1973 Porsche 911 Targa - restorative correction and detail - 62hrs

Just completed this car last week at the shop. Normally I like to post cars in the order that they were done and I have a lot to catch up on, however this car was pretty special and I wanted to post it up sooner rather than later.

Long time client recently picked up this all-original 1973 Porsche 911 Targa with the purpose of enjoying it, but he also wanted to enhance the appearance as much as possible while maintaining the originality. This little gem of a Porsche was victim to some bad polishing in its past. Nearly every panel edge had burn marks. The hood and engine cover were particularly abused. In addition to that, the paint was quite thin presenting a challenging task, to restore the condition of the paint as much as possible without further damaging the compromised areas. Much more info provided throughout this writeup.

Total time was 62 hours, not including picking up and delivering the car from the owner's home in Palo Alto and back again.






Condition when I got it to the shop















First up was addressing the numerous dents and dings. There were quite a few. The hood was a challenge with a large arm-print dent right in the center. It was a severe dent and made worse by the rough texture on the underside of the hood making leveling it out quite challenging. So I had a master dent removal tech come out to fix it.


Right at the front of the hood there were a couple bad dings like this one. The back side of this part of the hood is sealed and double-walled. Not an easy fix.






The arm-imprint dent








The ripple effect of the arm dent caused ripples all the way up the center of the hood







Just a few of the many dings on the driver's door (counted over a dozen)











Someone inexperienced attempted at fixing the dings on the engine cover. Several of the dings had been pushed out making a proper repair difficult. Luckily the attempt by the previous dent removal guy did not crack the paint.











Plenty of crud, dirt, old wax, and scratches all round every single letter on the engine cover















Plenty of dirt and dead paint under this beautiful piece. Would be removed to gain access and restore this area. Its the small things that make a big difference at the end










While I worked on the emblem and grate removal, the master tech Joe from Dent Pro worked his magic for many hours to remove several dozen dings and dents.










The condition of the engine cover after emblem removal and dent repair. The long road to restoring this was just beginning.













As stated in the beginning, many areas had been burned by previous detailers. These particular edges had been burned quite badly....note the white color along the edges.









The original single stage paint had plenty of swirls to go around

































50/50 shot after compounding








Plenty more defects on the driver's side








Notice again, extensive burns along edges....











Chips and burns here













The wheels were in a poor state. Looked as though someone had use wheel acid on the bare anodized aluminum and heavily stained it. The owner requested that I fully polish the wheels out.










The inside barrels were quite bad too. Lots of old wheel weight adhesive left, tons of brake dust, and a thick layer of grease under all the brake dust.










After stripping off all the grime. Some staining would not come off, but not bad considering the age of the original finish.













All taped up to protect the flat black paint from the polishing








Making progress








Much better....HD Metal made for some good results
















Looking better






Exhaust tip before/after








Fog light housings polished
















With all the correction done and coated with CQuartz UK, it was time to start putting things back together











Paint in the engine bay needed some polishing. It measured around 40 microns, so only light hand polishing would be carried out, nothing aggressive.















These slats were filled with ancient compound and wax residue. So after removing this, every individual slat was hand polished.










After all the old gunk was removed, you could see that each individual slat was numbered!

Sehr Deutsch.






The paint underneath now matched the rest of the paint





Polished up this trim as well








All finished and looking glossy now














Wheels looking sharp. Also owner sourced out new polished and painted center caps to match the wheels











































Payoff for doing the emblem removal


















Final shots in the sun









































Delivered back to the owner...with the paint reflecting everything around it. Look close and see the smile on his face.





Thank you for looking!



Fertig.

 

great job!

 

Very nice! I did one just like that last year. Not that extensive of a detail but same car

 

What an incredible detail!! Thanks for chronicling it so well with excellent photos. I rarely get to see such intricate detailing because there are just very few people Willing to pay for such perfection.

 

Wow, you knocked that one out of the park! Couldn't have come out better. Nice work!

 

Nice work!

 

Great job!! Car looks amazing.