Snoozin

FC joke took longer than the last time! Ha!

I took 2x garbage phone photos before I pulled them off. As below 2017-08-16 08.27.30 by Richard Opie, on Flickr 2017-08-16 08.28.47 by Richard Opie, on Flickr

Cheers team. I haven't had it out of the shed again since I got back to Auckland on Sunday night, it's still rocking a film of filth from front to back... Here's a couple of photos from the journey. The only ones I took. Was having way too much fun driving it! 1991 Porsche 944 S2-20 by Richard Opie, on Flickr 1991 Porsche 944 S2-22 by Richard Opie, on Flickr

Yip it's a standard issue plate, not listed as a p/plate

I missed my old white 944. I really, reeeeaaaally missed that car. The cash from that helped us into our first Auckland home. But I always said I'd get into another once we got comfortable with the mortgage and sorted a few things out, and I squirrelled together a few bucks on the side where I could, helped out by my photojournalism moonlighting. Even though the last car was an 8 valve NA base spec car, I'd always wanted an S2. For those playing at home, the basic differences are a 2.5l SOHC vs 3.0l DOHC, slider calipers vs 4pot Brembos, better suspension and bigger ARB's on the S2 and a bunch of cosmetic differences. I'd been eyeing this particular car up for a few weeks on Trademe. It was priced high and I always thought, "I'll wait until it comes down a bit." I waited. It came down slightly, but not really enough. And there the price stayed. And stayed. And remained. In the end I thought, "bugger it I'll have a crack," so called the number on the listing and named my budget, asking if I was in the ball park. The answer came back affirmative. So from then I enlisted the help of a Porsche-savvy mate, Tony, to scoot down and check the car over for me. At this stage, it's worth mentioning the Carjam report came back fairly positive. The current owner, (in his 70's) had owned the car for 11 years travelling around 250km per year in it over that period. Yeah, 250km. So the car's km sat at a pretty-low-for-a-944 127,000km. Great start. When Tony first queried an inspection, he was denied on the grounds that it was raining, and the car never goes out in the rain. A positive, sort of I guess. The sign of a fastidious owner. Anyway, after an excruciating week followed by a weekend of waiting to have this thing inspected, Tony flicks me a text with "call me now, seen the car" after lunch on a Monday. The assessment was brief but positive. I'd sent through this massive Barry-spec checklist of things that commonly turn to custard on 944's, after the rollercoaster ride I'd experienced trying to sort the wheat from the chaff while buying the white one. Most of it passed muster - a few minor problems, but the car checked out soundly - well, more than soundly - and the summary was, "it's a fuckin' sweet car, you'll be hard pressed to find another one this good." Decision made. So I called up, negotiated a price and a deposit to hold the car for a few weeks while I awaited a quiet weekend to pick up was sent through the ether. Now - the car had some pretty gaudy stripes on it. Orange, with a PORSCHE font in the negative space as a cut vinyl stripe down each flank. Furthermore, it had a bright orange window strip across the top of the screen. This was never going to do, but I was assured it didn't appear to be too old, and the vinyl wasn't of great quality so confidence was high that it'd peel off easily. In fact, I'd already decided that it would be resigned to the bin before I'd breached the Christchurch city limits. So the pick-up weekend rolled around, George (@Esprit) and I boarded a plane and set off bound for the shaky city. The flight itself was pleasant, smooth and some great sights of the setting sun over the Canterbury plains as we descended - but it wasn't without trepidation, as I was about to commit the most money I have ever laid down on a car by some margin. Spending big sums of money isn't something that sits well with me, but hey, this was one of the dream machines so I probably shouldn't let the opportunity slip by. But believe me, I agonised, tried to rationalise my decision beyond "I want it because I have wanted one for years" and even suffered cold feet over the whole deal. Tony picked us up in his Mini Cooper something hatchwagon thing with one rear door that opens backwards and a supercharged whatsit in the front. Either way, it was quite compact and made cool whizzy-doorty noises from the front bit and went hard for what it was. We ended up at the doorstep of John, the then-owner of the 944 and his son Simon, who I dealt with through the Trademe classified. John was one of those super nice older blokes, with the utmost passion for his car. I made some cursory checks in the dim light with the aid of an LED torch, just to make sure I was going to go ahead with the sale as John proudly pointed out the hard-to-find bits that were still intact on the car, as well as detailing his maintenance schedule, and aversion to driving the car in the rain for the last 11 years of ownership. As I said, a guy with a legitimate infatuation for his pride and joy. As an added bonus, a wee zipped-up bag full of 944 specific books and memorabilia came as part of the deal, how cool is that?! Stepping inside to sign the paperwork the discussion turned to motorsport, and Porsches in general. I started to feel a little bad, as John's eyes were definitely tearing up at the prospect of his pride and joy being driven away, but then the excitement of finally being able to own what I deem the best of the 944 bunch finally had us saying our goodbyes, and soon enough we were crawling down the driveway in the dark. Then we had to turn back as I left my sunglasses behind. Because you know, it was dark and I'm a Corey Hart kinda guy. 15 minutes later, we drove into another internet-acquaintances shed (we will call him Terry the Italian car tragic) where a heat gun was supplied and the decals came off with minimal persuasion and zero damage to the underlying paint. Bonus. Dinner was served, yarns were had, beers were downed and before you know it, it was 6am the next morning and we'd crawled out of bed and poured ourselves into the 944's confines for the journey north. The trip was swift, but ultimately uneventful. Stops were limited to food and/or tea and coffee, aside from an overnight stay with @Bullitt in which George and I both managed to empty the fridge of any thirst quenching, fermented grain, hopped, fizzy beverages and I built a gigantor feed of nacho's for all present. More sharns followed and then we departed early in the morning, making a servo rendezvous with another couple of far north friends who were making the same journey back in a just-purchased EF8 Honda CR-X. How rad! Anyway, the rest of the trip was fairly unremarkable. You know. Standard North Island scenery. Farms. Mountain and tussock. More farms. Large body of fresh water. More farms. Even more farms. The odd passing lane. Some more farms and then traffic jams and rain. But hey, what a way to get to know a car, and also find out all of the little foibles that are going to make life an OCD hell for the next short while. For now, here's some shots of the car as we departed Christchurch in the early hours. I'll outlay some plans and discuss the experience, as well as all of the flaws this particular car has that I have already started to rectify. Thanks for reading my massive sharn! 1991 Porsche 944 S2-5 by Richard Opie, on Flickr 1991 Porsche 944 S2-7 by Richard Opie, on Flickr 1991 Porsche 944 S2-13 by Richard Opie, on Flickr TL;DR - bought a poor-man's Porsche and drove it from Christchurch to Auckland.

