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1971 PORSCHE
911S 2.2
A right-hand-drive 2.2S is a rare
car – so when Neil Plumpton found
one in a definitive Seventies Porsche
shade, he had to rescue it
e p i c
r e s t o r a t i o n s
‘I wanted the car to
look perfectly preserved,
not restored’
On the way to buy a Carrera RS replica, Neil Plumpton heard
about a 911S 2.2 in need of love – he couldn’t resist
Words: Ben Field Photography: Richard Pardon
P O R S C H E 9 1 1 S 2 . 2 e p i c r e s t o r at i o n
‘I was in the process of buying a
Seventies 911 RS replica from Canford
Classics when I heard about this 1971
2.2S,’ says Neil Plumpton of the
eleventh-hour intervention that sparked
this particular Epic Restoration.
‘I’ve always loved classic Porsches and I’d asked Alan
[Drayson, owner of Canford Classics] to let me know
when a good project turned up.
‘In the meantime I decided to buy a completed RS
replica from Alan. I was just organising the delivery of
that car when Alan mentioned that he was going to
look at a 2.2S project in North Wales.’
Tantalisingly, it was a right-hand-drive example, one
of just 32 produced. Sensing Neil’s excitement in the
pause that followed that right-hook of a revelation,
Alan filled the awkward silence with a question. ‘Would
you be interested, then?’
The answer was an emphatic ‘yes’. The deal on the
RS rep was amicably off, but the buying and restoration
of the 2.2S was most definitely on.
Fifteen years of solitary confinement in a Wrexham
lock-up had done the Porsche few favours. ‘It had
plenty of holes in it,’ remembers Neil.
On the plus side, the car was complete, had matching
numbers and was finished in Tangerine. ‘I would have
settled for a less obvious colour if it had meant getting a
right-hand-drive 911S,’ says Neil, ‘but I love the proper
Seventies Porsche shades of green, blue and orange.’
With the 911S back at Canford Classics’ Dorset base,
the stage was set for a restoration piece that would run
for 1145 hours, featuring a star cast of artisan engineers.
The structure was a cocktail of crude patches and rot
Painter Clive Churchill spent 240 hours prepping the body
After sitting unused
for 15 years, the todo list was huge
‘I love the proper Seventies
Porsche shades of green,
blue and orange’
Canford Classics’ purpose-built 911
rotisserie allows full access to the
911’s vulnerable underbelly
Neil’s 2.2S was
restored in its
original Tangerine
82
PORSCHE 911S 2.2 e p i c r e s t o r at i o n
T h e
b o d y w o r k
‘It came back from the
blasters like a teabag’
The front wings were
fitted on location pins
pre-painting to maintain
hard-won panel gap
perfection on reassembly
‘Normally I don’t see the car until it has
been blasted,’ says Canford’s metal
manipulation expert, Paul Coleman. ‘In
this case the outer rear wings were so
rusty I cut them off first to make it easier
for the blaster to get to the inner wings.’
With the rear wings off, there was clear evidence of
historic bodging to the inner wings. Large plates held on
with knobbly welds covered the sections below the rear
windows. These repairs were a result of an earlier
attempt at rot reduction, as Paul explains. ‘Small repairs
made to the top rear corner of the rear inner wings on
sunroof cars actually block the drain tubes. The water
has nowhere to go, so the tubes and then the upper
inner wings rust out.’
‘It was clear from the start that someone had already
got at the car and not done a very good job,’ says Alan
Drayson, company owner and project leader on this
restoration. But he is philosophical about the fix-it-up
approach that prevailed when these cars were less
valuable. ‘Without these repairs the car would probably
have been scrapped long ago.’
Media blasting revealed the true extent of the rot and
a lot more bodging. ‘It came back from the blasters like
a teabag,’ says Paul. ‘There was virtually nothing left of
the upper rear inner wing on the nearside and there
were holes and plates all over the body.’
You can buy complete rear inner wings for the 911, a
large panel that includes the rear torsion bar mounting
point, also rotten on this vehicle. A less fastidious metal
man might have replaced the whole thing – not Paul.
‘Once all the rust had been removed, I only fitted what
was needed from the repair section to keep as much
original steel in the car as possible.’ This method
required hours of laborious measuring, cutting, offering
up, trimming, tacking and checking before the two now
separate repairs could be fully welded in.
Up front, the tops and bottoms of the A-pillars were
very frilly and this presented a particular challenge, as
Paul remembers. ‘The upper and lower A-pillar sections
contain multiple compound curves and had to be
custom-made in the workshop. I ended up using a wide
variety of tools from simple snips through to the
wheeling machine just to repair a relatively small area.’
