Any DFW folks know this place? Options

[cooltimes]

A keeper.

Thanks.

[LowGT]

He pulls off the mask and I get a good look at him.... yep, first impression was right, we're talking SCAREEEEE. He looks to be older than me, his hair was sticking out in every direction, he had on the dirtiest mechanic's overalls I've ever seen (although I could still pick out some of the Porsche patches) and his hands were incredibly torn up and dirty!

We don't want to hear about what you see when you walk into YOUR garage. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mueba.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[ClayPerrine]

He pulls off the mask and I get a good look at him.... yep, first impression was right, we're talking SCAREEEEE. He looks to be older than me, his hair was sticking out in every direction, he had on the dirtiest mechanic's overalls I've ever seen (although I could still pick out some of the Porsche patches) and his hands were incredibly torn up and dirty!

We don't want to hear about what you see when you walk into YOUR garage. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mueba.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Keep it up, and I will disable her internet connection.. .

Then you will NEVER hear the end of the story.

[dagdal1967]

If he/we find a place for him to move the cars, we should all go over en-mass and help him move and clean up. Show him that there is a Dallas enthusiast contingent that cares.

If he knows we're all good people, (which we are) he might be willing tho share the wealth...

Doug

[spare time toys]

If he takes tim up on his offer to help Ill see if he needs more help. Who all has trailers they could haul stuff on? Oh the car on the right just inside the gate is an early chevy II SS (IMG:style_emoticons/default/aktion035.gif)

[dagdal1967]

OK Betty.. Time fore "the rest of the story"...

Doug

[Betty]

OK Betty.. Time fore "the rest of the story"...

Doug

Sorry guys, Clay and I had a busy weekend helping his niece and her husband by doing the internet/phone and cable drops in the new house they're having built.

Where was I.... oh yeah, the guy asked me if I wanted to look at the 914's he had before we went to look at my "broken down" car out on the road...



We had to zig-zag between various cars and trees to make our way over to where the 914's were sitting (I think I ruined my shoes with the mud!). I passed some crazy looking cars! Everything from exotic sports cars I couldn't identify, to run of the mill American cars. I must say, his taste in cars is eclectic to say the very least! As we got closer, I kept walking into things because I was too busy trying to look at what we were headed for, not to mention the dogs had been "helping" by running around us in circles like Tasmanian Devils. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/dog.gif)

There were three 914's. One of them was sure enough a genuine purple.. oops, sorry again Rusty (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wavey.gif) ... aubergine car! It was a total basket case though. Rusted beyond belief, sagging and getting ready to break in the middle. The car sitting behind it was in even worse shape... it might have been a red 2.0 in its previous life (it looked like it had faded to a funny looking pinkish color) before it had been rolled in a wreck. The ONLY possibly good thing you could see was that the Targa band had not collapsed in the rollover... maybe the driver made it out alive? There were no doors on both the cars so I checked the stickers on their door jambs; both said "98". I have no idea what that means - how can two different colors have the same number? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif) I asked the guy what the history on the cars was and he said he didn't know anything about those two, they'd been bought at separate car auctions about 10 - 15 years ago. The third car was sitting off a little bit from the other two and had a fairly new looking tarp on it. It was almost completely covered in tree branches and twigs though. It looked like high winds had done a number on the trees it was parked between.

I walked around the aubergine and red/pinkish cars, looking at them. They both had bumpers like my car (it's a 1974). The guy played with the dogs (IMG:style_emoticons/default/dog.gif) for a couple of minutes and then said "That's about all there is to see, shouldn't we go look at your car?". I said, "what about the one under the tarp?". He kind of hemmed and hawed, said it'd be too tough to get the tarp off because of the branches, blah, blah, blah. Right about then Turbo (IMG:style_emoticons/default/dog.gif) ran up with a HUGE branch that he obviously thought would be a most wonderful stick for me to throw for him. I walked over and grabbed a stick off the tarp and threw it for the dog. I said "I would just LOVE to look at this one! Maybe we could both get the tarp off enough to see it just a little bit? I NEVER get a chance to look at many of these cars!".

The charm had been ramped up to FULL FORCE at this point! When I had walked over to get the stick to throw for Turbo... I had glanced down and saw something under the edge of the tarp. The color on the rocker panel was a bright green but the paint above the rocker was white.

