1965 Porsche 911

Porsche began developing prototypes for the replacement for the 356 as early as 1959, with a model internally named the Type 695 T-7, a rear-engined four-seater that began to show the design language the 911 would inherit and carry on for decades to come. At the 1963 Frankfurt Auto Show, Porsche unveiled the 901 with a design penned by Ferdinand Porsche’s son ‘Butzi’ Porsche with help from Porsche’s Head of Body Construction Erwin Komenda. Peugeot protested the naming convention due to the similarity to their models, so Porsche’s solution was to simply replace the zero with a one, and the 901 was renamed the 911. By 1965, the 911 was already three years old, and production of the 356 ceased while Porsche dedicated its efforts to the 911.

This 1965 911 was ordered by its first owner, Burton Pope, in Oakland, California with the optional Webasto heater, Catacolor tinted glass, adjustable seats, seatbelts, a Blaupunkt Bremen radio, a loudspeaker, and antenna. Most importantly, he ordered the 911 in special order Champagne Yellow to match the 356 SC that he had owned. He opted to take European delivery and drove his new 911 around the continent, bringing the car for its first scheduled maintenance and authorized stamp in its service book in France. When he took delivery of the car in California, he quickly realized that he was rarely able to drive the car more than a few miles and made the decision to sell the car in the spring of 1967.

Its second owner was John Luechauer, a young dentist in Washington, who purchased the car and drove the 911 regularly throughout the years traveling some 72,000 miles while performing before storing the car in a barn for over two decades. Throughout his ownership, he performed regular maintenance on the car himself. He described himself as a bit of a hoarder, as he kept nearly every component that he removed from the car for service. Early on, he had his mechanic swap the original Solex carburetors for a set of appropriate Webers and packed away the original Solex carburetors. In the 1980s, a dental patient of his who was a Porsche mechanic could not afford to pay his bill, so he offered to perform a complete engine rebuild. 1,100 miles after the engine rebuild, John put the car into storage in a barn on his property, and there it stayed for over 2 decades in its original condition beneath an inch of dust until it was acquired by Road Scholars in February of 2015.

When it arrived at Road Scholars, the process of bringing the 911 back to its former glory began with an intensive detail to strip away the dust and detritus of its time in storage. It retained nearly all of its original Champagne Yellow paintwork, save for the front decklid and roof that had been resprayed in 1968 when during a visit to Boston, John took a wrong turn and in his words “A couple of young punks crawled on the hood and tried to get me out of the car by beating on it”. The original paint, however, had been weathered over the years and showed a fair share of wear, and could not be revived to our standards, so the decision was made to take the body down to bare metal for a full repaint in the original color. Once in bare metal, it was devoid of any signs of accident damage or rust and the body and chassis were both exceptionally straight and solid. All of the original chrome trim was carefully removed and sent to Victor Miles to be stripped, polished and chrome plated to perfection.

The driveline was in excellent mechanical condition so the original Solex carburetors were rebuilt, and both the engine and transmission were serviced, detailed, and fine-tuned. While the car was disassembled a few small areas of the original undercoating began to crack and flake off, so those areas were blended and the entire underside of the car was cleaned and resprayed black to match the original finish. The suspension was disassembled for new bushings, and every component that had been removed was refinished before reassembly. The interior was in such exceptional original condition that only two areas needed attention. The carpet had been nearly worn through so a new carpet kit was made by Tony Garcia to match the original, and there was a 2” tear in the original headliner so a new one was installed at the same time. The seats, dash, door panels, steering wheel, wood dash trim, and gauges are all original and are still in incredible condition.

Since its completion, it has remained in the same impeccable condition through the care of its two most recent owners, each showing incredible restraint from adding additional mileage to the odometer in order to preserve the 911 in exactly the same state. Recently, our service shop performed an oil service, resealed the carburetors and fuel filter, and serviced the ignition system to have the 911 running at its best.