The 912guy's Porsche Project Page

When I bought my 912, it was in sad shape. It had mismatched wheels and front fenders, missing and broken trim pieces, and (gasp) a swapped in VW 1600 engine. Gray primer covered most of the body while the original dark blue paint showed through in areas such as under the dash pad and inside the doors. I've owned (and modified) several VW Beetles in the past, so the VW motor was actually a plus-parts for it are much cheaper, easier to find, and aftermarket parts make it easy to build horespower. The rest of the car, however, I didn't really know all that much about, other than that 912's were produced as an "entry-level" Porsche-they used the flat-four air-cooled engine from the 356c Porsche instead of the 911's more powerful (and much more complicated) boxer 6, and most had minimal options and the most basic suspension and interior bits from the 911 line. I didn't know enough at the time to check for chassis rust (a common problem on the early cars-no galvanized metal), or that the "A" chassis early cars ('65-'67 911/912's) had shorter wheelbases and slightly different suspensions than the later 911's (which makes finding parts, or updating to later specs difficult-and EXPENSIVE.) Ignorance was bliss-until I drove it home (on only 3 cylinders-we'll get to that later), decided to drop the motor to take a better look, and unknowingly started the whole restoration process. It hasn't moved under it's own power since. Those of you who are car guys know how it is-yanking the motor leads to pulling the transaxle, then to realizing you might as well clean things up a bit since you've got everything out-and before you realize it, you've got your own life-size exploded parts diagram in your garage-the body shell's up on jackstands, the engine (well, most of it,anyway) is under the workbench, the interior now resides in the attic, and suspension and body parts hang from the garage walls like giant mutant bats.