Recently found on Ebay:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1970-Porsche-914-c...em=122188760966

Looks like this has been sitting in the bottom of a lake for the past decade or just parked outside for the last 40 years.
Lots of nice but real rusty authentic 914-6 parts here.
Maybe those alone are worth the $14k?

I'm not sure I'm brave enough to take something like this on.
Absolutely everything needs attention....except for the interior light.

The question at the bottom of the listing is priceless:

Q: What would your best guess estimate to restore car in your shop? Thanks in advance. Andy Oct-19-16
A: Hi Andy, I would figure $60,000 dollars, if done here at our shop. We are in the process right now of doing one of the 11 916s produced by the factory and have spent over 100 grand on it. It was so bad that it makes this car look like it just rolled off the assembly line!!!!!!

I do think you may find better candidates for the investment.

I don't trust George as far as I could throw him.

Would be a fun project for sure assuming most of it is actually there. If the price was lower i would be a bidder.

Brett

The nicest thing about the car is the rare original color ( metallic red). But as Larmo so eloquently pointed out, George doesn't always tell the truth. He has been in the business for a long time, and if he doesn't see any value in restoring it, you can bet his restoration estimate is truthfully double of what he posted.

actually...it is not in such a bad shape. I expected worse after reading the OP said "been sitting in the bottom of a lake for the past decade".
A really big project and for sure a big jigsaw !
But if AA could do a 60K investment in this car, they could sell it for 80K when finished, so that would mean they expect like 20K for this one in this state to get the same money out of it without starting the jigsaw themselves ?

"...we have all of the parts available to restore this car..." . Nice, but at ** pricing. Why george used "convertible" in the ad is...ah...peculiar...looks like bidding has stalled a bit. Work subbed out? $100k+ would be my guess.

If a shop was doing that car, yes it would be a huge bill. Figure it needs hell hole and at least one floor pan.

For $14 Large I might have at least powerwashed the dirt off so potential buyers could get a good look at what was really there.

If you had a bad 6 donor car, this would not be a killer project. Not anything more then a lot of us have done in our garages.

Zach

Run.

I think the sitting in a lake comment is derived from the fact that every little part and piece has rust on it, even the keys!

I see it's up over $17,500 now, yikes! To think I could get a well sorted solid -4 for that money. Heck, I'd jump all over that Ravenna 2.0L on Craigslist before this nightmare for the money.

Exactly....
You need to look way down in the Ebay ad to see all the up close and personal pics.
Everything, I mean everything....except for the pristine interior light....has rust all over it.

If you're going to do a "quality" restoration....I'm not talking what you can do in your own garage, but quality such that this car is going to be worth in excess of $75k when you're finished, you are in for a lot of work and and lot of money.
Not sure the math makes sense on this car.

Let's do a little back of the envelope figuring.

The engine is an easy $25k....if you have a good shop (Rothsport, John Walker, John Esposito, etc) with another $5k for the tranny.
911 engines are wickedly expensive to rebuild.
And this guy needs to be near concours in appearance as well as proper function.
I'd guess that the inside of the tranny looks as bad as the outside.
Your'e already at $30k with just the drivetrain.
I know some will say I can do that for a lot less money.
When the project is done, it won't be worth near the price if you haven't used a "known" engine/tranny builder.
I certainly wouldn't pay as much for a car with an engine built by Joe Blow.

The metal work will be at least $10-15k if done by a shop.
Maybe here is where you can save some money.
But then add a good paint job to the mix and you'll be saying goodbye to another $10k minimum.
No Earl Schreib jobs allowed here.
Remember, we trying to get top dollar for this car.
Whew, we're cresting at $55k now and you haven't done much else to the car.

I would never trust that wiring harness.
Kroon can build you one out of Europe for $2k.
All the electrics (lighting, switches, etc) will need to be sorted and or replaced.
Send North Hollywood a quick $1000 to restore the gauges.
Checkout the pictures of the interior.
Seats, door panels, back pad, carpets, seat belts.
It's a total write-off if you ask me.
Let's find an NOS early 914 dash.
Will be much more expensive than 914 Rubber's beautiful late dash.
So you'll either be sourcing really, really nice 2nd hand or new parts, or refurbishing it all through a good upholstery shop.

