It’s one of those things most people want to do – own a historic car, but they don’t want to live with the danger of haemorrhaging cash on restoration and garage bills. The answer? An early 911, of course – the toughest and most useable of classics. I had one, a 1972 2.4S to be specific, and not only did the experience thrill (every outing seemed to be such an occasion), running and maintenance costs only ran into around £2k per year. Not exactly new-car cheap on the up-keep front, but by the time I had invested £6k on the car, bringing back some of its ailing bits and bobs (brakes, electrics, fuel injection tuning) it had more than doubled in value. Okay, so I got lucky finding a ‘matching numbers’ (engine and gearbox serials) ‘S’ model sourced via Holland, but the truth is, if you know these early cars, there is not a massive difference between an early ‘70s ‘S’ and the much cheaper ‘E’ model. Depending on precise history details about up-keep: restoration of engine, mechanical fuel injection and brakes, the 25HP performance difference can be negligible. What’s more, if you can find a nice 1971 car (and not later), you’ll benefit from a better weight distribution of having the massive oil tank located inside the wheelbase. With 1971 – 1973 911 S prices being sky-high at £40k min for a good one, a twenty thou’ 911 E (like this nice RHD ’70 2.2 model for sale at Brooklands) should make for a great investment, guaranteed to rise in value as they become more and more scarce.
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