The Bahama Yellow Porsche 912

I just remember as a kid watching my dad always laying underneath the car, like feet sticking out underneath the car and I was like handing him a wrench, you know. So that's kind of how I grew up and I always had so much respect for the way he was taking care of cars. I was living in California working as a car designer at BMW and my father would always come out for a couple of stints, spend some time three weeks here, two weeks here. I had two British cars in the garage, two Austin Healey Sprites. His dream was just to work all day on a car and then see how it runs and go for a run at the Mulholland Drive in the evening and just kind of look back at what we've done for the day and then back in the workshop next day. We just got this silly idea that we were gonna buy a Porsche and we were gonna be able to maybe afford something like a 912. The Porsche thing was always a little bit out of reach so around the time early 2000s these things were a little bit affordable actually especially this being a four-cylinder car. We never had a Porsche before and it was like a dream come true. I actually remember the first time when I drove this car and I drove it home and back in its original state and I was like looking backwards over the towards the c-pillar and I was seeing the shape of the c-pillar from the inside for the first time. I couldn't believe I was actually driving a Porsche. Well having this car was anyways a dream and then had our first born daughter in California. It was everything that came together like that. It was a beautiful time, good weather, cars was great, you know, child was just born so it felt really really special. We had had this car in California for about a year and a half and I got a job in Spain and my dad decided that he was going to import it to Denmark and he basically drove it as much as he could. Good weather, bad weather, it was driving very well. It had its let's say aesthetic issues, it'd been repainted and there was some stuff here and there but generally the car was in good running order and he really enjoyed it. For him it was a dream that came true just to have a Porsche, to drive a Porsche and he really identified with the car and I was just so happy to see him drive this car in Denmark which is a special car in that part of the world. And when he had this car in Denmark he spent a lot of time with his good friend Ole and they were always talking about this car. They also had other cars so they were always talking cars so this was so important for them as a friendship to talk about this car and I enjoyed watching that. My father and I we had been sharing the passion of cars for so many years and that allowed me I would say also maybe that success that I was able to work with cars every day. I'm living in Germany and I love calling him and telling him what's going on, the cars we're designing. It was more than just talking about the cars, it was really like a deeper relationship. And around that time when I was working on some very I think groundbreaking projects at MINI which really inspired me and everyone around, my father started feeling not so well and getting sick and being in Denmark I went there a lot to visit him, see how he was doing, visit his friends and talk about cars and just keep it going. Unfortunately he passed away in 2016. In the time after his passing I decided to bring the car to my home in Germany so I drove it from Denmark down the autobahn. As wonderful as it was to drive the car I always knew that there was maybe some mechanical things that needed to be looked after on this car. It drove well but I felt we needed to do this car more justice and really take it to the next level. I really enjoyed driving the car because of the emotional attachment to the car but I also knew that I was going to have to figure out a way to deal with the car. That actually took several months for me to really think about because it's not just you don't just hit a button and all of a sudden you have a perfect car. We had to think of a strategy how we're going to make this car really work and I didn't want to just you know drop it off with anybody and just say you know whatever it takes make it happen. I really wanted it to be done with love and with the correct attention to detail. I have had a lot of work on other Porsches that I've had over the years done at Master Tech with Helmut Freynecker in Neufarn. He was very interested and he said you know we can really make this car special we can do something with it but it's going to take a lot of work. We're going to have to basically take this car completely apart and really look at every screw because it's not that it was wrong what was there it's just if you do it you got to look at everything you can't just do bits here and do bits here. So what we really focused on when restoring this car was to keep as many parts as possible of the original parts. There's something about you can over restore a car. Our vision became to make the car the way it had come off the factory in 1967 and obviously working closely with Helmut Freynecker who has a lot of knowledge about the history of the car he studies the books and knows so many of these old cars he knows what to look for. I think we found a good balance of really maintaining as many of the original parts as possible without having to go out and buy a whole pile of new reproduced parts. I always saw this car being red it was Polo red knowing that we had to dig a little bit deeper I was actually looking on the inside here of the door cut and I saw that there was part of the red paint that was peeling off and underneath I saw it actually had this original color which is Bahama yellow and we checked the numbers and it turns out that this car in 1967 came off the line as a Bahama yellow 912. That was the real let's say eureka moment where we said that's the color and that's actually the point of no return that's where we decided we're going to repaint it in its original color original engine original wheels and make it like 1967 again. I've never seen a car being stripped down this perfectly before in my life but this one actually to see in its bare bare metal and see really that all the panels are getting completely straightened out and the cut lines are being worked out so they're absolutely perfect I've never seen that before it was such a wonderful wonderful experience because it's also like paying homage not only to obviously our car but it's also paying homage to the engineering of the original Porsches. Originally it was Bahama yellow and now we saw it for the first time in its Bahama yellow the way we actually wanted it to be that was absolutely amazing. Honestly also because there's a special character to this color it's not in my view just a yellow color it's got this special hue to it it reminds you of the 60s it reminds you of like a fall color. The thing about my dad he was we see differently as far as money goes so whenever you do something special to something my dad would always ask you know like how much money did you spend on that you know so that was always the question so if you go this far with this kind of a paint job you know he would he would start saying you know you don't have to do that you know but for me it was like no I have to do it because that's what it's supposed to be you know it's not it's not for any other reason than this car has to be original. What the team at Master Tech did they took every screw apart every part and and really aligned everything up and planed it out and make sure everything fit correctly and it takes a lot of I think attention to detail to look at every part it takes a lot of patience as well you know taking your time and not trying to cut corners. What is amazing as a lay person because obviously I'm not able to do this this is what Helmut Freynecker and his team can do. It's a very serious piece of engineering you know the way this car comes together it's not just taking a car and just changing out some parts it's really looking everything clutch, gearbox, suspension, brakes, the wiring harness, all the electrics, a restored gas tank done in its original way. For me the highlight of this whole process was when this beautiful body was brought together with its original engine. A four-cylinder 1.6 liter Porsche engine true to its original specs. It has its original muffler it's not loud it's just sounding like you know a sewing machine. It was a special moment when this car was finished. I didn't really know what to expect because you have all these high hopes you don't really know what it's going to be. The interesting thing is when I got behind the wheel after it was finished it felt like the car I knew. It didn't feel like a car that was completely restored and now it's a different animal. It really had the soul and the character of the car that I bought with my father. I actually think that the Porsche 912 and this reason why I love this car so much is also in many ways a little bit of an underrated car. It's always a little bit the younger brother to the 911 of course. But I see it more as like an advanced 356c with a four-cylinder and the character of the four-cylinder engine. Four-speed gearbox it's got so much character and something I as a car person enjoy. Of course my family love to see this car because you know it's a positive memory you know not only of the process we've now been through but also the time we've spent with my father also driving the car back in the days. Well for me this car is an homage to the passion my father always had for cars and lived throughout his entire life. At the same time it's also an homage to my passion for cars. It embodies everything I really love about cars and car design. It's a pure shape, it's essential and I like the humbleness of it. It's not over the top, it's to the point. It's beautifully proportioned, it's beautifully engineered and it brings together I think everything a Porsche should be. And in that regard I also know that that was the dream my father had when he wanted to have this Porsche. He wanted to own one Porsche in his life and he was lucky to have this one and now I'm lucky to drive it.