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Having spent many years in the cheap side of the Porsche community, I encounter quite a few upturned noses at things I had done to make me happy with the 911SC/993 turbo cabrio. Some folks will never understand having something just for the fun of it. I sold the Porsches to make the down payment on our little house out here and bought an old IM to rebuild for fun.

Figuring out how to explain to people what the car is was hard at first. I've deleted any IM references from my explanations. Many people don't even know that it is a replica of a Porsche much less have any interest in the history of replicas. I usually just start saying that it is a replica of a 57 Porsche Speedster that I rebuilt (you can see where my ego is invested :-)

Like many folks on this site, I came around to enjoying having an unusual car that's just for my enjoyment. I proudly display my PCCA (Plastic Car Club of America) badge on the engine grill and am waiting for the custom license plates that say "FAUX-57." I enjoy the admiring and puzzled looks the car gets and I've had untold numbers of parking lot conversations with people about cars they've had and seen over the years.

Budget additional travel time for those conversations, they make everyone happy. Don't worry about car snobs. The things they worry about aren't relevant to us and it's not your responsibility to make them happy. As a matter of fact, I get a little pleasure out of tweaking the noses of snobby people. Enjoy your IM. I think that number 55 is yours for as long as you want it. Welcome to the madness!

Mike

Since Henry screwed me over worse than anyone in my life, I'm not the guy to ask about IM anything unless you want to hear a true horror story.  Luckily I was able to get rid of all the bad and replace it with good.  It is difficult to explain to Porsche fanatics that I had NO interest in another old 356.  I was born in one, driven to school every day in one, bought my first one days after turning 18 years old.  I wanted to create MY perfect 356.  And I did that.  Strangely, everything visible is much more original than most restored 356s as is the interior.  I used a lot of Reutter NOS parts, etc.  AND it is REALLY quick.  No soccer mom is going to pass me.

Eric Marshall Green posted:

Since Henry screwed me over worse than anyone in my life, I'm not the guy to ask about IM anything unless you want to hear a true horror story. 

I think I've read of your travails a while back (before you found our merry band here). You drove this car across the continent and had a blog chronicling your journey, did you not?

Hand built cars always need some sort of sorting. Screw ups and surprises, can and will happen.

Everyone use to buy Tuesday to Thursdays cars and never Mondays from Detroit have we forgotten this?

The fact that someone is living so far away from the builder does not help the situation and chasing a gremlin can be no fun especially when you find a hose end like Jim found in his Coupe cooling system or in your case with the carbs.  Or your building what amounts to be a prototype of a new build for the builder.

Sorting my car provided some agony, some fun and frustration and cost,  but human error will occur I am not sure that venting on this forum helps at all even if your life was put at risk by an error in building.  

You signed up for a hand built car with all the risks and you rolled the dice.  Some would say your crazy to build a handbuilt car and take those risks why not just go out and buy a brand new 911 and they do have a point.

Are you unhappy with the journey?  Well, maybe and maybe it is because your at the top end of the scale for build costs you are maybe even more frustrated but venting here without a possibility of any comments from the other side is fruitless IMO. 

In any case,  my car is sorted and I love my IM, it is a great car and it has had and has it's nuances/ issues being hand built.

I have owned 50 cars in my lifetime, have I lived that long   Some I got rid of because they were lemons some I did not like and some were just DDrivers along the way. 

I hope your car is finally sorted and that the experience in the end will be more enjoyable and bearable for you... just remember,  in the end you can always sell your car.   Welcome again to the madness.

 

My guess is that Henry was okay until he over-leveraged himself with the nose that has a battery.  And I'm not going to show you all the e-mails from others, as they trusted me with their stories.  Here were a few of my issues (Since you asked):

 

This happened a couple years ago

My 100k Intermeccanica in the first weeks of ownership:

These issues happened from the time the 356 was delivered by Henry on a car carrier in Ventura, California where I flew in from Maine to pick it up and within two weeks of driving the IM across the country back home:

The special metallic paint I ordered ($450 a gallon) was sprayed over a two week period, so the car arrived in four different colors, thus its nickname Patches.  Any good car painter knows when metallic is heated up to spray, it changes chemically, so each time it is a different shade.  For the record, Henry refused to make good on any of the problems with my 356.  Once he had my money, he turned into a different person.  I’ll let you guess what kind.  And the last gallon of $450 paint was sent to me in an unmarked box, without the lid hammered down, which ruined the paint when it spilled out and created a severe health hazard for all involved in its transport.  Sending hazardous material in an unmarked container is a Federal crime with a fine of $200k.  This was fully documented by the Belfast police department.

