45 years with the Dean Jeffries Carrera - past and future

[Ed Lawrence]

Fantastic post, thanks for sharing Jack.

[Jack Walter]

We did a photo shoot last night - Bill Pack is a local photographer who is doing some stunning automotive photography.
This is the only image I've seen so far but the rest should be even more spectacular.

He places the car in a completely dark room and paints it with light over a long exposure - typically 20-30 seconds. Watching the light flow over the surfaces of the car is just amazing.
I was especially impressed with how this technique shows off how slick a paint job Mike Marcelic put on this Porsche - the hood and front fenders looked like liquid mercury under the lights.

[Jack Walter]

Dean's Porsche will be lot 057 at the Gooding auction at Pebble Beach on August 20th.
It will be on display from Wednesday August 17th so all the west coast Porsche owners are welcome to come by look it over.

As I finish up the very few tasks remaining on the car to get it ready for the next owner I'm reflecting back on all of the great times I've had with this Porsche and hoping that it goes to a very good home.
I can't stress enough how honored I feel to have been able to own this car for 45 years and all of the wonderful people I've met as a result. Dean did such a neat job on this Carrera and it was one of the highlights of my life to get to meet him and show him his old car again before he left us. I know he was truly pleased to have the Porsche restored to the way he built it in 1957, I'll be at Monterey to see it off so come by and say hello. Now - who has my old 1956 sunroof coupe #56724?

http://www.goodingco.com/vehicle/1956-p ... ra-custom/

[steven mclean]

Wow ,I guess all of us will have to give up are pride and joy at some time,what a hard thing to do.That car is what inspired me to purchase my 356 it's getting harder to get in to physically but what a joy to drive.Wish you the best,it's going to be hard losing a big part of your life,enjoy it while you can.

[Jack Walter]

Its a hard thing to do but Bruce Meyer said that we are all just caretakers of these cars and we must do our best to preserve the truly special ones for the future. When it was "just another old Porsche" back in the 1970's it was no big deal to take it out and thrash it around like it was meant to be driven. Now in the age when we have to be paranoid about texting teenagers and other distracted drivers it's hard to treat it like just another car - especially when it is such a special historical artifact. I'm hoping it will eventually be displayed at the Petersen Museum at least for a while so that more people will get a chance to see the car. I'll try to talk the next owner into working out a deal with Bruce to do that since he is not only a great guy but also on the board of directors of the Petersen.

As all of my friends know the only thing I love more than Porsches is old Land Rovers - I became completely entranced with them when I was thirteen years old. I've owned a 1966 Land Rover 109" diesel station wagon since 1978 and also have a 1967 Series IIA 88" Land Rover that I bought the first time in 1973. I later sold it but immediately regretted it and finally tracked it down and bought it back more than 15 years later. I had started a frame up restoration of the '67 before I decided to concentrate on the Carrera so I'll finally get to resume my restoration of my old Land Rovers. Both of them need complete restoration so they should keep me occupied for the next two or three years. They are a lot easier to restore than 356's and won't cost nearly as much. Plus I can really enjoy the Rovers when they are done.

[Ashley James]

Jack

My father bought the Series 1 my son has now in 1962. He was a dentist and his nurse a farmer's daughter. They'd bought a Series 2 and we had horses to transport and my mum liked it. She liked it so much that she gave it to my son when she was too old to drive it, which annoyed my father because it was his. They were like that.

I've had a few myself, but I can't say that my affection is more than fleeting, but this one is special.



A decent idler arm and ICS modded steering box might help, but it's no Porsche to drive.

[Bill Sargent]

Is it my imagination or does the Land Rover chassis look like a 904 chassis ?

This is a photo of a replica chassis made by M&W in the UK so the area around the rear shock towers and further back is not accurate.

[Jacques Lefriant]

Hi Bill
904 chassis?
j

[Steve Harrison]

Sad to see it leave the fold Jack, but you are right, it will get a wider audience for sure.
I'll always remember that day with you, me and Ernie wrestling the engine back in.
(And I thought the pushrod 356 engine was a tight fit !!...sheesh!)

Even with the "supervisor" around,...it was a fair shoehorn of a job.

Good luck on the auction. I know it will hammer high...it's a piece of history.
It's amazing that it survived all these years and twists and turns, and finally found someone willing (crazy enough??) to preserve it all these years as a caretaker, then restorer, and now,...letting it be reintroduced into the world. '

[Jack Walter]

The car is in the transport truck on its way to California. I had to replace the distributors with some genuine Carrera units (thanks a lot to Rainer Cooney) and swap him a tach drive for one that turned the right way - the one I had was for a Spyder so it was turning the cable the wrong direction.

