since about 2010 I believe? The first few years they took maybe 50 cars out of the market? 964 RoW imports, starting with the ‘89, opened in 2014. Say they took 50/5,000 US coupes out of the market until 2014. Then its X coupes removed per year out of 5,000 US models + 1989 RoW models available. And so on until now where you can import any year 964. I would argue the numbers they remove are still a tiny fraction. But you’re right, I originally wasn’t thinking about years past when imports were limited. Whether people choose to pursue imports is another story. An argument could be made that there would be a rush of imports if Singer was truly removing all the available US sales...

My sandwich is done. Have a good lunch- not just liquid I hope :)

Hi
 

Thanks Cobalt for your take on 964 cars.

I agree....also all Air Cooled cars from 1948-1998 (50 years) did not equal all the Model 991 cars from 2012-19 (8 years max) End of story

I worked on (4) 964 cars, 89 C4, 90 C4, 91 C2, 92 C2 over the years, my first was a 90 C4 a Customer had brought me about 10 years ago. He asked if he should keep the car and I wasn’t crazy about them or mainly the C4, so he sold it for a 997. Today, no way. Markets change and people tastes change. But the main improvement is how much better the tub is over the 911 cars.

Hi
 

Cobalt

Do you have any C4 ABS modules for sale? Someone said you can get the kit to rebuild the 2 slave cylinders, well I ordered the kit and it took 2 months, nice people but from the UK took forever. I cannot let cars take shop space for parts, so was not happy. But it’s the nature of the beast, while waiting for the kit, I torn down the cylinders, which are junk, cannot be rebuilt.


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1613673820.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1613673820.jpghttp://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1613675029.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1613675029.jpg

I thought I was argumentative. LOL You missed my point completely.

If I have to educate you why I say what I said then I think I will be here for a long time. If you want go check out Waynes thread on the 962 Dauer. http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsche-911-technical-forum/1085205-barn-find-tops-all-our-others-dauer-962-le-mans-prototype-road-car.html My friend Mike sold him most of the parts and has the road car version. I have assisted him with some of the build of his Dauer. By the time Wayne is done building the car you might just get it if I start edjimacting you now. That will be about 3 years or more.

Try to read what I wrote vs just looking for ways to pick it apart. Yes there are good cars everywhere but explain to me if you are in the US how do you verify what is a good ROW car when you have no way to look at it? Please don't tell me you trust brokers? Most any 964 US or ROW are misrepresented and aren't what I categorize as good. Very few are as nice as we all hope. The average car I see has undisclosed accident damage or layers upon layer of paint or have decades of deferred maintenance. The ROW cars I have seen and work on are far worse in most cases. Buyers don't have a way to check them out closely and it is a crap shoot when buying that is why most buyers I interact with aren't interested.

With all the coupes parted out, crashed and no longer with us we have maybe half of what was imported and although singer did not decimate the market it does not help and many are following suit with nearly every boutique shop from Aberu to who knows building a backdate on a 964. I am actually helping my friend convert 964's back to stock after they have been backdated and have a number of people looking to do the same as they want the cars looking like 964's and not some creation.

Funny as you seem to know so much about these where were you back in the early 2000's when I was arguing with everyone how the 964 will be the one to invest in and will someday exceed MSRP and most likely far beyond. Here we are my turbo has gone from $60k to nearly $360k in value my C2 from $29k to nearly 6 figures. When the market went wild I posted how the market was playing along just the same as the 80's grey market. In the beginning nice examples were selling for a premium and then as quality product became scarce everyone and their uncle started cobbling together junk and trying to pass it along as #2 cars. If you follow the market this is clearly what happened, so I guess I was wrong.



These projects never go swiftly. I do have the parts at this time I am not selling anything as I have several 964 projects in the works and I can't chance selling off something I may need. Sorry.

Too many people read to argue today versus reading to understand.

Hi
 

Cobalt

Can you someday, do a detailed explanation of converting a C4 to a C2. And do you think the C2 Tip is worth converting to a manual? There is a You Tube guy in the UK that converted his 89 C4 to a C2, but he installed a part on the transmission side to the front drive. Is there a kit out there for conversation.

I remember Abreu Motors backdated a 964 Coupe Tip and it was extremely hard to sell but it sold. I do not see backdating cars to look like long hoods, but that seems to be in today, will it continue?

Weird place. Funny enough, over 50% of my questions concerning the numbers of crashed 964s and C4 converted cars were avoided. You might even say, many were avoided <chuckle>. I don't need to post my resume to prove anything nor does it have much to do with the price of tea in China. It's a Porsche forum, everyone thinks they're the smartest person in the room.

If wollet wanted a solution from a non-expert: You can safely cap that longitudinal slave cylinder line while waiting to find a reasonable replacement. An m10 bubble flare plug at the check valve (looks like a union near the rear diff) would do the trick. The front diff power distribution will be stuck at the default 31%, but perfectly safe to run and won't trigger any ecu complaints. I'm no materials engineer, but that's got to be galvanic corrosion between the aluminum piston and steel cylinder. Moisture is not going to get past all those seals to cause that even if the thing was submerged in a lake. Looks like a hydraulic fluid flush was never done and that slave was rarely, or ever, actuated by the pdas ecu, else fluid would have provided a corrosion barrier. I'm sure all the experts were about to recommend their solutions.

I'm out. Have fun and keep your daughters away from Singer! But only your expertly-evaluated good-condition daughters I guess. :)

did william ever address the elephant in the room that was him backing out of the auction he won?

Didn't think so Toby. Looking forward to the day you become a Pelican moderator. You will make a better Pelican world.

Sir

I know all about not needing the Slave cylinders the car will still
work or run

We in Germany never liked the locking front and rear, I would leave
it alone
It was for hole shots out of curve on snow so not spin out
This car is a Customers car and I work for the Customer

Nickd

Sorry I might have misunderstood your posting

This thread needs an intermission. c4 lightweight content enclosed.

https://youtu.be/CY4XeMBdirg

sean, just go away. really.

your act has been nothing but stale in taste around here for a while.

you bring nothing to the table.

if your mom could get you out of her basement she would.

your desire to be a provocatuer here falls short and is a waste of bandwidth in these forums.

so,, need i to go any further? i can.

What happens or not happen on BAT stays on BAT.

Ask them if you are so curious.