A huge expense that no one's really thinking about is all the mounds of rusty hardware.
For this 914-6 to worth any money to a collector in the end, you'll need to re-use most of not all that nasty, rusty, filthy stuff.
The lettering on the ends of the bolts is important if you're looking to get top dollar.
You can't be replacing this with new nuts and bolts.
You'll be wire wheeling and re-plating these until the cows come home.
You better have a good PET for this car, as you'll need to cross reference every single piece of hardware to know where it goes.

Currently, it is "completely" disassembled....I mean completely.
They've even peeled most of the badges and stickers off this car.
Who does that and then turns around and tries to sell it all?
That's why I call this the world's biggest jigsaw puzzle.
Normally, you bag and tag everything while you take it apart for restoration.
No chance of that with this car.

I really believe when it's all said and done, you can easily put another $75-100k into it beyond whatever the ultimate sales/purchase price is.
Restoring early Porsches, 356's, 911's and 914-6's is not inexpensive at all.

The "piece de resistance" to me is the close up of the VIN that is engraved in the body.
The last 4-5 digits are unreadable due to the amount of rust and corrosion on the body.
What could possibly go wrong here?
I don't thing the final digits will be readable after stripping all the non-original paint off the chassis.
Perhaps it's something that can be fixed?
But with everything else going on with the car, are you willing to take that chance?

Will be interesting to see what it goes for and what the purchaser actually does with this car.
The full blown meticulous expensive restoration.....or a quick and easy assembly with minimal attention to detail?
Glad it's not my project....at 62, I don't have enough years in my life to finish this baby.

Its just a huge pile of junk really it all looks water damaged or wet stored where ever it was found,the tub and certain "6" only parts are the only real value.
God knows whats actually missing such as all the fasteners,nuts and bolts,mind you you have a 10% discount on the parts that are forgotten/lost
It will sell for silly money in the end.

Looks complete to me. All I could see that was missing was the ash tray.

Wow that was a great answer SO well thought out, in total reality for this car ,maybe the DR is running from this one ,he has the coin to do it,makes you think eh.

Why so negative ?
The sellers has 100 % positive feedback.

Can't help wondering why Hussey would walk away if there was any amount of money to be made. You have to assume he knows the answer is "no way to make $$ here".

While I dont have a personal experience with Mr. Hussey he seems to have quite a negative reputation, has he done anything particularly heinous I should be aware of? Anyway it would make sense from a business perspective to pass over a car he would at best break even on. That's not to say the car would be garbage, just not a moneymaker.

I agree that it looks like an old flood car, but considering the prices of 6s these days, it's a pretty good candidate for resto, we all know that a lot of 356s are way worse.

I'd bet that a major commercial resto shop won't want this car because there won't be a lot of profit meat left on the bone for this reason: fixing the body, paint, engine, etc is one thing that will cost a pretty penny, but the real cost for a shop here will be labor, more exactly what I call "petty labor time". As mentioned before, every little piece of this car is dirty and/or rusted (just look at that gauge cluster) and to restore all of these pieces will cost a ridiculous amount in labor. Now if you are a home hobbyist with tons of time and skill, you could potentially have an awesome, numbers matching 6 for a decent price.

Sold for $18,100.
Too me.....$18,100 too much.
If they had paid me $25k to take it away....maybe.

This is an historic job very few would be willing or able to complete.

So who bought it? Step forward and raise your hand so we can all applaud you for taking on this challenge!

Whoever bought it just wanted a real six and probably figure they can build the car over time and come out OK. I built a six that started out in almost that exact condition, a stripped tub. Took 3 years off and on working on it, but it turned out great!

Click to view attachment

Are you going to take a chance when the VIN looks like this on the chassis?
Unreadable last bunch of digits....
I'd be sick to my stomach if I'd just spend $18k and received a car with the chassis Vin in this kind of shape (and not be advised of this).

Luckily it was there in all the pics of the car, so the buyer had full opportunity to see this and hopefully make an informed decision.

To me this was a questionably wise purchase....only time will tell.

Yaa, I have the same thoughts with a purchase like this.
But then, some folks were not present when common sense was being taught.
Another possible reason, one is so obsessed with obtaining a - 6 chassis it blurs ....

Remember the immortal words of P.T. Barnum:

There's a sucker born every minute.

Just read the entire thread and I think the initial comment about the eBay post sums it up the best: "worlds biggest jigsaw puzzle"

I was very interested in it. Two things made me double (hell triple) think it. The seller was one. The other was the condition of that vin. It's not even in the "traditional rust prone area" , and it looks that bad. Can't imagine what the blue paint was hiding.