Does anyone have suggestions on learning history of a particular car? I am very interested in learning more about the history of our 1960 356B/1600 S-90 Reutter coupe project car. In particular the origin of the large Golde manual clothe sunroof. I have exhausted my options by looking for previous owners.
I have tried:
Previous owner (deceased)
Carfax - only works with 17-digit VIN
COA - Doesn't list sunroof
ELEVENPARTS AG - who appear to have access to original Kardex records
CheckThatVin.com / National Motor Vehicle Title Information System (NMVTIS) - One hit from 2012, seems incorrect
Porsche Cars North America
Porsche Classic Partners - All in North America
International Association of Auto Theft Investigators and regional chapters- Thinking they could get DMV records
American Recovery Association (car repo specialists)
ALS Resolvion (car repo)
The COA doesn't list a sunroof, but my understanding is they are not necessarily complete. The car while in rough shape, is mostly original. If the sunroof was dropped in by someone, they did a pretty good job. There's no obvious cuts or welds. We may discover more when we strip the car down.
Hi Bob. Thanks for the reply and attachment. I had overlooked that file in the other threads. There are more sunroof 356 out there than I expected. The Golde Sunroof Installation Manual: 1956 – 1959 Karmann Ghia in particular is interesting!
I have the CoA, which matches the surviving door jam tags. Exterior: Slate Grey. Interior: Red Leatherette.
1960 356 S90 Sunroof Coupe
1970 914-6
2014 Carrera S
Doug McDonnell wrote:It looks like the sunroof headliner has a different pattern from the rest of the headliner. It this in line with your inspection?
Hi Doug. Best I can tell, the material, hole pattern, and color of the main headliner and sunroof are consistent. The limited quality of my phone camera may make it look a bit off. The placement of the seams are not aligned though.
1960 356 S90 Sunroof Coupe
1970 914-6
2014 Carrera S
Thanks for recommendation for David. I was able to connect with him and get a scan of the Kardex. Not a lot on there, but it did yield the original importer. Did not know that before. So now we know the beginning and end. I just need to figure out the middle.
1960 356 S90 Sunroof Coupe
1970 914-6
2014 Carrera S
Does your car have the sunroof drains on the rear pillars?
The California DMV has a form called INF-70. For a very small fee, it will trace a car's registration and ownership history. The form asks for a reason for the search. I have always used the line: I have information about the car which would be of interest to previous owners. I get the sense that the DMV doesn't really care what you give for a reason.
Could easily be an aftermarket installation. Be interesting to know where that car spent its life. In NYC there was a very high end custom shop with a 100 year pedigree called Humer-Binder that did many of these Golde installations, and you would not be able to tell them from a factory installation. I know, because a friend of mine had an installation done on an XK-150 S coupe.
You can find some information about them on the web...