The inner and outer sills had been replaced at some
point, and while the welding here was actually quite
professional, the fit wasn’t. ‘I always hang the doors and
check for an even door gap before fitting the sills,’ says
Paul. ‘This way you get the alignment spot-on. I fitted
the new inner and outer sills using this method.’
Inside, the floor returns that connect the floor to the
inner sills had crumbled away long ago. In their place
were occasionally tacked sections of roughly folded
steel. With the rest of the original floorpans sound, Paul
chose to fabricate new returns to join the old floor to
the new inner sill. Further fabrications included a new
pair of rear seat pans and a parcel shelf – the original
had rotted out thanks to those blocked sunroof tubes.
Finally, the 911 was panelled up, gapped up and
whisked away on its specially made dolly to the
paintshop to gain that orange glow.
83
B o dy
a n d
pa i n t wo r k
‘I try to get the door and
bonnet gaps the same’
‘When these 911s were new, they didn’t come with
doors and bonnets that fitted like Alan wants them to
fit,’ says Clive Churchill, Canford Classics’ body finish
and paint expert. The Porsche had left Paul’s workshop
with panel gaps to die for. And making improvements
on near perfection is a challenge. ‘I try to get the door
gaps the same as the bonnet gaps and this can take
hours – it is the most difficult part of the job,’ says Clive.
All these adjustments were made before Clive had
even stroked the surface with sandpaper. And all the
removable panels would be taken off before painting.
Perfecting gaps on a car that will be stripped bare again
may seem odd, but Clive sees it differently. ‘Dry fitting
ensures everything is right before the paint goes on,’ says
Clive, ‘and it saves time when it comes to the final build.’
To preserve the panel gaps Clive removed the doors
by knocking out the hinge pins, leaving the carefully
adjusted hinge bolts untouched. The front wing to
bonnet alignment was kept by drilling and fitting a series
of location pins in the wing flanges to ensure they would
go back in exactly the same position.
An onlooker might have assumed that Clive had been
breathing too many paint fumes when the first colour
coat was applied to the body. ‘I painted the whole car in
white two-pack to start with,’ he says, ‘Tangerine is so
transparent it won’t cover; it really needs to go over a
solid, uniform base and the white does the job well.’
For the Tangerine top coats, Clive painted the
underside of the 911 first. ‘The normal method is to
paint from the top down,’ says Clive, ‘but by painting
underneath first I avoided putting dry overspray on the
rest of the body. It is much easier to mask off this section
once it’s completed, rather than masking off the whole
upper body to paint underneath.’
On the rest of the body, Clive blew in the edges,
channels and shuts first. Panels back on and three coats
of Tangerine two-pack top coat later, the body was left
to dry before three coats of clear lacquer were applied.
Ordinarily, paint and lacquer would be baked on in an
oven, but Clive left the 911 to dry in his booth at a
modest 20 degrees C. ‘Air drying is so much better than
heat,’ he explains, ‘the solvent comes naturally out of
the paint and this avoids any chance of micro-blistering.’
After painting, the body was back in Canford
Classics’ workshop, where the rebuild began. Three
months later, the paint was ready for its final polish.
Canford aimed for
better-than-new
panel gaps
84
Fitting the wiring loom in the roof is easier without the headlining in place
Alan Drayson checks the sunroof; fitting the sealing rubbers causes headaches during many 911 rebuilds
Original
look, right
down to
periodcorrect
stickers
PORSCHE 911S 2.2 e p i c r e s t o r at i o n
T h e
e n g i n e
‘The engine was running,
but it was seriously tired’
Bob Watson has 40 years’ experience of 911 engine work
Leather has replaced
original vinyl on seat
sides – cloth is to
original pattern
Removing a 911 engine is as simple as undoing the four
bolts that attach it to the gearbox, and the 14 bolts that
hold both in the car. But that’s where simplicity ends
and the need for a flat-six specialist begins. Bob Watson,
who has rebuilt more than a thousand 911 engines in
his 40-year career, is Canford Classics’ engine man.
‘The engine was running, but it was seriously tired,
very smoky and needed a rebuild,’ Bob recalls. ‘A lot of
people just rip the engine apart and miss a lot of clues to
its condition. I like to assess it first. I check for wear on
the cam chains and tensioners, and the cam timing –
this tells me if the engine’s been fiddled with. If the
timing’s out you get erratic running.’
