DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

Thought its about time I started this.
Some background first, we bought our car in 2007.
We knew very little about early 911's, the other half liked the look of them, and it was going to be her daily driver.
Our small budget would just get us a T, and we had just started looking when I spotted one on American Ebay.
It was black, looked ok, seller had decent feedback, and was an E. I put a bid in, and had a good nights sleep safe in the knowledge that it wouldn't be enough.
Woke up the next morning and we had won it.



Oh shite! How do you get a car from America to Northumberland. Well seller would take it to the docks, Kingstone shipped it over and I arranged someone to pick it up and deliver. Very easy really.

Well what had we bought? Paint was a typical american one, and in a modern BMW colour, (originally Irish green)but could be a lot worse. Came with 2 sets of wheels, neither of which were the correct 15". 2 steering wheels and an interior cover.
No evidence of rust, and after the battery was charged and some fuel put in, it started right up.
So really lucky, it turns out the seller sells a fair amount of early Porsches, and apart from the paint/wheels was fairly original.
Now slight problem, as the car was mid Atlantic, my other half rang and said "I've seen this house". So a few months after the car arrived, we moved from our newly renovated house with a garage, to one that needed a total gut, oh and no garage.

We had already discovered DDK, and over the next couple of years went on a couple of runs out.

This was first day of the coast2coast
He didn't end up being our daily, but was used as often as possible, we are blessed with great roads round here.


And had the seal of approval from the most important member of the family.

Longer trips to Devon on holiday all performed without a problem.

In 2009, after a lovely day out in Scotland, 10 minutes from home,I had a crash. Thank god for agreed valuation as they wanted to right him off!

Was that the day out at New Lanark?

Can’t believe that trip was 10 years ago!

I’m looking forward to the outcome of this thread. Lovely car. I hope this has turned out well for you.

Keep it coming. With 10 years to get through I’m guessing there have been a lot of ups and downs.


Regards
Mike

Look forward to this thread Stuart

And dog pictures too. Great start.

Yes Mike, hard to believe its 10 years


Damage to the car was mainly front end, some time on a Jig, tank support/wing etc
At the time the car was getting a bit scruffy, and we had decided to change the colour, so tried to have it all done at the same time.
But too complicated with the insurance company involved.
So he came black the same colour he went, and pressed back into service.

Next landmark was the garage going up in 2013

Apart from the odd hiccup when digging the drains


It went up over a few weekends.



Nice amount of storage in the apex


Apart from the crash, we had very few problems in the years so far.
The Permatune box went and was replaced with a MSD unit.
The odd electrical problem, mainly to do with earths.
Alternator rebuilt twice.
Collapsing fuel lines, that took a while to diagnose!
Did a few little jobs on it, but really not much time devoted to it.
Good clean just before it got tucked away each winter, and always started first try in the spring.
I think we bought ok.
So average mileage each year was around 1000miles, not bad as most of our spare time was spent on the house.
And we had a little trip planned.

The dog still liked it, even when it wasn't moving

Dogs Rule. Great pooch, great 911, great old house....John

Enjoying this

a combined building and car renovation story..!!!
More.

Skip forward to 2015, and time for a trip round Europe.
So rough plan was to get on the ferry from Newcastle, land in Holland, and then spend a week getting to Nice, where we had a villa booked. Relaxing week there and then another week travelling up through France and back through the Chunnel.
The weeks when we were travelling involved camping wherever took our fancy, so a fair amount of stuff to fit in the car.
So early September we boarded the ferry, had a nice meal and a couple of drinks, and went to bed.
In the morning, great breakfast, and down to the hold to get ready to start our trip.
Whilst in the bar some other classics had snuck on the boat


The sound when all this lot started up was fabulous
Off we went into a slight drizzle that cleared as we hit the A1 leaving Amsterdam.
Unfortunately thats when the charging light came on! Pulling off the motorway, and putting a tester on the battery showed the worst, alternator was not charging.
Well thats what breakdown cover is for

Recovered back to Amsterdam Porsche, who happen to be a Classic branch.
We had a lovely day in Amsterdam, whilst it got rebuilt overnight. All ready by lunchtime.

Back on the road, and had to decide how this affected our plans.
Decided to do a long day to catch up.
So Amsterdam to Baden-Baden in Germany, around 400 miles, in a car that had just let us down!
Well he didn't miss a beat, got to Baden in time for tea, and we spoilt ourselves with a hotel room.
Driving on the Autobahn was a bit scary as, even though we were cruising at an indicated 110, we were still the slowest car and the approach speeds of a Big Audi doing 150 plus took a while getting used to. Fabulous road manners though.
Next day we decided the Porsche museum would wait for another time, so headed into Switzerland through the black mountains.
Easy day today, only around 300 miles to out campsite.

This was a camp site called Jungfrau near Lauterbrunnen, fabulous setting and the most amazing facilities I have ever seen on a campsite. It even had dishwashers!

Love this journey!
Raised a laugh from the wife about the dishwasher!
Do you mean the Black Forest instead of the Black Mountains.
Baden- Barden is just fabulous.
Great thread!

Great story so far, the odd breakdown adds to the adventure even if it doesn’t feel like it at the time!

That location in Lauterbrunnen is really nice. I stayed next to that campsite in a cabin a few years back. Great place to do the rounds of the main passes. Also plenty of nutters jumping of that cliff over the waterfall and landing in the field next to us!