It was a white one, with the plate TIKTAK owned by a GC named Amar.

I fell in love with one of these when I was in Melbourne a couple of years ago, a guy turned up to a little meet we went to in a super cool 5K swapped one. He was a GC, and he drove it pretty hard. I've pined for one ever since, but chances of owning one are probably pretty slim. Definitely one of my dream machines. Keep it K. I can't believe I'm saying that, but the character that this little KE15 had with the 5K in it was just so perfect for the car. Couple of doorty sidedrafts and you're good to go.

Kelford 193B. I don't think that number applies to anything else.

That's cos Freyberg alumni know how to build a nice car

I also like #5

Stoked for you guys and what a cool plan bro! All the best and I look forward to following the build.

It was an absolute treat to see THE xssteeb out and about and partaking in the eventing of cars. Giz a yell if you'd like an extra hand one evening or something since you're only down the road.

Give it 6 weeks or so.

It looked like this last week. 1979 Triumph 2500S-61-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr Then I had to get a WOF and now it looks like this. 1979 Triumph 2500S-125 by Richard Opie, on Flickr Now it's on Trademe for sale, get amongst it.

Well that's a bit stink, I didn't know the Dynalite had been updated.... a bit of a shame to have to mess with the guards!

If you switch those calipers to a Dynalite (they are a Superlite) they'll fit behind 13" wheels, assume the rotors are a 250mm. I get my Dynalites inside a 13" with about 4mm to spare before it tags the bolts. All my single piece wheels have plenty of clearance. IMG_3160 by Richard Opie, on Flickr

^ I dropped in to say the same thing! Doesn't look toooo bad really... I guess it could have surprises under the skin, but you could be dealing with way worse. Plus it's a PI wagon, so totally worth saving.

Mint see you fullas at Stoddard at 8:30am!

I hope you've requested the windscreen banner....

I'm going to drag myself from the slums, maybe @Matteybean coming from even further South could join in?

Man, you need a windscreen banner proclaiming the Soul Synchro Machine. That's a great slogan, and the world needs to know it.

Expression of interest.

Set of 193b's sitting in my wardrobe doing nothing at all that would surely be lush.

Red cars are so cool. Great work, she's coming together now.

Yep, I don't want to get rid of it but let's face it, I'll never do it justice. I'm shithouse at projects.