Muddy barn find...
I was going to submit this for the WCSTA contest...and post pictures, but I was worried that even though I had a handshake deal with the owner, that someone would recognize the car and the location and I could end up losing the car to a more ambitious bidder. Barn find for sure. Car and accessories are now in my shop. Took me six hours today to get it out of a muddy barn... that was actually built around it, and then a rollback to get it to my shop! More pics to come.
Jeez, what did they make, 4144 or so Speedsters?? Gotta figure 1000 are dead?? Every time I visit an upholstery shop in San Diego, or a top notch restoration shop, there are 2-3 in there being done. Aren't we all done yet? Amazing.
Sweet Lars! What are your plans? Is it solid enough underneath that you can drive it like it is after you've gone through all the mechanical systems? Congratulations, how many have dreamt of finding an old 356 in a barn... and a Speedster at that!
Thanks guys.
Car was last titled in Pa 35 years ago. Owner moved to Colorado and never got it registered, so it sat. He moved to a horse property and felt bad about the car being exposed, so he built the barn around the car. The owner is a friend I have known for a while, but always knew he was into horses and music, but not old Porsches. His property got pretty beat up by the flood out here a year and a half ago, and the barn where the car was stored did take on water. A year ago he mentioned that he felt bad about the poor little car being stuffed into a corner of the barn, sharing a small room with hay bales. He knew I was a Porsche guy (mostly 911s) and a month ago out of the blue he asked me to come take a look at the car to see what it needed to get put back on the road. It needed a lot. And when he began to realize the magnitude of the project...he started to get cold feet. I asked if I could buy it and a deal was made. We have had an amazing amount of rain out here over the last five weeks. The barn had finally dried out enough to attempt a rescue. It was still very, very muddy. The good news is that with a couple come-alongs and a lot of block and tackle...the mud allowed us to slide it to freedom. Bad news is that it needs floors and rockers. It is missing it's original speedster seats, but otherwise it is amazingly complete...and came with an extra SC engine to boot...which will get built first. I need to clean the car out, cockpit and front trunk, and then drop the engine and trannie. and evaluate my next step. I have a car next to it on the rotisserie, and another one in queue, so the metal work on this one may be done locally by a shop. I am going to have a couple 356 metal guys come take a look soon.
I LOVE stories like that. Nice work Lars. It looks like a super fun project. Be sure to shoot us some more photos when you can. We can all live vicariously through you.
There must have been something about red Speedsters in PA 30 years ago, this one got put away in 69, until I pulled it a couple of years ago, from Nowhere, PA.
Your car has way more barn patina, the car I pulled the guy thought he was doing me a favor by washing it before I arrived, he didn't know that 30 years of dirt on a Speedster is priceless, like yours, I would wait as long as you can to wash it.
SO SO COOL!!!!!!!
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www.unobtanium-inc.com
Check out my Barn Find column in the Registry magazine, always looking for good stories.
Heck of a screen saver and heck of a car! As Jim posted, if you are looking for metal work in Colorado, The Metal Surgeon would be at the top of the list.
