1965 356C - Now sold
Here are a few photos of my 65 Porsche 356 C, some as I bought it and some more recent...I needed another car like a hole in the head,but it proved hard to resist a decent rust free california 356. My mechanic concurred - especially when told it needed a new transaxle, no doubt seing this as his retirement plan - and I drove it home...
Car condition: The interior is great but not in stock colors. The is a 70's porsche can-am Laguna seca plaque on the glove box. I have redone the carpet and added a wood shifter knob.
The engine felt lazy, and had a KDP serial# indicating a factory rebuild. It was deemed too tired and promptly redone at the same time as the tranny! So I prompty sank $8500 into it for a complete transaxle rebuild (all new and quiet gears, powder coated axles, you name it) and the engine refresh (valves, piston rings, balances and matched conencting rods and pistons). Here's a before/after picture:
This is definitely a driver. The mechanicals are in superb condition and the car was maintained religiously, the front axle greased every 1500 miles, oil replaced pretty much at the same intervals. The valves have never needed any adjusting since the rebuild, but are checked every 3000 miles anyway. No leaks of any kind, especially since I installed new axle boots ;-)
Everything works, even the interior lights (and the clock does tick on occasion, about an hour at a time, and goes back to sleep: I never figured that out). The battery tray was skillfully replaced by Perfect motion, coated properly, and a 6V optima installed very neatly in there.
The car positively bursts to life, and definitely does not need 12V ! I recently changed the oil, plugs and redid the timing. It runs really well, always has! It also has the california bumper trims (see picture below, the trim uniting the 2 exhausts bumpers, same in front), I heard that's not too common.
The chrome looks good, and the car also has the M&M headlight "colanders" giving it a sporty look (and not requiring holes in the body). When I replaced the carpet I stripped the floor and rear seats and covered that with Por15 as well.
The "so-so" section: The car looks great on pictures and from 10 feet, and looks pretty good from up close, but there is no denying the paint job is old and fading a bit. There are 3 shades of black, some clearcoat is peeling on the front from a bad repaint (see the front picture above..the nose is clean however, never wrecked, it was just a bad paint job) and you can see miniature craks in the door's paint where the PO fixed it after he dented the driver door. The only rust present on the car was 2 bubbles at the bottom of one door - classic - so I gutted the door, sanded all that and painted it with Por 15 to stop that dead. The spare wheel has been dinged at some point (not by me) and the chrome wheels could use some rechroming. The tool kit seems fairly complete (not 100% sure) and dirty ;-) The car has 3 point seat belts as well, which beats the aircraft style old ones.
That is me being 100% honest. Most people think it looks great, I am just being picky here. It's not a concours car, but it's very far from embarassing either, in fact it has the right balance of looks so that it looks nice but you would not be afraid to drive it.
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