It now runs and sounds great. With the Sebring exhaust it's not exactly subtle and I'm sure the neighbors will appreciate its departure.
There is an empty space in the garage that the Porsche has occupied for almost 45 years.
As we all know an empty garage space is just a spot waiting to be filled and I'm being tempted by early Alfa Romeo Giuliettas (yes I know - Lucas electrics and the certain rust issues).
But the first car I ever drove was my Dad's 1960 Giulietta Spider and that experience turned me to love sports cars when the age of the muscle car was in full swing

[Jim Neil]

The car is in the transport truck on its way to California. I had to replace the distributors with some genuine Carrera units (thanks a lot to Rainer Cooney) and swap him a tach drive for one that turned the right way - the one I had was for a Spyder so it was turning the cable the wrong direction.

It now runs and sounds great. With the Sebring exhaust it's not exactly subtle and I'm sure the neighbors will appreciate its departure.
There is an empty space in the garage that the Porsche has occupied for almost 45 years.
As we all know an empty garage space is just a spot waiting to be filled and I'm being tempted by early Alfa Romeo Giuliettas (yes I know - Lucas electrics and the certain rust issues).
But the first car I ever drove was my Dad's 1960 Giulietta Spider and that experience turned me to love sports cars when the age of the muscle car was in full swing

Don't forget to order some of this ...

[C J Murray]

I love Alfas and I took my driver's test in a '67 Land Rover 88 so you have my full support.

[Jack Walter]

One week from tonight the Carrera should have a new owner - its an both an exciting and sobering thought. A lot of what I do from now depends on how the auction goes.
I've had a lot of encouraging wishes from the 356 family and old friends - even the truck driver who picked it up last week commented on how spectacular it looks.

I guess now we'll see what kind of value the world places on a one of a kind Kustom Karrera. Its pretty neat to see what kind of attention it will receive.

I'm hoping the new owner will work out something with the board of directors at the Petersen Museum to put it on display there for a while - that was one of my dreams.

I've already rolled the 1967 Land Rover chassis into the Porsche's old slot in the garage and started the disc brake conversion upgrade.

I'll be thinking about Alfa's like these two as I go through the next week. The red Giulietta Spider is my dad's old Alfa Romeo - first car I ever drove. The second is the Giulietta coupe that was offered to me by my old friend Ernie - I didn't have any available garage space at the time and regrettably had to pass on it - dammit!

However I do have a fully assembled and running 1750cc Porsche 912 engine configured for a 356 installation in the basement so who knows what kind of replacement toy I'll wind up with?

[Bil Brown]

So, what was the result at the auction? Did it sell?

[Jack Walter]

The Carrera didn't meet the reserve price at the auction so it didn't sell which is probably for the best. Its on the way home and I'll try selling it privately later this fall.
The bids just dried up in the room at $400K - well short of my goal. I truly thought the car would sell for between $700K and $800K.
Julian Hardy's old white Speedster was also bid to $290K with no sale on Sunday evening. Market prices were seemingly down with many cars not making the projected minimums.

I know that one serious bidder was sidelined with a medical emergency the day he was to leave for Pebble Beach according to a friend of his. If he had been there things might have gone differently.
Some stuff went for silly money - a 1961 Fiat Jolly sold for $110K ($121K with buyers premium) and a 1981 Toyota FJ43 Land Cruiser sold for $160K ($176K with premium!)

On a different note it was my first trip to the Monterey Peninsula for car week and all I can say is just wow. We went to four concours, the Little Car show, and spent two afternoons at Laguna Seca. We went to the Porsche Werks Renion, The Concours de Lemons, The Concorso Italiano and the Pebble Beach Concous d'Elegance - in addition to the rolling car show you saw everyday on the streets of Monterey.

I shot over 100GB worth of pictures - from a Ferrari GTO parked in front of a Safeway (a real one - a friend of mine wonders what his "nice" car is if he's using the GTO as a grocery-getter) to a barn find 1957 Porsche 356 Carrera at the Werks Reunion.

I also met Ted Long at the Werks Reunion - as a 16-17 year old kid he was working at Barris' shop on Lynwood in 1957 when Dean was building the Porsche. He said he wanted to help with it but Dean wouldn't let him anywhere near it. He told some great stories about working in George Barris' shop during that time. I'm going to ask him to write an article for the Registry about those days. He has a neat little post-war mid-engine race car that was built in the late 1940's using VW components that looks very much like Porsche #1. It weighs 900 lbs with its aluminum body and tube frame and was one of the coolest cars at the Reunion.