Yes, Targas have their special charm, especially the early ones! There is an interesting story behind this 1970 911E Targa. This car was painted at the factory with one of the most beautiful and 'rare' colors in Porsche's color history! Richard von Frankenberg, then editor of the Porsche house publication, wrote a very interesting article re: MY1970 paint colors chosen by customers that model year. It was published in Christophorus Issue No. 89 / Oct. of 1970. This was a unusual year for Porsche since it offered 30 paint color choices to its customers - 9 standard and 21 special colors! In the article, von Frankenberg revealed that less than 00.1 % of production that year were painted in this unusual 'Crystal Blue' color! With 15,749 units of 911 & 914-6 produced in total in that model year, that works out to about 15 or 16 cars painted in this 'rare' color! I doubt many of those 15 or 16 'Crystal Blues' have survived to the present with their original paint intact like on this 1970 911E Targa!
http://www.early911sregistry.org/forums/showthread.php?50771-List-of-all-colors-delivered-in-1970-by/page2
This car also distinguishes itself by being special ordered with factory air and full interior leather, both rare options back in those early 911 years! The original owner was then PCA Zone 1 rep Doug Troyer and his NJ licence plate read 'PCA - 911'. Even in its infancy, this car was already gathering attention! It was chosen in 1980 by the editors of the first all-Porsche US publication - Gmund Magazine - as the cover shot for issue #4 and merited an article inside its pages! That is when I first learned of this car existence & I have been captivated by it ever since! I finally met its second owner - Terry Ritsos - at a Watkins Glen racetrack PCA event in 1982 & I kept in touch with him all of these years. In fact, we roomed together at the '86 PCA Parade in Portland, Maine where this car placed First in its Class at that year's Parade Concours. I finally persuaded my friend Terry to pass on this beautiful Targa to me in 2008, some 22 years later! To this day I keep in regular contact with this Targa's original owners. And I credit them fully for any current good fortune at my last two showings at Parades since they were the visionaries that kept this 1970 911E Targa in such pristine condition since it was delivered new back in 1970! Without their efforts at preservation since day one, none of this would have been possible! For example, Mr. Troyer never folded the original Targa roof panel in his car. Instead, he bought a second one to use for daily use. And its two subsequent owners followed that sacred 'tradition'. Thus, there are very few Targa's left in the world still with an original Targa top since these rarely survived intact. This is one of them!
I have shown this car twice since I became its custodian in 2008. I took to the '09 Parade in Keystone, Colorado. There it won both First in Class & First in Division in the Preservation Group. It was then re-judged for over-all Preservation Group, but lost to a very original 928! This past July, I drove it again to another PCA Parade. This one was held at Salt Lake City! The car did very well in its class at the Concours but that was not the surprising news. This 'Crystal Blue' Targa caught the eye of the Porsche family judges as they strolled through a remote side field of the State of Utah Capitol grounds where it had been positioned by the concours organizers. This panel of judges - Doctor Wolfgang Porsche, Hans Peter Porsche and young Ferdinand Porsche (son of Wolfgang), and Detlev von Platen (CEO of PCNA - selected this car of all at the Concours for the coveted & highly prestigious 'Judges' Choice' Award! It is a great honor for the car and also for its two previous owners who preserved this 55K original miles car in such excellent unrestored condition for all of these years!
Saludos, Eduardo (Carmel, CA)
I am not very technically minded so I need RC and others here to explain exactly how they think this innovative Targa roof will work on the 991 version.
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