It can be said that the enemy of “done” is “better,” and we occasionally hear this phrase when we’re talking about Porsche restorations. While at first this might seem like a defeatist attitude, the truth of the matter is that this idea could be applied realistically to even the best concours-winning restorations. The trick is to recognize when you’re going overboard, and deal with it.
Not every car project needs to devolve into a ground-up restoration where at some point the car is mounted on a rotisserie like a pig at a luau. We mentioned previously that our 1969 911S was a victim (or benefactor?) of project creep, and it nearly got out of hand as a small fix to the front bulkhead and trunk latching panel turned into a rocker panel replacement. While every decision that we made on the car was solid, even we had to put the brakes on the “while you’re in there” and stop the process before the entire carcass was stripped to the bones in pursuit of elusive perfection.
Our advice is to be realistic and reasonable. Sounds simple, right? If you’re fixing a headlight and notice a rust bubble in the bucket itself, keep the poking and picking at the rust to a minimum unless you’re willing to pull the fenders off to fix it properly. You can spot treat rust in hidden areas pretty easily if you’re careful, but once you start grinding for real, you’ll be without your car for months as it undergoes more extensive paint work.
Of course, that’s easier said than done. We had to take the gas tank out of our 1973 911 to get the old gas flushed out, and that led to a full paint job. It’s easy to slip down that slope; here’s how we did it. The tank needed to come out and we found rust in the fuel tank support and a little bit under the battery boxes. That meant the fenders had to come off, and we found some more rust in the bottom of the doors and the fender joining panel (see the picture above). Sure, it wasn’t much in the way of corrosion, but it meant that a quick reanimation project became something more serious. We’re willing to put the time in to make it right, but it certainly means that we won’t be driving our little Porsche this summer. Here’s how it looks now:
