Luca's 1972 Porsche Targa/Convertible

Luca started this project with a different 911 Targa but it soon became apparent, once it had returned from a visit to the blasters, that it was too far gone to be of any use, so after a quick search on the usual bidding based website another candidate was found and subsequently purchased from the outskirts of Potters bar.

The car had been treated to a full blown fibreglass bodywork kit which can only be described as the resulting offspring of a late night fumble down an alley between a flat nose 911 and an 80’s Testarossa, not nice at all!

It was the hideous bodykit which gained this car the moniker of Miami Vice!

Once we had Miami Vice back at the workshop we started to unpick all the Tupperware that had been bolted, glued, and blu tacked onto it, and started to compile a list of repair panels we were going to need. As the pile of plastic outside grew so to did the panels list. The rear wings had been hacked off with a blunt chainsaw leaving jagged edges and holes which had been drilled to affix rivets and chicken wire! The engine lid was a late model item and had been butchered to fit a gaudy 80’s whale tail. Similar horrors were found at the front with butchered wings and a mangled bumper held together with go faster racing mesh, bubblegum and luck.

The new list ended up looking something like this:

One short bonnet, one bonnet slam panel, one front valance, one lower front valence, one fuel tank floor inc front suspension pickups, fuel tank upper support panel, fuel tank support side panels N/S and O/S, front sections of inner front 1/4 panels N/S and O/S, both front battery boxes N/S and O/S, lower outer section of N/S/F 1/4 panel into base of B pillar, both front wings (early), N/S B pillar/hinge mounts (with pressing detail removed from original pillar and grafted into new panel), N/S middle and outer sill, N/S and O/S rear wings/1/4 panels, N/S and O/S C pillar/ door jambs, entire cab floor, engine lid, front bumper ( S Spec), O/S and N/S rear bumper corners, middle rear bumper section, pair of 2nd hand non impact side bar doors, N/S and O/S kidney bowls (later larger/stronger 964 style bowls used) …Aaaaaand a whole plethora of other bespoke panels and sections made in house!

The oil filler flap/recess and the release button from the old wing/1/4 panel were removed and grafted into the new panels to retain the main things that denote it being 72’ model.

Sounds quite simple when its all compiled into little paragraphs but there were hours a plenty spent on that little lot including the setting, checking and adjusting of the chassis on a Cellette jig.

Then onto the fun bit, the plan for this car had always been to convert it from a Targa into a convertible. Some of you are possibly already seething and spitting at the computer at this notion but it was Porsche themselves who first entertained this idea and reportedly built several hybrid prototypes, even going so far as to creating and factory spec manual covering the process of the conversion, listing all parts, part numbers and even measurement schematics to aid would be converters.

After finally sourcing all the necessary parts including an early manual cabrio roof assembly ( this item took 2 and bit years to source as they are pretty rare) We were ready to crack out the grinder and take the 1st cut. The conversion itself was pretty straight forward and have templates of all we did ready, for the next one!

Along with the most obvious change to the roof structure we will be carrying out several other little mods and tricks at the customers request, some will be quite subtle, others not so, stay tuned for more updates and all will be revealed.