Posts in 2015
So... what do we have? Bad news section

The rear wings and rear door pillars have been replaced as part of the previous owner's partially-completed resto project. Barry proposes to take them off again, have a good go at the lower rear inner wing / torsion bar tube / kidney bowl areas, and re-do to his standards. 

Front wing closers have been done, but need to be re-done. There is some quite severe pitting to the front inner wings:

The front pan and slam panel have been repaired. Not well enough, so this area will all need to be unpicked and re-done (with new Porsche panels).

Final points: it looks like my front wings, door frames (need re-skin), bonnet, and probably bumpers are save-able. Roof seems fine.

Overall I'm feeling very optimistic. As previous evidence shows, Barry can reconstruct a car from very little, so failure is not an option. But based on what I see so far, I think / hope we will end up with a lot of original metal in the car.

Time will tell.

2015Richard Fry
So... what do we have? Good news section

Evaluating the shell with Barry. 

I've been holding off posting pics and my ignorant opinion about the state of the metalwork. 
But now the shell has been seen by a few folk who know what they are talking about, here goes. 

Mustn't speak too soon, because it's not yet been blasted. But I think there's a fair amount of good news. 
Based on research so far, it looks like my car left the UK for Australia quite early in its life. No salt on the roads there, I'm told. It seems a lot less rusty than some UK shells I've looked at - see what you think of it from the pics.

Barry is optimistic we can keep the front inner wings (with localised repairs).
Bulkhead is good, no accident damage kinks, and we can see some original Signal Orange paint there. 

Moving inside the rear seat area is original and seems good. 
Surprisingly (to me) the floors are also original - new edge repair sections have been used to blend them into a sill repair, but the main section (and the floor boxes, central tunnel etc) is all factory metal.

Round the back, and completing the good news section, we have nice straight rails and the original rear slam panel.
No sign of previous accidents here and all nice and sound.

2015Richard Fry
VIP Visit

We had a VIP visitor yesterday, welcomed with mediocre coffee. 
At least the sun was shining. 

I've been on Barry Carter's waiting list for a while, but am now getting somewhere near the top. So yesterday was the day Barry came over to have a good look at the car and the motley collection of other panels shown in the pic. 
We had a chat about plans, and about the big pile of metal I now need to buy from Porsche.

Feels like progress. Other pics to follow.

 

2015Richard Fry
Barry Carter

Barry Carter is a bit of a welding legend here in the UK. He's done the metalwork for some beautiful early 911 and 912 restorations.

For example:

Studio shots above are by the excellent Jamie Lipman, and the Bahama Yellow 912 is his car. To see more of his work, click here: jameslipman.com

Also, Barry has never been defeated. No matter how hideously rusty the starting point. Let me illustrate: one UK car, nicknamed swampy, had suffered indignities including a workshop fire and subsequent period out in the rain. At its low point, it looked like this on Barry's jig:

Having seen a lot of his work, and chatted to him at length, I was convinced I wanted Barry to do my shell. At that time he was pretty busy, so I've been on the waiting list for over a year, but he's coming to visit and look at my car in the next week or two. Should be interesting.

2015Richard Fry
Inspiration

My Signal Orange UK 70S had two sister cars, same colour, seemingly all registered by Porsche UK. Demonstrators or Press cars perhaps. They were early in the production run. 
I was contacted by the owner of one of the other two orange S-es - he had recently finished the resto. It was a pleasure to be invited to see that car last weekend - thanks! - and to check out the fine details. It's been beautifully done. Something to aspire to.

2015Richard Fry