Replica Recognition

Is it online?

Not sure if you can access if you are not a 356 Registry member.

Definitely a well written article....much thought given to being up front that it is a "Replica" car and the rest is time and money....

I'd like to read it, if somebody has a link.

Just tried to get into the article and it won't let you get in unless you are a member....

I find it interesting but in reality a real car guy appreciates handbuilt quality and cars of all types those who are in two cars as a status symbol or as a boys club are in it for different reasons such as status as if a vehicle brings you that or anything else but that is a never ending game, That does not lead to much satisfaction if things are a measure of who you are so for those no matter how much you explain it’s a replica the word replica is thrown at the replica owners as a pejorative.

It is difficult to fully elucidate this to a non car guy.  BTW many car owners of high end cars are not car guys

"It is difficult to fully elucidate this to a non car guy.  BTW many car owners of high end cars are not car guys "

Amen, Ray.

@jprpdr posted:

Not sure if you can access if you are not a 356 Registry member.

Can you copy and paste it here?

Nick Cage in Gone in 60 Seconds summed it up nicely (in reference to those with high end exotics:

"There are too many self indulgent weiners in this city with too much bloody money.  Now if I was driving a 1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4 cam..............."

-"You would not be a self-indulgent Weiner, sir; you'd be a connoisseur."

-"Precisely!"

@IaM-Ray posted:

I find it interesting but in reality a real car guy appreciates handbuilt quality and cars of all types those who are in two cars as a status symbol or as a boys club are in it for different reasons such as status as if a vehicle brings you that or anything else but that is a never ending game, That does not lead to much satisfaction if things are a measure of who you are so for those no matter how much you explain it’s a replica the word replica is thrown at the replica owners as a pejorative.

It is difficult to fully elucidate this to a non car guy.  BTW many car owners of high end cars are not car guys

Every single bit of THAT^^^^^

At Lime Rock Vintage festival a few weeks ago(Labor Day weekend) I pulled in right behind a real 356. It was a 1958 Carrera, four cam 547 and all. Crankshaft-mounted distributors. Sweet car. Really, really nice.

We pull in to the PORSCHE car corral, and his first words: "I thought I had the most expensive car here until you were behind me. Now I see it's just a kit car".

What a total butthole. He then went on to say "I don't buy a car unless it's seven figures". Yup, there's your sign...I walked away saying nothing. He clearly is NOT a car guy, he's a I-have-more-money-than-you guy.

He came alone, left alone. I'm not surprised, even a little bit.

I came and met Lenny and Mike there, and had a great day WITH FRIENDS. Also met David Fuhrer(Speedster now) and Al Baran(TR 550), which some of you may know from Spyderclub. I'd rather have friends. Car guys all.

I have a Porsche engine in my replica and also I am a member of 356 Registry, so I sort of feel only like half a snob😂

It's all in how you act, Bob. I don't think you're a snob at all.

yeah we wont tell anyone ur not a true replicant.

@DannyP posted:

Every single bit of THAT^^^^^

At Lime Rock Vintage festival a few weeks ago(Labor Day weekend) I pulled in right behind a real 356. It was a 1958 Carrera, four cam 547 and all. Crankshaft-mounted distributors. Sweet car. Really, really nice.

We pull in to the PORSCHE car corral, and his first words: "I thought I had the most expensive car here until you were behind me. Now I see it's just a kit car".

What a total butthole. He then went on to say "I don't buy a car unless it's seven figures". Yup, there's your sign...I walked away saying nothing. He clearly is NOT a car guy, he's a I-have-more-money-than-you guy.

He came alone, left alone. I'm not surprised, even a little bit.

I came and met Lenny and Mike there, and had a great day WITH FRIENDS. Also met David Fuhrer(Speedster now) and Al Baran(TR 550), which some of you may know from Spyderclub. I'd rather have friends. Car guys all.

How does that old saying go? “The price of everything and the value of nothing?”

