Here’s a short video commissioned in the mid-’90s, featuring the hugely successful Porsche 911 rally cars of Francis Tuthill’s Workshop in Wardington near Banbury, Oxfordshire, UK.
As well as commentary from Francis, the film also features some of the drivers who have won in Tuthill Porsche 911 rally cars, including Walter Röhrl. We also get to see some really excellent in-car with much-loved friend of the championship-winning Porsche builders, Björn Waldegård.
It’s hard to beat being in the car with one of the all-time great World Rally Champions, racing a classic Tuthill 911!
Pulling weight out of a Porsche 911 is one thing and quite a common occurrence nowadays, judging by the stories we hear on impactbumpers.com. But here’s something different, courtesy of the chaps at banksiaeffect.com.
This ‘78 SC, apparently quite an original Australian example, was bought by the brewers of VB Raw beer in 2009 and transformed into a back-to-basics driving machine by former advertising creative, now visual artist and designer Paul Begg. Here’s a link to a time-lapse montage of the build process.
Perhaps transformed isn’t quite the right word: remodelled might be more appropriate, as the overhaul seems strictly cosmetic. The look isn’t to my absolute taste, but there are some nice touches and it’s certainly food for thought. The car was given away as a competition prize when finished – new owner Shane Nelson might be having some fun with it right about now.
As beer advert eye candy, it’s better than a darts-playing bear, but falls short of a slinky northern bird in an ice cream van. As a talking point – well, it got our attention, right? It certainly has VB Raw on my list of drinks to try, if I ever see a bottle.
Temperatures finally rose high enough today to encourage me to tackle some outstanding jobs on the cars. Number one emergency was the Land Cruiser, which has had sticky starter syndrome for a few weeks now – right when it was needed to be at its most reliable! What happens is the starter stays engaged after the engine is running. If it goes on too long, the 24 volt starter can go up in smoke, so it’s an important job.
The problem is caused by worn starter contacts – fair enough after 18 years of service. Toyota do a repair pack, so I got some and took the starter off today to fit them. It’s easy enough to get the starters off these diesel manual trucks: undo the loom from the battery and split charge relay and take it all out, wiring still attached to the starter.
Taking the starter apart was easy once I had it out. I love how these starters are made: a single casting holds the solenoid assembly and the main body. Then the armature bolts up to the casting – talk about durable. I pulled the back of the starter solenoid off to find this:
You can see here that the solenoid plunger has been getting hot for a while. This is what it looks like on the other side:
It has basically welded what was left of the live contact onto itself! Looking at the contacts, it was clear I’d had my money’s worth. Just got there in time too by the look of it:
The contacts are two L-shaped pieces of copper. That is how they start out anyway. Also interesting here is that the insulators around the inside of the contacts are actually black like the outer ones – they only look red as they are covered in copper dust.
I’d lost the light by this stage, it was time to cook dinner and it was raining heavily too, so we’ll get it reassembled and back on the truck tomorrow. My super bike genius neighbour has just bought himself a lathe, so we might turn that solenoid plunger contact washer back to as-new condition before we reinstall.
I love Fuchs. No other wheel suits a 911 like the classic lightweight forged alloy rim. Smooth and simple, it neither overpowers the classic 911 shape nor underdelivers in its visual impact. A Fuchs rim is the perfect Porsche wheel (“Incidentally,” interjected the Porsche geek, “the word is pronounced ‘Fooks’ and is the same whether singular or plural”).
I have a few Fuchs in my collection now. Nothing outrageously wide, just the regular stuff in 15″ and 16″ diameter. I have tried some of the UK Fuchs refurbers, which has worked out OK but never really stunning. So there was only one man to talk to about a set of 15″ Fuchs for my orange Carrera 3.0, in 7″ and 8″ rim widths, done in the classic RSR finish. That man is Harvey Weidman in Oroville, California. This is his anodised RSR finish on a pair of 9×15 Fuchs:
Harvey is a 911 fan. His Martini 911 (below, shot by Bob Tilton) is a regular on R Gruppe events in Northern California, and his laid back style and late night car park conversation is a real crowd puller. Well, it pulls me anyway.
Weidman’s Wheels have been playing with Fuchs since Moses was a boy. Harvey tells some great stories of ordering the rarest rims brand new from PCNA many moons ago, at prices to make us weep today. Suffice to say that if Harvey doesn’t know it about Fuchs wheels, then nobody does.
I bought a few sets of 15s in the States last year and not all of them were immaculate. I recently pieced together some RSR candidates by way of a set of 7s and 8s, and sent them to Harvey via some helpful Norcal buddies who were headed up to drop some rims, shoot the breeze and take some pics. They came back with a few cool shots, which I thought might be nice to share. The first is of some uber cool Ronal rims for a widebody project one of the guys is working on. Love these babies:
Here you can see just how wide we are talking! The hunt is on for the centre gaskets on these.
Here’s the Ronals in use on one of the Belga cars from Ypres 1985. Look at the width!
Next is a rim being altered for a buddy running a very widebody 911 RSR down in Southern Callifornia. Playing with rim widths and offsets is a Weidman speciality; not heard of a fail myself yet.
Finally, here’s some RS Carrera wheels that have just been finished in the original green. Note the perfectly sized template for the mounting face under the bench – we don’t want paint in between the wheel and the hub. Amazing how many refurbishment ‘experts’ get this wrong:
Needless to say, I’m looking forward to seeing the finished products in a few months’ time. The Carrera 3.0 is a special little car and Fuchs are special rims. The combination of 15s, Continental Orange 911 and Harvey’s stylish hands should be pretty amazing stuff. More pics as we get them!
Contact details for Weidman’s Wheels are below. If you like Fuchs like I like Fuchs, then it’s well worth getting in touch. Harvey also refurbs Minilites (tricky things to do right) and magnesium centrelock wheels – anything really.
Weidman’s Wheels
1675 Wyandotte Avenue
Oroville, CA 95966
I’m still overloaded with work so not got a lot of time to blog at the minute. There is a light out there at the end of the tunnel however, so I should be back up to speed soon.
Following a day spent at the Office of Fair Trading, I attended my usual Monday night Basic Digital Photography meet at Warwick College last night; am now half way through the course. Most of the evening was spent playing with layers in Photoshop.
Here’s an interesting effect that’s really easy to create – we call it ‘colour pop’. Start with a pic, then copy the same pic over the top of it: duplicate the 1st layer (your pic) by dragging it to the icon next to the trash in the layers palette.
Convert your base layer to black and white and then use the eraser tool to take out your colour pop subject, thus exposing the full colour version underneath. It’s quick ‘n’ dirty, not professional, but can make some stuff look good. I like the colours in these pics – like a tint effect. I chose the light blue and orange to mimic the Gulf cars and purple with green to evoke the acid-tripping Kremer 917 (my favourite Porsche scheme to date).
Week off college now for half term and then back into it. Homework is some compositional analysis of our own work and practise panning shots.
Anyone who is thinking of one of these courses should just get in and do it. Pick a college with the right equipment though. Ours has lots of Macs, tripods, projectors, card readers etc, which I think makes it. Don’t just sign up for night classes in some secondary school – pick a place that is approved by City and Guilds. Then you know they should have all the gear.
