Porsche Classic Factory Restoration has brought back a 1967 911 Targa sports car from oblivion, salvaging it from a garage in Germany where it had collected dust and rust for nearly four decades.
This particular Targa is particularly interesting because it is the first car of its kind sold in Germany. Once it left the assembly line, it was shipped to a dealership in Dortmund and spent two years standing on a podium there. A customer from the USA purchased it then and drove it nearly every day for eight years before abandoning it in a garage for 39 years for unclear reasons.
In 2016, a Porsche collector bought out the vehicle in a rather dismal state. The bodywork alone took over 1,000 hours to reconstruct, and the entire restoration process took up more than three years. The associated costs remain secret.
The resurrected Targa relies on its stock 2.0-liter engine rated at 160 PS (158 hp / 118 kW), which links to a five-speed manual transmission and takes it from zero to 100 km/h (62 mph) in 7.9 seconds. The top speed lies at 220 km/h, or 136 miles per hour. Trim highlights include leather seats, a Blaupunkt radio, halogen anti-fog lamps, an outdoor temperature sensor, and a Webasto heating system.
The original Porsche 911 Targa, which you can have a better look at in the attached video, emerged in 1967 as a response to the increasingly strict automotive safety regulations in the United States. Studies have found that the conventional soft-top design of regular convertibles did nothing to protect the occupants of the car when it tumbled over during an accident, so a more protected design had to be found.