For the record & your fascination – TYP 901

[TYP 901]

Good Afternoon Everyone,

It’s fair to say that 901 ownership (for some) has moved on from a car being available at a price point that’s affordable and where all you want to do is drive it and enjoy it. As many of you will know from my previous posts I’ve had a tumultuous process securing my beloved car & an emotional roller coaster ride disconnecting from it and accepting the fact that I’m selling it. (See previous threads including “For Sale - Australian Delivered 1972 RHD 2.4E with MFI”)

Anyway – here’s a story that I post for the record & in order to fascinate you all.

I’ll start at the begining which is always a good place to start J

Having accepted the fact that I was selling my Australian Delivered 1972 RHD 2.4E with MFI (Vic Rego Plate Number TYP 901) I posted this point to the forum. A week later I advertised the car on carsales and the result was an overwhelming level of interest & a final offer that I was happy with (all within 7 days).

So far this story is pretty simple….

Knowing I had 3 serious buyers I took the carsales ad down and proceeded to negotiate a conclusion which I got to on the Saturday. Whilst concluding a discussion with the purchaser & sending them bank details for a deposit I received an email from a gentleman called Bill who lives in Qld. The email showed rego papers over 25 years old with the same chassis number as advertised on carsales for my car.

So the story now gets very interesting & the following activities immediately occurred –
· Apologies were extended to the potential purchaser & the car was withdraw from sale
· I contacted the previous owner for insights & information (and got lots of support and assistance)
· I connected with Bill (after being in shock for 2 days) to discuss the situation & corrective action needed
· We reached out to a select number of subject matter experts to gain guidance & assistance
· I connected with Porsche Australia for information pertaining to my Production Number
· I got an independent & professional inspection of the vehicle to thoroughly check all aspects of the car
· At Bill's suggestion, we had Bills car checked to ensure his numbers matched and were 100% correct too – Which they are
· I then had to await confirmation from Porsche of what I actually had in my ownership given Bills car was 100% correct

After a painful two weeks of phone calls, emails & car inspections I get answers and the results-
· My car has production number 1026498
· The model number is TYPE: 911321
· It’s a 1972E
· Australian Delivered
· Factory RHD
· Originally Sepia Brown
· One of four Sepia Brown cars delivered with a manual 4 speed in 72
· No evidence of repairs
· Original Front Lock panel
· Original Paint Tag
· Good paint job when taken to Ivory White
· ‘’S” Calipers
· Clean, presentable & a good example of an early car

After immense scrutiny - Thank heavens for these results as I was sweating and thinking all sorts of negative thoughts.
So far, there is not yet an explanation for the chassis number being incorrect and Porsche are not allowed to provide the original VIN that matches my production number L
Vic Roads have stated that there is nothing illegal and in fact it’s not uncommon for cars predating the introductions of Vins circa 1989 to share same numbers. (Although I’d argue it is almost unheard of within the same marque so there’s still ambiguity and a mystery that remains unsolved and by appearances can't be solved) We know of other 901’s that either have the same issue or their Vin (Chassis Number) doesn’t match the production number. All very weird and I guess part of a chequered history dating back 42 years.

Anyway, I share the story in order to be –
· 100% transparent
· So that others may learn from my experience and reach out via PM or phone call if you have questions (0427 718 916)
· To ensure that it’s noted for the record
· To ensure whomever is the next custodian of my car is fully informed

I will be re-adverting my car in coming days and selling it based on the above facts and whilst the new owner (or I) could apply via the vehicle standards authority for a surrogate vin; Bill has kindly agreed to the car being sold as is. The positives of this story include the amazing collaboration of many kind people, the assistance they extended and new friendships formed. Further, Bill is now aware of the TYP 901 forum and will no doubt join & in time, share his experience too.

Hope you enjoyed the story coz I didn’t enjoy living the journey.

Cheers,
Luke J

[griffiths_r]

wow luke!

you really needed that on top of everything else!!!

[HughH]

Luke. Good luck with the sale. You are a credit to the community withdrawing the car from sale the first time around and going through this process to establish just what your car is.
At least you now have official confirmation that it is an australian delivered car, it is factory rhd, it was sepia from the factory and a 4 speed manual and it currently is in very good condition body wise and the colour change to light ivory was done well.
Hopefully both Bill and the eventual new owner of your car will join the club and the new owner will enjoy the car as much as you have ( last couple of weeks excepted).

[9er]

Almost more interesting than the story, is the way people from, or with some connection to the forum, have stepped up to help in one way or another to try to resolve the situation.

[Fishcop]

You're almost there Luke

At least it turned out not to be a backdated, converted, Colvin - Porerra

I do hope Bill joins up. He is actively making his sportomatic work well with some excellent reproduction parts...

[klasikcis]

Not sure if this helps but VicRoads supplied and delegated responsibility to the AOMC(The association of Motoring Car Clubs) for all regitration records. I was able to gain certification that my factory road test 67.5 Datsun 2000 roadster was the one in the motoring mags and get confirmation of the original registration number, vin and engine number. Fortunately however I owned the car so had access to the vin and engine number and really only needed to confirm the original rego number to link it to the magazine articles and the original owner being Nissan Australia. If you have not sought their assistance it would be definitely worth contacting their historian who has access to the deleted VicRoads database.
Good luckwith it all.
Neville

[CamBiscuit]

So to be clear many years ago Porsche stamped the wrong VIN on the car, there are two cars with the same VIN in Australia currently, and Porsche wont tell you what the correct VIN for your car should be......?