Although they weren’t seized together, 15 years of
inaction in a damp garage meant a mixture of piston
wear and physical damage. The classic failing on these
engines is wear on the exhaust valve guides, as was the
case here. It’s caused by high exhaust temperatures and
the limitations of air cooling. ‘The 935 [the Seventies
racing version of the 911] had oil-cooled exhaust valves
and they didn’t suffer from the same problem,’ says
Bob. ‘That modification is feasible on a regular 911
engine like the 2.2,’ he adds. A rebuild with new barrels
and pistons followed the strip, clean and measure-up.
There was only one change from standard. ‘Pre-1977
cars will show low or no oil pressure on the gauge at
idle after a run, so I made a small modification to the oil
bypass system,’ says Bob.
By drilling a hole between the oil pressure relief
passage and the inlet side of the oil pump and plugging
the original pressure relief passage, bypassed oil is fed
back to the pump inlet, rather than the sump, upping
the oil pressure in the process. ‘You get a good reading
on the gauge at idle, and engines last longer,’ says Bob.
T h e
i n t e r i o r
‘Most people wouldn’t dream of stripping down a car
seat to the very last component, but that’s the difference
here – the detail,’ says Scott Lloyd.
After dismantling the seats, and with the hinges and
other brightwork off being re-plated, Scott retrimmed
the bases and backrests. ‘I replaced the webbing and the
padding, and leather was specified in place of vinyl for
the outer portions of the seat covers. Depending on
where you cut the leather from on the hide this job can
be easier or harder,’ says Scott. ‘The part of the hide that
covers the neck and the limbs is easy to manipulate, the
central part of the hide moves less when the animal is
alive so it is harder to stretch into place.’
Scott was also an integral part of the build itself. ‘The
wiring loom runs in the roof of the 911; as soon as it
was fitted I got the call to fit the headlining.
‘The loom can be run after the headlining is in, but
it’s so much simpler to fit it first.’
e x p e r t
t i p
Trimmer Scott Lloyd recommends taking pictures of a component
from all angles before and during stripdown. ‘I always take
pictures, even though I can also look at an identical car in the
workshop. Most home restorers don’t have that luxury.’
85
e p i c r e s t o r at i o n PORSCHE 911S 2.2
Neil’s aim was as-new originality
rather than show-queen gloss
f i n i s h i n g
‘We try to improve our
technique on every car’
One of the unsung heroes of this restoration is build
engineer, Chris Lowe. His job was to oversee the
stripdown, order new parts, make sure parts that were
going back on got refurbished and then take a hands-on
approach with the rebuild itself. ‘The difference between
a car that looks good and a genuinely good car comes
down to preparation,’ he says. ‘We try to improve our
technique on every car we build.’
Every aspect of the rebuild had that attention to
detail. Alan may have been happy with the door gaps
by now, but to him the doors just didn’t sound ‘Porsche’
enough when they were closed. ‘It took two days to get
the correct thunk-thunk sound that a good 911 door
should make when you shut it,’ he says.
T h e
Original Fuchs five-spoke alloys were restored
Minimalist Porsche has driver’s door mirror only
r e s u l t
‘I wanted the car to look
perfectly preserved’
Bodywork is always the most time-consuming element
of any car restoration, particularly if it is being done to
the highest possible standard. Paul Coleman spent 445
hours taking the holes out, while paint man Clive
Churchill added another 240 hours perfecting gaps and
turning the 911 into a Tangerine dream.
The remaining 40 per cent of the 1145 hours spent
included 300 hours to strip and rebuild the bodyshell,
60 hours to rebuild the engine and 100 hours of interior
trim work. Parts and labour came to more than
£60,000 and an estimate on the value of the finished car
is £100,000. That’s the price of perfection, that’s what
Canford Classics does, and that’s what owner Neil
Plumpton wanted, albeit with a twist. ‘I wanted the car
to look perfectly preserved, not restored,’ he says.
The team at Canford Classics have managed to strike
this difficult balance. Yes, the car is stunning in every
aspect. But nothing has been overdone, there’s no
showiness, no pretence, just the same irresistible comeand-drive-me allure this Porsche had way back in 1971.
86
Just 32 right-hand-drive 911S 2.2s left the factory with this badge on the engine lid. Few are left in this condition
Thanks toAlan Drayson and
his team at Canford Classics
(canfordclassics.co.uk), and
Chris Hak
next month
A team from one of Britain’s most respected
specialists takes on restoring a Bentley S1
Continental Drophead in nine months - a target
they’ll need a chunk of luck to even get near.