@IndianBob posted:

I have a Porsche engine in my replica and also I am a member of 356 Registry, so I sort of feel only like half a snob😂

I’ve used the 356Registry for research extensively since I bought my Spyder, but I’ve never tried to join. (I’d like to, just to support them) From day one, I’ve sensed a definite anti “kit car” vibe from them. Kind of like the PCA Social Club and Drama School Las Vegas region that permanently soured me on the PCA. (I guess my 1 of 59 968 didn’t stack up against the run-of-the-mill 993’s and 996’s)

Maybe they’re changing.

I’ve gone head to head against a real 356 speedster, and to the dismay of the owner, my Beck was faster and hugged the road just fine. This was during my ritual Saturday morning running of Mulholland in the Hollywood Hills,  before I moved to the open farm roads of Idaho. I jokingly consoled him by telling him not to worry much, because his day of winning will definitely come when he sells it.

@dlearl476 posted:

I’ve used the 356Registry for research extensively since I bought my Spyder, but I’ve never tried to join. (I’d like to, just to support them) From day one, I’ve sensed a definite anti “kit car” vibe from them. Kind of like the PCA Social Club and Drama School Las Vegas region that permanently soured me on the PCA. (I guess my 1 of 59 968 didn’t stack up against the run-of-the-mill 993’s and 996’s)

Maybe they’re changing.

I doubt it. IMHO the 356 Registry is even more snobby than the regular old PCA.

A reminder for those in the back and the new folks, re "Real Classic Porsche" performance: Squeezing the 150 horsepower of a typical CB Performance 2110cc Type 1 from a legit 50s-era S90 engine is nigh-impossible (in part because those engines were based on the 36hp VW case hot-rodders and racers rejected decades ago), and doing it from a [checks notes] Top o' The Line $300,000 4-Cam 547 requires another $100,000 or so (prices available on request).

I cast no shade on those who aim to do it. Just sayin'.

Yeah, a 356 motor is difficult to get a lot of power out of.

I was talking with a guy with an independent Porsche repair shop at Lime Rock. He punched out a 912 motor to 78mm stroke and 91mm cylinders. I suspect that they're really 90.5mm, which yields 2007cc. Or 2029cc if they are indeed 91mm.

Either way, it's a max 2.0 liter and difficult to get 150 aircooled hp out of 2.0 liters given the head design.

It's kinda funny to me that a replica with a 2110 will spank just about any OE 356.

I got lots of dirty looks in the pits after my Spyder trounced a LOT of new P cars at Lime Rock DE(driver education). 170-180 hp and 1500 pounds. It's all about power-to-weight.

I finally just read the Spyder replica article in the September/October Porsche Registry magazine and I got the strong feeling after reading it that the engineer Smith who built it was trying very hard to keep from stepping on toes by making sure he let everybody know it was a ‘replica’ including adding no Porsche badging other than ‘Spyder’ & a 356 Registry badge on the back grill and a small PCA sticker on the windscreen, even though he had a Porsche 356 engine in it.                                    As opposed to me, who has Porsche badging all over my FiberFab/CMC because I figure that, since I have a ‘66 Porsche 912 engine which, according to the official PCA magazine, is a leftover ‘65 356SC engine, so I don’t care if I step on someone’s toes with my Porsche badging.And if people ask me if my car’s  real, I just answer: “Do you think I would be driving a real $400,000 Porsche Speedster to Safeway and leaving it in the parking lot while while I grocery shop?😂

One more thing, my wife & I went to the Porsche Werks Reunion during 2018 Monterey Car Week and in the Porsche Corral, which is the non-judged part of the show, there were a couple of speedster replicas parked next to other real speedsters, and I wish I had gotten there early enough to park mine there instead of the way off on the golf course fairway!

@DannyP your story made me think of a Harry Enfield sketch from the 90s - “I’m considerably richer than you”

"I got lots of dirty looks in the pits after my Spyder trounced a LOT of new P cars at Lime Rock DE(driver education). 170-180 hp and 1500 pounds. It's all about power-to-weight."

A lot also has to do with the fact that you know how to drive, @DannyP 

So many new Porsche owners think 'heel and toe' is a new dance step.  They are P owners, not P drivers...too many value prestige over performance.