Given the potential for a big hit to price, I'd try my darnedest to be finding out the original VIN from Porsche, can you take the car in their for verification?

[klasikcis]

Seems to me that there are 2 car with what appear to be identical tags. I am with Cam and would like to see someone at Porsche inspect the tag to see if it is factory original and see if it can it be verified that it is their issue and their mistake.

[HughH]

No Cam. At some stage since the car has been in Australia someone took the identity of this car and probably put it on another car. Why this happened is not known, maybe this car was "written off" in an insurance claim 20 or 30 years ago when they were not worth much but still expensive to fix accident damage, and for whatever reason they needed to change the identity of the car that received the numbers. However the aluminum plate on the front as well as the metal with the chassis number have been replaced in Luke's car and the numbers stamped into the replacement pieces (which were possibly blank when put into the car).
Porsche worldwide have a very strict policy to not provide a chassis number if you give them a production number, or vice versa, for very good reason: to try to limit the potential for forged identities. However in this sort of circumstance, where a car has been given a wrong identity, the Porsche policy also prevents the true identity of the car being discovered by the owner. That said I think that Luke will agree that the people here at Porsche have been extremely helpful, within the limits they have to work within, and have gone a lot further than I expected in trying to help Luke work out the correct identity of this car. They have confirmed, as Luke has stated that it is an Australian delivered 4 speed 911E coupe in sepia brown.

And Neville, the fonts on both stampings, and a couple of other telltale details that I won't disclose here, were incorrect for the year and car type. This is the sort of information that some register members know and as Luke said a couple of members were very generous with their time and expertise in this matter.

This has been a very unfortunate circumstance for all involved but it does go to show firstly that membership of an organization like this register can provide much more benefit than the small annual fees in this type of circumstance and secondly given the value of these cars these days, combined with how long they have been around and how cheap they have been in the past, the due diligence you should be doing on purchases is now similar to what was only done on cars such as RS's in the past.

[e72phil]

I agree Hugh that the collective wisdom on this Forum is well worth the membership fee (which are now falling due if you havent heard).

[Fishcop]

I'll add (seeing as I had some small role and learned a lot) that I have no doubt Luke's car is not singular in its circumstance...

Caveat Emptor

[Gus Carfi]

nice work guys, compelling reading and some great wisdom. Goes to show these cars are like art works and provenance is king

[Merv]

A fascinating tale Luke - for us - but I believe not for you. All the fuss over a small metal plate. I found Hugh's input very informative and I suspect we will all be out looking at VIN fonts this evening (if we can). I have tracked down three of my car's four previous owners, thus far, and kept a running record. Correct me if I am wrong, but can Kardex's be obtained for these later (early) cars?

[MrUpwey]

What is the difference between production and Vin numbers?
I know the VIN is stamped on the body near the fuel tank and also on the alloy plate, but where do I find the production no.?....and why the two numbers?
(Jason C told me but I've forgotten)
I have checked with Porsche that my VIN and Engine nos. are original/matching but not sure of production number.

[HughH]

Peter

The production number is the so called secret number stamped on the dash approx under the radio opening and initially written in crayon on the left hand side of the dash area.

In the swb cars the production number was identical to the chassis number. However by the time lwb cars were made the numbering system was changed, not only the vins but much more importantly the whole system of numbers used to order and produce the cars. One of those changes was a production number that was used to identify the specific order details for the car as it went down the production line.

Think of it literally as the number for the job for a specific car on the production line with all pieces of paper associated with that order having that number. It is a seven digit number. For the cars we are mainly interested in, The first digit is 1 for 911, or 2 for 912 or 0 for body in white ie spare shell.

The second number is 0 for a coupe body or 1 for a targa body shell or 2 for a karmann made coupe body shell. The third digit is for the last number of the year starting in 1969, so 9 for 1969, 0 for 1970, 1 for 1971 etc. the final 4 numbers are the numerical sequence of the orders for that type of car in that year ( note at no stage is the engine type or transmission type etc involved in this).

So in the case of my car with production number 1038915 it was the 8915th 1973 Porsche built coupe of any description order put into the production process in 1973 out of 9447 of all types of coupes built in that production year.

Only later on in the production process was a vin associated with that production number that identified my car as the 1306th 911E built in that year.

Therefore the only place the matching records for production number and chassis number is supposed to be is within the Porsche systems. This has long been one of the first checks to make on any high value car such as an RS.

here is a photo of my production number.

also shown is a part of the paperwork to produce an RS, #9113601590. In the top right had corner you can see where the production number is written (obscured in this picture for privacy and security reasons). Then you can see the stickers that go on the paper as it goes thru the production process to identify what chassis number was assigned to it, what engine, gearbox, options etc. and the date each part was completed - note in this case the engine and gearbox went in on June 29 and 28th respectively and there is an overwrite on the engine number possibly suggesting that a second engine was fitted or a mistake was made ihn what engine was fitted (ie put the wrong stamp on the paper). then the chassis number was assigned on 9 july and on the top right you can see the car was completed on 9 july.
The top left shows the date of the planungs-termin or planning schedule was 30 may 1973, about a month before the car was completed. that is when the production number would have been assigned to the particular order for this car.