I just started moving branches off the car and talked him into moving the tarp enough for me to get a good look. It was a freakin' Grasshopper... we're talking white with that bright green on the rockers with the Porsche graphic above them. I think he knew it was an unusual car but I'm pretty sure he had absolutely no idea just how rare. I've heard Clay talk about them, I've seen a Bumble Bee (Hi Pam!) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wavey.gif) and one Creamsicle in person. I couldn't see any signs of it ever having been repainted... it looked completely original in that respect. He did say it had been bought by his Dad; in fact the whole property had belonged to his Dad and he had inherited everything a little while back.

It was really "different" in a bunch of other respects too though... We had moved the tarp off of the drivers side, enough that I could open the door (the sticker said L80"E" or "L80"8" - I couldn't make it out completely) to look inside and I even popped the engine lid. It was in spectacular shape for having been sitting under a tarp! I asked him about that and he said he'd had to move it outside just recently because the garage was full of other cars.

The interior looked stock... but then it didn't (I'm not sure how to describe it).... like somebody had taken a stock interior but changed just enough things in it to suit them self. It was leather, which was nice but the sun visors had two colors on them, one side was black and the other side was tan to match the rest of the interior (kind of goofy looking if you ask me). There weren't many miles on the odometer, it was in such good shape that I tended to believe it - a little over 21,000 miles. The tach had an 8,000 rpm redline - I do know that's different from my 1.8. Left side of the dash had an oil pressure gauge and a temperature gauge. It had the cut down looking, smaller console (I forget what it's called) and there was a gas gauge and a clock in it.

The engine compartment was a complete surprise. What I could see on top kind of looked like the engine in Clay's car... but he had told me a while ago that there were only a couple of mechanically fuel injected 914's in the US? It was definitely a six which surprised me because the other two cars were 4's and that was kind of what I had been expecting with this one. The bumpers (what I could see of them) were not chromed, they were painted like the car and they were a different shape - really odd - certainly not stock. It had fender flairs too. I knocked on them and they sounded metal, not fiberglass! The top was metal too - I've never seen a 914 with the top welded on! It certainly makes sense though if you don't care about taking the top on and off. I pulled the tarp further out of the way on the front and there was an oil cooler in the middle of the front bumper. I've never seen that before! The front bumper sounded like fiberglass when I knocked on it though - bummer. I checked the VIN on it and it did start with "914" so it wasn't a conversion.

Like I said, the car just "felt" stock, like it had come from the factory that way... but somebody HAD to have made all of those changes, right? I must've said something about the oil cooler when I first saw it because the guy said it must've been somebody's race car or something like that - he wasn't sure. The car looked very straight and "unmolested" to me, so if it had been modified to race... I couldn't tell. People with more knowledge than I have would have to look at it to know for sure...

Turbo and Ferry (IMG:style_emoticons/default/dog.gif) were bored by now and the guy was getting antsy so I gave up looking at the cars and helped him cover the car back up. We made our way back to the driveway (I saw an El Camino that looked pretty cool!) and on out to my car. I popped the engine lid for him and he wiggled some wires. He found the plug wire I'd pulled off of the distributor almost immediately and put it back. I was terribly appreciative, shook his hand and finally got his name - James Landrum. He'd been pretty decent overall so I thanked him for "fixing" my car, thanked him for taking the time to show me the 914's and hopped in my car and took off. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/driving-girl.gif)

I am going to ask Clay about that whole mechanical fuel injected engine thing though..... that was weird!

[cooltimes]

Thanks for sharing.
Great mystery story and funny too.
Turbo....sounds like Ed V's dog to me.

Cooley

edited, shorter.

[cooltimes]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/icon_bump.gif)
for those that missed Betty's P's Adventure. Thanks again Betty.

I made a complete copy of this story and put it in my all time 914 keeper drawer.
You should too before it gets hidden deeper in the archives.
My grandson's (3 and 6) thought it was exciting and asked questions as I read BP's story to them while adlibbing and adding character voices as well as Turbo & Ferry dog noise and their dog character thinking for the thrill of the story but kept it totally Bett's story.

Cooley