Enthusiasts Blogging Our Favorite Classifieds
It’s always a bit strange when highly sought cars come to market with few details. Today’s 2002Ti is a great example; the 2002Ti is already sought after model thanks to the dual-carb, high compression motor, and of course being a “Roundie” an early model 2002 like this is automatically more desirable. But start to throw in some of the other details, such as “Alpina”, “Race Car” and “Original” and the dollar figures start climbing. If, that is, it’s all to be believed:
The Porsche 912 was originally conceived as a budget model because the 911, quite simply, had become too expensive compared to the outgoing 356 model. On the surface, you got the updated looks of the 901 – but underneath was a more simple and frugal flat-4 similar to the unit from the outgoing 356. This helped to keep costs down but performance was less exciting, and for a long time the 912 was the “also ran” compared to 911. But stratospheric rises in prices – especially of early 911s – meant that it was no surprise to see the 912 get drawn up as well. The simplicity is almost more appealing than the 911 in some ways; as the adage goes, it’s more fun to drive a slow car fast, and a 912 is just the type of car that you can drive flat out without worrying about lighting your hair on fire and jumping backwards off a cliff. As with all Porsches, some of these 912 have been modified to race, such as this 1969 example:
When I first began to write for this site the Targa was a model that I enjoyed, but also was somewhat indifferent toward. I’ve been familiar with them for a long time and as I’ve come to terms with my own love/hate relationship with convertibles the Targa has progressively grown on me. Ultimately, I might still prefer a traditional coupe, but the Targa, especially on an early 911 where I really enjoy the aesthetic, has begun to make more and more sense to me. I enjoy the versatility and the unique styling. It’s somewhat quirky, but it’s a nice engineering solution to the conundrum of balancing safety requirements with the joys of open-top motoring. Here we have a very early Targa, an Ossi Blue 1969 Porsche 911E Targa, located in Rhode Island, that has a transplanted heart: rather than the standard 2.0 liter flat-six of the original, this has a 3.2 liter from the ’80s Carrera.
I am a sucker for almost any orange car. I love the color. I love its brightness and its depth and I think it’s a fantastic color on the 911. I have, on occasion, come across shades I didn’t like where the color looked, for lack of a better term, dull. There was no pop and it wasn’t for lack of cleanliness, it was just dull. The particular shade we see here, a Blood Orange 1969 Porsche 911S, located in Belgium, does not suffer from any such dullness. Blood Orange is a rarely seen color and though it is difficult to appreciate from the pictures we see here, it leans slightly toward the red end of the spectrum – as the name would suggest. I find it incredibly striking. Obviously, an orange car is not for everyone; there is zero subtlety and it will attract attention at all times. But if you can get around those issues, I think it’s one of the best. On a long-hood 911S? It’s stunning.
The terms “hot rod” and “luxury sedan” seem mutually exclusive, but there’s been a few nice attempts to meld the two genres together over the past couple decades, the likes of which include the W124-based Mercedes-Benz 500E/E500, E39 BMW M5, Audi S8 and even some non-German examples such as the Pontiac G8 GXP and Cadillac CTS-V. The granddaddy of them all, however, is this car here, the Mercedes-Benz 300SEL 6.3. When Mercedes developed the M100 V8 engine for use in the 600 Grösser, some boffins within the company thought it would be cute to drop this hulk of a powerplant into the 300SEL to create a sedan that could embarrass purpose built muscle cars at your local drag strip. It’s engineering exercises such as this that prove the Germans have a sense of humor after all.