"A lot also has to do with the fact that you know how to drive, @DannyP  "

Amen.

I don't consider myself a highly skilled driver yet, but some of my more experienced friends have ridden with me on track days and been very complimentary. It's fun to be in a 230hp automatic transmission daily driver BMW passing guys in 'vettes, Alfas, etc.  Kinda surprises them, too.

Now when I get the Beck coupe to the track at the end of October I'll be on a track I've never been on before in a car I've never driven under those conditions, so I expect pretty much everybody will be passing me, despite my power/weight (180/1850).

I'm reminded of my old Engineering boss and his wife's car.  

After our company finally took off and the stock was climbing nicely, he decided to buy his wife a Mercedes S550 sedan.  We had both attended a meeting off-site to which he drove his wife's car that day, and he offered me a ride back to our building to show off his car to a known "car guy" (which he definitely was not).

As we're riding along, the car phone rings (this was mid-1990's so you had no dash screen to announce the calls).  We're both looking all around the dash to answer the call but after 6 or 7 rings the call ended and we still didn't know how to answer it. (we later figured out that the car phone had a couple of dedicated buttons right on the steering wheel for ease of use).

Later, when we had arrived at our building, he wanted to show me the V-12 engine in  his wife's new car, but neither of us could figure out how to get the hood open.  And we were supposed to be a pair of the top storage engineers in the country.

Maybe that's the difference between a car owner and a car driver.....   Or maybe not!

Lots of co-workers bought cars as status symbols - Most of the Senior Staff drove Cadillac STS cars because the founder drove a Cadillac Sedan deVille.  Once he moved to a top end Lexus, all of a sudden we saw lots of Audis and BMWs and a few "sports cars" show up in the Corporate lot.  All of them were under warranty so the owners never had to work on them, just drive them.

Confessional:

I bifurcate cars into two clean categories, which keeps me relatively sane.

In Category 1 are the transportation appliances - these are the cars I can't/won't do any substantive work on, which get daily use. Work trucks, Mrs. Galat's daily driver, even the limo: all are OBDII ECU vehicles that never fail... right up until the point they do. I change the brakes, exhaust, batteries, and filters on these, and I do the oil changes and light routine maintenance, but if it throws a code, I take it somewhere.

I had a starting issue on the limo last month - it turned out to be a bad ground, but when I found out that the starter on a Northstar V8 is under the intake manifold, I took it into somebody. I'm just not doing it. Modern vehicles are a mess of sensors, ECUs, and plastic that breaks under a heavy hand. I once fried 3 modules on an Mercedes SLK I bought for my mom just trying to jumpstart the idiotic thing. I wanted to burn that car to the ground.

If I really need the vehicle and don't enjoy the work, I just want to swipe my card and be on my way. So that's what I do with Category 1 vehicles. It's generally possible to earn a little more money doing something I'm good at rather than something that makes me want to break things - and if it isn't, then perhaps I can't afford to own the vehicle in question. There are many such cars, most of them from the Fatherland. Guys who own and operate these cars are either better wrenches than I am, or have more disposable income, or both.

In Category 2 are vehicles I want to drive and improve for pleasure. Invariably, these are older cars and trucks and motorcycles. I can see what's happening inside with my mind's eye, and I enjoy nothing more than making something out of nothing or improving something that wasn't all that great to start with. Driving these vehicles briskly requires getting the most out of them - pushing their limits, adapting my style. I feel like I'm the master of the vehicle, rather than the other way around. This explains my speedster habit.

Modern sports cars are marvels of capability and are dead-nuts reliable. But I've not got a huge need for a car with capabilities and technology inaccessible to an ape with tools (like me). I stopped riding motorcycles when I felt like it wasn't the bike holding me back any more, it was my lack of skill. I like to improve both my mechanical skillset and my ability to drive, but owning a vehicle that's not much fun until it's going 150 mph leaves me a bit cold. A newer 911 seems like I'm along for the ride. "Driver's aids" like manuals that heel-and-toe for me, and stability controls that save my bacon if I come into a corner too hot leave me perplexed. I've said before that George Clooney would probably do a better job taking my wife on a date than I would, but I'd still rather not ride along with him while he did. There are some things I just want to do for myself, even if I do them less than perfectly. Old cars allow that.

