Update by David S. Wallens to the
Porsche 911 Carrera project car
Feb 21, 2025
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Porsche,
Porsche 911
Photography by David S. Wallens
Things you won’t see on the Pebble Beach showfield: modern accessories, modern electronics, modern wheels and tires. In fact, it’s right there in the judging process: Cars shall be judged on their originality.
But what about the rest of us–and those who also like to personalize things a bit? A possible compromise: How about working to keep it at least period correct?
Is this going to be expensive? Not necessarily. For the most part, the total cost to send this 1984 Porsche 911 Carrera back to the year of its birth could be measured in the tens of dollars.
Not tens of thousands. Tens of dollars.
First, I was lucky to score a car in very original condition. Second, I had a simple goal: Make it mine but also have it representative of how it would have looked if, by chance, I owned it back in the day. (Foreshadowing: Best I could do that year was a well-loved BMX bike.)
Perhaps the elephant in the room: the ducktail, famously unveiled gracing the 911 Carrera RS 2.7 at the at the 1972 Paris Motor Show. My car, best we can tell, came delivered with a Turbo tail, not the popular Carrera tail. The Turbo tail’s rubber lip wraps all the way around the tail; without the Turbo flares, I found the look a little unbalanced, hence the swap to the ducktail. Since 1972 comes before 1984, let’s call it a period-correct mod.
Gleaming paint, sparkling chrome–and a modern license plate broadcasting the URL for your home state’s department of tourism. Kills the mood, right?
How about swapping on a proper plate when you go to display? Some states–our home of Florida included–allow classics to display year of manufacture plates, but let’s keep it simple: Buy the appropriate plate–eBay, swap meet, garage sale–and, once on the showfield, swap it on. (Hint: Do not drop the screws in the grass just before they open the gates to the public.)
I grew up in New York and wanted to represent. I found these plates–New York used this style from 1973 through 1986–literally sitting on a shelf not 2 feet away from the car. Best I can remember, they’ve been in the garage for some 20 years. Don’t have that luck? I see someone on eBay selling a similar pair for $16.09. The original mount for the front plate had disappeared at some point, so I had to get a replacement: $36.79 from FCP Euro.
A period-correct license plate needs the appropriate plate frame, right? The perfect solution–again–came from my private stash: Autohaus was our local Porsche dealer. Pretty sure I rode there on my BMX bike and things happened. Alternate choice: $20 or $30 for something cool on eBay.
Notice a lack of a registration sticker on those plates? For whatever reason, New York left that box empty. The state instead issued two stickers for the lower corner of the windshield: registration and inspection. I bought pretty faithful replicas for $43 (including postage) from Robert Hoyt’s Classic Windshield Stickers.
What did any self-respecting Porsche owner run back in the day? Yep, a radar detector.
I bought an in-the-box Cobra Trapshooter Pro II–there’s a 1984 copyright on the owner’s manual, so I’d say it’s kosher–via eBay for the grand sum of $15.50 delivered. Later on, a reader donated a vintage Passport to the project. Side benefit: The radar detector helps hide a crack in the dash.
Do they work? Well, like the old plates, they work great for igniting conversation.
In the center console? A garage door remote that may well be from the Carter administration–still opens our garage door–plus some cassette tapes that defined the early ’80s punk scene.
The other necessity, then or now? Sticky tires. This car received wider, Turbo-spec wheels at some point, and they’re now wrapped with the Yokohama A-008P. These are modern tires with looks that emulate the brand’s hot autocross tire of the ’80s. Figure about $1100 for a set from Tire Rack–maybe not tens of dollars, but you gotta have tires, right?
[Testing the New Yokohama A-008P–And, Yes, Tires Do Stop the Car]
And now to tie it all together. At Amelia Island’s Radwood show not too long ago, I again perched a BMX bike on the roof–this time the very one I was riding back in 1984. (The rack came together via a mix of parts from Craigslist plus the current Thule catalog.)
On the showfield, I overheard a woman mention the dealership’s name while pointing it out to the rest in her party: “Autohaus in Huntington!”
So I stepped in to inquire. Not only did she know the dealership, but she owned the dealership. I likely rode that very bike there.
Our cars are special. Let’s make them that way for those checking them out–and perhaps take them back in time for a few.
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