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There are some colors that if you showed me the swatch for it I would never consider it on a car. Then when I actually see it on a car I’m blown away. This color, which I’m fairly sure is Lindgrün and they’ve called Golden Lime Green, fits that bill perfectly. This isn’t the first 911 I’ve seen in this color, but every one I’ve come across has blown me away even though the color itself I would never think I’d enjoy. It’s still probably not for everyone, but I really like it here. And there’s more to this 911E than just the color. It’s one of the rare Soft-window Targas built for the ’69 MY, making it one of the few to possess the longer wheelbase that Porsche introduced for the 911 in 1969. While Porsche had begun soft-window production in 1967 it quickly was replaced by the hard window with which we’re all very familiar. The design is pretty quirky and provides a number of variations of enjoying your open-top driving. By 1969 very few soft windows were being produced and it was now an option rather than a distinct model. This makes coming up with firm production numbers difficult. The seller states that this is 1 of 12 911E in this configuration, a number that appears in an article of Road & Track though I’m not exactly sure from where the number originally was sourced. I’ve seen other numbers quoted in auctions, but all are close to this so we can at least know it’s a rare machine.
Here we have one of Porsche’s more interesting design ideas: the Soft-Window Targa. Most are quite familiar with its hard windowed cousin, which has been available on the 911 for most of its life. But far fewer may be familiar with the precursor to the 911 Targa. With the Soft-Window Targa Porsche sought an engineering solution that would allow for maximum openness in the cockpit while retaining a measure of structural integrity they thought would be necessary to meet impending safety regulations. Those safety regulations never became manifest, but their design did. It’s somewhat simple: use a fixed roll-hoop and make the top and window removable. The look is somewhat strange and the window section was quickly converted to a fixed window, but the soft window provided a great deal of versatility and choice for drivers depending on just how much of the external environment they wanted to experience. The Soft-Window Targa is quite rare on both the 911 and 912 and as such will command higher values, with the 911S being far and away the most expensive. The one we see here is from the earlier short-wheelbase model years as well: an Irish Green 1968 Porsche 912 Soft-Window Targa, located in California, with 113,000 miles on it. It should be noted, this 912 does not possess its original engine, but the rest of the car is said to be original.
Let’s check back in on my favorite quirky Porsche: the Soft-window Targa. As I’ve mentioned before, the Soft-window Targa was Porsche’s engineering solution to a problem they anticipated would occur, but never actually did. It’s sort of a window into the development process that even made it into production, if only for a short time. Because Porsche suspected that increasingly stringent safety regulations would render the cabriolet obsolete they sought to get out in front of these regulations and produce a model that would provide both the full open-cockpit feel of a convertible and also the safety of a fixed roll hoop. The Soft-window Targa was both an ingenious and somewhat ridiculous solution to that problem. I say ridiculous because to me these have never really looked right; they’ve always look like someone’s garage project, even if a well executed one. The idea did work, but Porsche quickly introduced the fixed hard-window version with which we are all familiar and the soft-window drifted off into the sunset. We do still see them from time to time and they are generally pretty popular with collectors due to their rarity and, I think, in part because of their interesting engineering. They certainly make for a fine talking piece. For whatever reason we’ve seen quite a few more examples of the 912 of late rather than the 911 and today is no different. Here we have a very pretty Irish Green 1969 Porsche 912 Soft-window Targa, located in California, with what appears to be 109,000 miles on it.
Porsche’s soft-window Targa is one of those engineering feats that is a mix of the sublime and the ridiculous. It is a brilliant solution to a problem that never really arose, but with its removable rear window and fixed roll hoop it looks…strange. I think Porsche’s engineers realized this as the design only existed for three model years, and during production of the Soft-window Targa a fixed hard window was an available option. Even so, with safety standards failing to render the convertible obsolete it would still take 15 years before Porsche actually produced a Cabriolet version of the 911 so in that regard the Soft-window Targa seems well ahead of its time. There is definitely a lot going on with these. Design aesthetics aside, its short production run for either the 911 or 912 makes the Soft-window Targa a rare and interesting commodity among vintage Porsches and one that surely attracts plenty of questions and gazes within any collection. They are a part of Porsche history and as such always warrant considerable attention. The example we have here is a Light Ivory 1968 Porsche 912 Soft-window Targa located in Ohio.
Here at GCFSB we pride ourselves on featuring many of the most interesting German vehicles available on the second-hand market. The particular car we see here, a 1968 Porsche 911L Soft-window Targa Police Car, surely is the most interesting car I will have featured to date. It won’t be the fastest, or even the prettiest, though it’s certainly the rarest (since we cannot get more rare than 1 of 1) and it’s definitely the most peculiar. This Targa Police car was given the full treatment: double rear-view mirrors, a red police light affixed to the Targa’s roll hoop, illuminated STOP signal in place of the rear license plate, along with the electronics to control those lights and the siren. The look was completed with Dutch-inspired Tangerine over White paint and German “Polizei” script along the doors, hood and rear deck lid. It is, quite frankly, one of the most curious 911s we’re likely to come across and that hardly even includes the fact that it is a ’68 911L Soft-window Targa, an already very rare and interesting 911 in itself. It’s fantastic!
