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Porsche Club of America
The Northeast Region

By Tom Tate
NOR'EASTER Online - December 2001

I'll interrupt this rambling about old cars, old parts, and skinned knuckles to bring you a couple of stories that prove how small the world really has become. At least the Porsche world has become very small.

Back in 1971, I arrived in the Boston area as the owner of two 356's. A '59 A silver sunroof coupe and a '65 SC white sunroof coupe. As the family got larger it was clear that I didn't need two small cars. The '65 was newer, faster and in better shape so the silver '59 went to a friend of Jack Styles that couldn't wait to get his first Porsche. In a short period of time the new EFR had tired of the little Damen and she was parked. The owner went on to other adventures as the car sat outside for a couple of years. A fellow in Lexington purchased the car planning to take it apart for a repaint, as all the silver paint had lost its shine. That project got pushed to the back of the garage, thankfully before a single part was removed.

By '82 the car had lost its garage space and it was time to move on. I got a call that the car was available and went over to take a look. The poor thing sat under a tree covered in leaves. I couldn't resist, so the car was towed to Jay Barry's shop in Danvers and put on life support. An IV of new gas, some brake lines and it was alive. There was no more room in my garage so an ad in the Nor'easter produced a father and son team that wanted a restoration project to work on together. They drove their find down Route 128 to their home in Connecticut with no drama.

I told the new owners to " keep me posted", but never heard a word. About 3 years ago when I started looking for a sunroof car I even contacted the Connecticut Registry but discovered that the car had never been registered in that state. It became another unfinished project that couldn't be found. I still had the Maryland title for the car in a drawer since it wasn't needed in '71, as Massachusetts wasn't a title state.

Out of the blue I got a call last month from Alex Finnigan at Paul Russell's Shop. He had bought a car that I used to own. He'd bought the car from a fellow in Connecticut. I described the "Silver Bullet" to him and he confirmed that it was the 356 that I owned 30 years ago. It seems that the restoration team had never gotten started after taking out the front seats. Eighteen years later it was a victim of the annual garage-cleaning monster and went to the fellow who passed it along to Alex.

Of course Alex has suggested that I come up to take a look just for old times sake. Just to show how much wiser I've gotten with age (much wiser being a relative term) I declined. I mailed Alex the title but I'm still thinking about taking a look.

The second car that went in a large circle around me I've never owned. In 1967 as a student at the University of Maryland we used to autocross in the huge school parking lots. During the winter months there were a bunch of car nuts in Frederick, Maryland that setup a "Wintercross Series" that anyone could run when the school lots weren't available. We had 356's, Opels, Mini's, Corvairs, and Fords, kind of a 'run what you brung' sort of group. One of the guys’ father’s was a real car nut who owned Ferraris, Porsches and also ran other cars. The father had a friend that on a couple of occasions loaned him a gold colored 911 to run. It was a limited production car known to all of us that read Road and Track as a 911R. On the days it showed up it always took FTD.

Last summer at the Rennsport Reunion at Lime Rock I saw a 911R in the pits that Jim Logan was all excited about and told him that I remembered one in Maryland many years ago. He suggested (sorta calmly) that I should try to track it down. What if it were still tucked back in a garage near Camp David? What a find.

With a couple of phone calls I had Courtney Doll on the phone. He remembered the name of the guy that his father borrowed the 911R from but didn't know how to reach him. His father had died 10 years ago and his mother, Reggie, had remarried and moved to Pennsylvania. She would know. After a few days Reggie called back to say that the original owner was Bill Schaeffer and he still lived outside York Pennsylvania. I held my breath as I called Bill, now 82 years old. As it turned out, Bill was not a fan of the car and sold it after just a year to "some guy in Florida". He said it was too loud and road rough!

Last Saturday, I was standing behind Patrick Scalli as he was describing for the gathered PCA'ers the cars in his shop. The gold 911R from LRP was there and we were told that the owner who purchased the car from the Collier Museum in Florida wanted it stripped down and painted white. The Museum bought the car from a Florida resident many years ago and the original owner was unknown. The owner wanted it painted white because this was the only car of the 21 built that wasn't white. Suddenly it struck me that this was the car that I had stood next to 34 years before as the tires lit up to start the timer at the Wintercross Series. By now I'm sure that Pat has talked to the original owner and filled in some spaces on the history of this unusual Porsche. Small world!!

Next month a brake story that you will find hard to believe. It will take me a month to write it in such a way that nobody can recognize the offenders (surprise - it wasn't me).

Porsche Club of America The Northeast Region

Porsche Club of America
The Northeast Region