1985 Porsche 911 Carrera 3.2 in Estonia

Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/48387559@N02/sets/72157637943859473/with/10996738036/

• What is your car’s year, make, and model? – 1985 MY Porsche 911 Carrera 3.2
• Where do you live?  Tallinn, Estonia (its a tiny European country)
• How old are you? I’ve built the car together with my dad. More specifically, it’s the other way around, really.
• How did you become interested in cars? I think its because of my dad. We’ve always had interesting cars in our family and I’ve grown up looking at foreign car magazines and playing with car models.
• What do you love about your car? I think its the fact that we’ve built and customized the car according to our own taste. We really tried to give the car a classic look without making big modifications on the body and compromising the car’s distinctive “impact bumper” look.
• What made you buy this particular car? After a lot of thinking we decided to get the iconic first generation 911. The car has a lot of character, as an early 911 would, with the specific sound of an air-cooled flat-6 engine and the weight distribution of a hammer –  characteristics which make it much more of a blast to drive.
After having a look at many early 911’s the decision to choose this particular model was mainly related to the 3.2 engine, but also a good price. In all honesty the car was actually bought over eBay in the US based on 180kb pictures and a couple of phone calls. We had it shipped to Estonia.
• How did you find or come to own this car? After months of scouring through forums and sites (and many failed transactions) this particular transaction “stuck”. We wanted a “mild project” but Porsches on offer in Europe were mainly “concourse cars” or total wrecks. US market is much bigger and although there is the added cost of trans-antlantic shipping, the whole package was still better suited to us.
• Where do you most like to drive this car and why? You definitely can sense that the 911 was designed on the autobahn – its very stable at speed and it feels as if the engine loves revving. I’d say that driving on country-roads would be the best. On the othe hand, the first drive with the 911 after the restoration was actually a track-day event! So by no means is this meant to stay car a garage.
• Is there any other interesting background on you and / or your car? My father told me, that in the early eighties, when he was a teenager, while living on the eastern side of the iron curtain, he dreamt of buying a proper sports car one day. And at the time I was born he had an aircooled rear-engined car, not a beetle but a soviet ZAZ 965, with a V4 engine and whopping 30 horsepower.
This is the second project we have done together (the first was a Classic Mini). Our Porsche was completely stripped and the galvanized body found in almost perfect condition (after spending some 28 years somewhere in Arizona). The shell was painted inside and out. Everything that could be removed from the car was removed, inspected, cleaned and then either repaired, painted, plated or replaced. The gearbox was opened and checked and redone. The engine was in need of a full head overhaul and thorough cleaning. Interior is our own design, finished in black leather with classic 911 RS-stye bucket seats.  To the discerning eye there are lot tiny finishing touches to the car, such as deleted foglamps or earlier model Durrant-style mirrors.
• Who is the photographer? Kaspar Orasmäe

Originally a U.S. market ’85 Carrera this car was bought off a salvage yard and shipped to Europe, Estonia. Here me and my dad have done a full nut-and-bolt restoration on it over the course of a year. The keen Porsche enthusiast will notice slight differences compared to how it rolled off the assembly line, such as the deleted fog lights on the front or the durrant mirrors. Inside the car is fully re-upholstered and every detail has been redone, including back-dated dashboard, chromed bezels for the instruments, rennline style aluminum floorboards etc. The engine is a stock 3.2 U.S. unit completely repaired, including the 915 gearbox.

My dad has been organising open-track events for over 10 years now and we have always wanted to buy a special car to take part with. After a lot of research we decided to get the iconic 911. However, after having a couple of purpose-built track cars we wanted this one to be built road-legal so we can drive it to the track and back or take it to the store for groceries. The car itself has a lot of character, as an early 911 would, with the specific sound of an air-cooled flat-6 and the weight distribution of a hammer, characteristics which make it much more of a blast to drive.

I’ve been a reader of Petrolicious for a while and this car just seemed to fit well with the site’s feel and astehetics. Hope you like it.

Kind regards,