The 1k new Coker tires were cracked severely, were unbalanced because they were so out of round they could not be balanced on a modern machine.  The Stoddard wheels were also too large in the rear and rubbed the body.  The front was SO out of alignment that the new Dutch tires (with new wheels) I was forced to buy and put on the car before starting the trip wore out completely on the outside by the time I got to Ontario.  Try buying tires to fit a 356 in the far northern USA.  (This has all been documented in the soon to be released documentary film: Quantum Run 356.). The fronts also rubbed when turned, but I managed mechanically to lift the front so it wasn’t too severe.

The CBP 2.1 l engine, which Henry guaranteed was their most reliable engine ran poorly.  It backfired, stuttered, etc. About all it would do was accelerate.  In long sections driving across the country I was forced to accelerate, then coast.  This for hours and hours.  Remember I had a full Animal Media film crew following me on a very tight filming schedule.  When I finally found a good enough mechanic to work on the engine, we found that the plugs could not be removed without dropping the engine.  Some weird shrouding metal prevented getting a tool to seat on the plug.  To cap it off the engine caught fire after I managed to get it home.  Would you call that reliable?  I wondered what the non-flammable insulation was that fell down on one side, choking the already terrible running engine.  So Henry must have known his engines can suddenly burst into flame.  The issue was a rubber hose dropped down an inlet and not removed, which I found last Fall when I rebuilt the engine.  Also, the Webers were a nightmare—wrong jets, settings, etc.  I was charged by Henry $550 for "special" carb tuning.  The hose was free, I guess!

First the windshield wipers stopped working on high.  Then they quit completely in the middle of a severe downpour in Watertown, New York.  An old lady turned across me and it was only by a miracle of intuitive reflex that I saved Patches.

The tachometer quit.  The door handles kept falling off.  This just seemed funny.  The engine ran so rough it shook Patches to pieces.  One of my favorites was the horn simply began to blow whenever it felt like it.  Since I had insisted on Maserati airhorns run on a compressor, this became quite a thing in gas stations, etc.  I might have killed one very old guy in a camper!  Luckily I was able to rebuild the horn button on the road.  Half the documentary film is either the car in garages or me working on it in parking lots.  But what did I expect for 100k?

On getting back to Maine, I rebuilt the Webber carbs.  I found wrong jets, which had been doctored crudely.  All the adjustments were very wrong.  After fixing the Webers and setting the valves, etc., the engine ran much better.  So . . . now I know why the carb adjustment (fine tuning) bill I received from Henry for around $550 made little sense since it was dated when Patches was still in primer and six months before the 356 even had an engine.  The list of fraudulent charges by Henry is too long and boring to list here.  But I can list them if you insist.  

The fact that Henry “lost” the Jaguar ignition switch that Sir Stirling Moss gave my father is another matter.  But Henry’s changing stories on how the switch got lost were certainly entertaining.

My advice?  If you want to actually drive your expensive IM 356—don’t!  Hopefully your paint will match so you can at least stare at it.

For the record, I am Eric Green, the known American artist and writer from Belfast, Maine.  Google me. 

Ray, good points.  If Henry had not continually lied to me, I would have been fine.  And I can NEVER sell the 356.  It is my legacy.  As I'm sure you know, my father created the first 356 GT car with Ferry Porsche in 1951.  I grew up first in that 1952 coupe, then in a 356B, and then I basically bought my father a 1970 911.  My father died in 1982.  I miss him EVERY damn day.  I built this 356 for him, for his memory, to find him again in my heart, which I did.  

I told Henry price was NO issue.  I figured he understood, and instead, he ****ed me over just for money.  That to me requires a bit of venting because I would not want others to suffer as I did.  If you don't like it, then simply do not read it.

Wow, quite a hand built car story. 

It does sound like you had quite a few issues and on top of all those they happened  on your maiden voyage which you had decided to film hollywood style.  Maybe if IM would have been involved in the scheduling of the filming of your car they would have sent support with you for the ride. 

My advice at the moment you discovered all those issues,  would have been to return the car right away to IM, it is obvious from your story that it needed to stay with IM for more sorting.   Sorting issues and screw ups to the extent that you have written about are really unfortunate but this list has a number of horror stories in the learning curve of what this hobby of hand built cars is all about.   You do not know what you do not know about this hobby until you live it.  I am sorry for the pain and aggravation that you have lived in sorting out your car , I know it well, and yet, I am really enjoying my car it will be 5 years in April that I took delivery. 

I feel bad for your experience but would take it all the more seriously if you hadn't written this:

"ruined the paint when it spilled out and created a severe health hazard for all involved in its transport.  Sending hazardous material in an unmarked container is a Federal crime with a fine of $200k.  This was fully documented by the Belfast police department."

Spilled paint, "severe" health hazard, federal crime, police?

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