Nov 22, 2017 • Uncategorized •

Ziebart may be the best-known name in rustproofing, but no matter how thoroughly your new Porsche has been treated, if you park it for 42 years in what looks like the root cellar of a barn, it’s gonna rust. How badly will have to be determined once we can get this ’67 912 out into the light of day, but in the meantime, it’s here on eBay in Brook Park, Ohio with bids up to nearly $2,000 and about two days left at the time of this writing.

Oh, boy. The selling dealer notes that the body of this 912 was built by Porsche, not Karmann, but if that’s meant to be a reassuring statement about build quality, well, the workmanship’s only going to go so far in the face of suboptimal storage conditions. They also helpfully note that shipping costs to Europe are about $1,500, but I thought the whole point of shipping cars back to Europe was that ours were less rusty than theirs. At least this one is a potentially inexpensive starting point, I guess.

It’s also a potentially numbers-matching car, although there’s no Certificate of Authenticity to verify it. The seller does note that all of the numbers found on the chassis, flat four, and five-speed gearbox are correct for 1967—and unlike the last really far gone Porsche I wrote about, everything’s there. Take that for whatever it’s worth; the seller notes that everything is frozen after its decadeslong nap.

I have to think that this is a parts car at best. The best thing I can say for the exterior, which the seller somehow sees fit to describe as “extremely straight,” is that almost all of the lights are still there—although not necessarily attached—and the glass is all intact. The glass also tells much of the story of this car’s life before it left the road in 1975, though, a story that brings this car back to life and makes it a little harder to accept that it’s dead—especially since we don’t know why it was stored away after such a short time out in the world.

More useful parts may be found in the interior—along with more remnants of the car’s past life—including a steering wheel and dashpad that clean up surprisingly well. If this one was a roller, it looks like you could have some good Flintstones-style fun with it. As it is, sadly, I think the only fun left to be had with this Porsche is in finding what salvageable parts it has to offer and using them toward the restoration of another early 912 or 911. Any brave readers think otherwise, and think they’d want to tackle a restoration of this barn find?