Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Picture of week - unrestored Porsche 904 GTS

There is an ongoing debate in the scene about what is better, a beautifully restored car or an unrestored car with patina. Now, with race cars, people tend to really liked the cars with true traces that the car competed in many races. The picture on the left shows details from a Porsche 904 GTS that run at the Gaisberg race this year. It's unrestored and basically 100% correct to period specification and build quality. It's awesome! Gaisberg was also special in the sense that you could compare 4 or 5 of these cars, some completely restored, and one totally unrestored. Of course glossy cars in as new state look good, but this shabby 904 GTS with race stickers from the 60ies, corroded wheels and all these marks from races and storage, it's just marvelous.
The issue is that if you really want to race old cars then you have a safety requirement that may force you to take such a car apart and fix it from the inner to the outer. That means that cars like this Porsche 904 GTS in many cases are more museum cars and show cars than ideal candidates for fast laps and hard track use. Also one must know that these cars were built to last one, maybe two or three seasons, not 50 years. With this in mind, an unrestored Porsche 904 GTS is even more of a joy to look at!

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