Porsche: From the barn to the road

Its owner, a longtime collector and Porsche enthusiast, discovered the vehicle in the USA. For almost 40 years, the Targa stood there in a doorless garage, covered by a plastic tarp.

The former owner had probably simply forgotten about the car. The condition of the rare sports car was desolate. The 911 S Targa was delivered to Porsche dealer Hülpert in Dortmund on January 24, 1967.
As a so-called softwindow version, this early model has a soft rear window instead of the glass pane available from 1967 onwards

Especially many optional extras
After serving the dealer as a demonstration car, it was sold to the USA in 1969. From 1977 until the end of 2016, the open 911 was parked in Long Beach (New York State) in said garage. For this it was complete.

Particularly pleasing because of the many optional extras such as Webasto parking heater, tinted windshield, Blaupunkt radio Cologne, leather seats, halogen fog lamps and outdoor thermometer.

Authentic small parts from the treasure chest

Uwe Makrutzki, Head of Factory Restorations at Porsche Classic: "Porsche's philosophy is to rebuild the vehicles as true to the original as possible. In particular, the search for authentic small parts such as cable clamps, rubber grommets, and sealing plugs for the 2.0-liter S engine is difficult. Fortunately, we can always reach into our treasure chest."

Usually with success, because the Classic department not only has access to the central warehouse with currently more than 60,000 different original spare parts. The factory's own specialists also have the original straightening sets, frame gauges, data sheets and technical drawings at their disposal.

Visually identical cover of the roof
The second major challenge was the outer skin of the Targa roof.

Uwe Makrutzki,: "Today's material is grained differently and is more robust than the original. But our customer didn't like it. So we had an optically identical cover made especially for this project. Despite decades of professional experience, our experts first had to get to grips with its processing, i.e. gluing and sewing."

Two-component paint all black
The customer also had a special request for the coating of chassis parts, engine sheet metal and the air filter system: instead of the particularly robust powder coating that is customary today, he decided in favor of absolute originality to paint the vehicle with a two-component paint in black - corresponding to the delivery condition of 1967.

Protective film with a slight matting
After around 1,000 hours of work on the body, the 911 Targa was painted by hand as it was before it was delivered over 50 years ago - in Polo Red. Because the owner wants to drive the sports car as well as collect it, he opted for a painted-on paint protection film with a light matt finish. This technology does not require any adhesive and can therefore be removed without leaving any residue, even years later.

Memory of the legendary Targa Florio
The name of the open-top 911 S Targa variant was derived from the Targa Florio endurance race in Sicily, which had previously been won four times. The surcharge over the coupe was 1400 D-marks. The restored version of the 4.16-meter short sports car has a 160-horsepower, two-liter engine that accelerates the Targa from 0 to 100 km/h in 7.6 seconds. The top speed is 225 km/h. The price at the time: 25,880 German marks.

The next project is an early 928
In total, it took more than three years to restore the first 911 S Targa delivered in Germany to as-new condition - patina included.

The next project of the Targa owner and passionate Porsche collector is already in the Porsche Classic workshop waiting to be rebuilt - a very early 928.

porsche.ch