Well....when this Bumblebee came up for sale I took a long look at the savings account, had a short talk with my enabler (aka my wife) and started a conversation with the sellers. Stan and Ann (the sellers) seem like wonderful people and I enjoyed our conversations. It took a few weeks of getting to know each other, but ultimately we arrived at number that made both of us happy (although Stan might say it made me happier than him ). Fast forward three weeks, and today at 6:15am I woke up a few of the neighbors as the car was unloaded down the street. It arrived in an enclosed transport in the company of some expensive Italian cars and I swear I saw it giving them the finger as it was unloaded . Some of you may be familiar with this car as it has been around for a while. It's an older restoration done at Otto's in Venice, CA. I wanted a car that I could drive and not be too nervous about, and while quite nice this is still a driver. It will join my Karmann Ghia and my 1975 1.8 in the garage, and after I give it a good inspection and undoubtedly sort out a few things I hope to start driving it on a regular basis. Everybody loves pictures but I won't overload this post with more than a few. If you want to see more pictures I'm including a link to a publicly accessible dropbox folder. Thanks to everybody for sharing their knowledge and friendship over the years, especially @tygaboy , and if those of you who are familiar with this car have any stories to share about the car or John (Otto) I'd love to hear them.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/f9ohfbqam5585ls/...0gHJ-9HbUa?dl=0

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This is awesome! Congrats

Nice addition! Congrats!

Wow! A special car for a special guy... Big CONGRATS!
Now drive it up here so I can see it.

+1

Great addition to the collection, now get some seat time chalked up

I see more A Solution!

Congratulations!

Nice!

Congrats Broheen!

I looked through the pictures and it looks great. Congratulations on finding such a nice specimen

Great purchase, looks clean!

Congratulations! Nice buy.

Congrats! Your serial isn't that far off from my Bumblebee! Yours looks a whole lot better than mine.

I am pretty sure this is one of Otto's cars. We had beers together at Street of Willow one year.

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Congratulations on the fine acquisition! Beautiful car.

Sweet! Congratulations!

Very nice dude!

Nice!

OTTO, passed away years ago,,. John Williamson... straight forward no BS guy...
https://yovenice.com/2013/02/10/rip-john-otto-williamson/

Congratulations for sure for sure for sure.

Congrats, nice find, can never post too many pics!

How does one get there wife to be an enabler? Mine recently tried to disable me from purchasing another p-car.

Thanks everyone. I appreciate all the well wishes. I got an hour today to go through the car and so far it is better than I thought it would be. It's not rolling with the parking brake off and the car in neutral so at least one of the calipers is stuck, but that is fixable. I couldn't tell when I drove it a few blocks. That's all I've found so far. PMB will be getting some of what is left in my bank account. Otherwise it looks like what you would expect from a 20 year old well done restoration. Apparently John claims to have put $50K worth of NOS parts in it when he restored it. I would guess that is an exaggeration, but it does seem that it was properly done. Not the original engine, and a reproduction front air dam, but I can live with that.

@nditiz1 You find what she loves and you overwhelm her with it. I bought her a beautiful antique store display cabinet for spools of thread that works great as a jewelry box and every now and then a new piece of vintage jewelry shows up in it. Works like a charm! She even started to look online to see if we could buy a nearby property with an eight car garage.

@tygaboy . For sure! A trip to the red barn is always the highlight of my week. Let me sort out the brakes and I'll make a run out there.

Congrats Broheen!

On my way to the West Coast Classic in 2005 I stopped by Otto's in Venice to see the shop after years of seeing his ads in magazines. John was flattered that I took time to visit and showed me all around the shop including the BumbleBee he had just finished. A couple of days later he joined the WCC group having lunch at Paramount Ranch and later at the Lancaster Inn for a track day at Willow Springs.

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Yep that was John's car he drove on the track at Willow Springs. My daughter rode with him on track and said he was a good driver, always putting his cigar in the ashtray when he needed both hands on the wheel. The dropbox photo of John with the BB was taken that day at WS.

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Congrats, really nice bumblebee!

Cool seeing those WCC 2005 photos - I was there at SOW but IIRC I didn't bring my 914 to Paramount Ranch even though it's nearby cuz it didn't have a child seat... (now that kid's 22).

Otto (JW) was my mechanic from around 1999 if not before till his passing, and he did the original -6 conversion and race-prep of my current 914 in 2003-04. That included a custom front oil-cooler along with 5-lug conversion, suspension & brakes. Plus a short-geared race trans which survived about 15 yrs of beating till needing rebuild. He was also one of my first POC instructors. It's completely true what Sandy's article mentions about JW often fixing peoples' cars trackside for free, pulling needed parts out of his old blue Dodge van which was like a rolling Porsche dealership. He bailed me out at least twice at Streets of Willow and another time on the way to my office in Santa Monica which was a few miles from his old shop.

Congrats. Nice find! Enjoy.

I spent a bit of time on several calls with Stan going over the sale of his car. A very nice guy with a lot of cool cars. In the end he was made whole on this car, and it came back to the west coast. Not every car purchase ends up with a profit the end. If you were able to enjoy it for a number of years and you got your money back that is not a bad thing.


Fiacra enjoy the hell out of it.

Best Bob B

Nice find, should be rust free coming from CA. That's about the only thing good coming from CA!

Well, we here in California have perfected denial

Great car! Congratulations!

My Bee is VIN -14854, a little after yours.

Just catching back up on this thread. Thanks again to everybody for their comments.

@ejm Thanks for sharing those pictures and your memories of your visit with John. He did a nice job on the restoration, and so far as best as I can tell it has held up well over the years. Wish he were still around to talk to. He sounds like he was an interesting guy. I'll do my best to be a responsible steward of this beautiful car.

@burton73 Thanks for sharing that. I was hoping Stan was made whole, but I was reluctant to broach the subject. He bent a bit, I bent a bit, and I think we both were satisfied in the end. That's the best kind of deal. It's not all about making as much money as you can. Life has much more important goals than that. I hope all is well with you. It was great meeting you and I'd love to see your car next time I'm in LA.

@geezer914 I get it, but one more comment like that and I'm going to call Gavin Newsom and have New Jersey cut out of the CA supply chain Having lived in NJ and other parts of the tri-state area for over 8 years I know how great it is there.

@scallyK9 . Add some pictures of your car to this thread. I'd love to see it. While you're at it, if the "K9" at the end of your handle means "canine" then add a picture of your dog as well. The more pictures the better

@Lockwodo I have no idea what you are talking about I thought denial was in Egypt

@cassmcentee Things working out with the Ruby Red car? I want to make sure you are happy. Let me know. It was great meeting you.

Thanks Broheen!
I started the Transfer process this morning.
Ruby is going up on ramps today in order to drop the motor.
Still working on the details of my built motor.
Will keep you posted
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Really nice! Congrats. And This looks more like a solution than a problem.

Congrats! I spoke with Stan about his car last year and he is a genuinely nice guy. That car has a great history. The BB I ended up with was built the same month as yours and only a bit over 200 different on the VIN.

Mine is just now put back together after a bunch of freshening projects. It mostly sat for a number of years. Off to Rennsport this morning.

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