Forty years is a long time to wait, but that’s just how long the tassel-wearing stripper faerie painted on the hood of today’s Nice Price or No Dice 911 has had to wait to show off her goods. We’ll have to decide if this Porsche’s price makes that wait worthwhile.
Prior to shooting the 1978 movie “Corvette Summer,” both of the movie’s leads, Mark Hamill and Annie Potts (in her film debut), suffered injuries in separate, unrelated car accidents. Hamill broke his nose and Potts her leg. Coincidentally, the set designers of the more recent TV show “Young Sheldon” honor Potts’ movie debut by adorning her TV Character’s gambling den with a poster from the film.
Hopefully, all will be safe for the buyer of the 1995 Chevy Corvette convertible we looked at last week. Painted in Arrest-me Red and seemingly in great condition, that six-speed ‘Vette’s $8,500 asking price was low enough that pretty much any of us could star in our own Corvette Summer. A solid 87% Nice Price win sealed the deal.
Simpson’s Samsons
Whether on the street or on the track, one of the Corvette’s most formidable rivals has long been the Porsche 911. Taking another page from the TV trope book, today’s 1970 Porsche 911 presents as a crossover episode, as it’s powered by a small block Chevy V8, the weapon of choice for many a ‘Vette as well.
According to the ad, the V8 conversion was completed a long time ago using a Rod Simpson Hybrids kit. Rod Simpson was a Los Angeles cop whose off-duty time involved shoving a 400 CID Chevy V8 in the back of his 1966 Porsche 912. Along with the American muscle, he added a 911 gearbox, heavier duty torsion bars, and a radiator in the nose. That first car led to the creation of kits for others to create such monsters, with Simpson selling a few dozen and converting around 20 more cars for others himself. This car appears to fall in the kit conversion category.
Rip Van Winkle
Per its ad, the conversion was performed around 40 years ago, when the car had approximately 37,000 miles on the odometer. It now reads 37,480 and has been sitting in a “clean garage” for the past four decades. This is a long-nose 911, but it sports wide fender flares, both front, and rear and has no bumper in the rear to accommodate the beefier V8 that now holds court under the Turbo-style wing. The engine looks to be a tidy installation, and expense was taken to put braided metal coverings on all the hoses. A four-barrel carb sits atop a low-rise intake, while exhaust is handled via a set of tubular headers.
In Simpson’s original conversion, a radiator was fitted in the nose, and a deep scoop was molded into the front hood to allow air to escape. This car features a front bumper with a scoop underneath, which would have likely originally been designed for an oil cooler. Whether or not that’s where the V8’s cooling gets done doesn’t get explained. The scoop itself is torn off on the bottom and will need repair.
A lightened interior
Some clues are given in the bare interior shot. Obvious in that image are two hoses with screw-on connectors, making it look all the world like someone’s about to install a washing machine in there. The rest of the cabin is empty, right down to the floor covering. A custom instrument cluster sits in the stock dash, while the door cards and headliner look to be all original.
The exterior is painted black and features some expressive artwork in the form of flame pinstripes and a kneeling lady on the nose wearing nothing more than go-go boots and stripper tassels. As presented, it should really impress the neighbors. The seller claims the car beneath the tawdry paint scheme is solid as a rock, with no rust or signs of damage repair. All the glass appears intact, although the wipers are missing, so check the weather report before taking the car out. The title is clean, but after forty years in that clean garage, the car has likely dropped out of the DMV’s database.
Faerie dust
The asking price for this hybrid Porsche is $22,000, which would be a steal if the car had its original engine and interior. As it stands, it’s now a bit of a conundrum, given that it’s a project in need of extensive work to be made roadworthy, and then presents a question of value in actually incurring the expense of doing so. The seller suggests refreshing it as-is or returning it to full factory specs. That latter path would require sourcing a Porsche motor and a lot of cabin pieces as well as figuring out what to then do with the Chevy mill.
What do you think? Should this Porsche be revived in its current form? Or should it be returned to its original state? Most importantly of all, should anyone pay $22,000 for the right to make that decision?
You decide!
Nice Price or No Dice:
Los Angeles, California, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
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