But interesting old cars are expensive now, and are becoming static garage art. A replica is a plastic clown car, propelled by a glorified lawn mower engine designed in the 1930s by a Nazi for Adolph Hitler. I can get a new one if I wreck this one, and if I misstep on an improvement, I haven't destroyed the Mona Lisa trying to improve it.

They're perfect for a guy like me, and if I can just keep the government out of my garage, I'll happily tinker away and blast around on back roads in it for the rest of my life. Your mileage may vary, but that's why I love these cars, recognition or no.

Yeah to  your DD  category one, I do oil, summer to winter tires, sometimes brakes but not much else.

’ I stopped riding motorcycles when I felt like it wasn't the bike holding me back any more, it was my lack of skill.’

For me it was that on the long trips I was too bored, and I just felt like I always wanted to bury the needle so after a few close calls I realized I would be more comfortable in something I could stretch out in.

" I like to improve both my mechanical skillset and my ability to drive, but owning a vehicle that's not much fun until it's going 150 mph leaves me a bit cold. A newer 911 seems like I'm along for the ride. "Driver's aids" like manuals that heel-and-toe for me, and stability controls that save my bacon if I come into a corner too hot leave me perplexed."

That is exactly what new cars do, click click click. and take you to dinner.

I just read somewhere of some guy who keeps getting tickets with his new Model S, he says it's too quiet and he has no idea how fast he is going so he has to continually use his cruise control as he is near to losing his permit.

I'm with you Category two is the most fun.  

I also get a lot of satisfaction at adding new custom features to my car, to improve or make some adjustments in creature comforts.

I have also a personal category of vehicles that I have been doing body work on. This one also is a DD,  I am following Al's advice and making a lot of holes everywhere to lighten it up, taking excess weight off, for better aerodynamics, manoeverability and comfort, and it has really made a difference in the quality of the experience.  Very visceral.  It had to all sorts of new sheet metal changes to recover the unit.  

This DD happens to be a meat sack, that I can't escape and I take with me.  

Losing 4 pants sizes actually has made me realize how the carbon unit impacted my modifications on my current speedster.

Were the 4 pants sizes in 2" increments?

If so, very impressive.  I thought I was doing good at 2 sizes.

I'm with you, Stan. During my rewiring project my son's 2006 Prius threw an ABS failure code. Toyota doesn't make replacement components, you have to buy a whole brake actuator with 8-10 brake line fittings and a 40 pin computer connector for mucho dinero.

Since he paid less for the car than the cost of having the actuator replaced, he bought a used part and asked if I could help install it.

The brilliant T-engineers placed the brake actuator UNDER the high voltage control unit, so we learned much about the inverter cooling system and all of the safety disconnects. Just bleeding the brakes takes a special ODBII program and includes a dance between the vehicle high pressure brake pump, the guy with the bleeding bottle and wrench under the car and the guy watching the computer screen and pumping the brakes on command. Oh, and if you don't hustle between the gazillion steps the computer punishes you by timing out and making you start over. My kind of fun 🤬

A couple of days later, he takes a test drive and the car runs great until he turns it off. When restarted it decides that the pressure sensor deep inside the brake actuator is wonky and puts the car on regular braking (no power assist). That's just like our clown cars but Toyota engineers decided that in addition to the warning light, you need a continuous, piercing beep to let you know that you don't have power brakes.

I'm done. I'm not going back in and I suspect that my son is going to sell the car. The car's just not special enough to try to save.

Yes Michael, nearing down to ( 5 x 2 ....Yes, some cars are not worth saving and the hidden costs of E-Vehicles are unknown to most except the no gaz costs.  Once we calculate the true cost, and the frustration of owning these, walk beside Prius, a joke I used on my brother in law a lot but who secretally finally saw the light and went with a Ford Ranger  

Re emblems: IMHO, a fake Mona Lisa deserves to be faked well and carefully!