Those who have known me for a while may remember the 1986 944 Turbo that I once had:
It was a lot of fun, but I was still pretty heavy into autocross at the time, and the turbo lag made it less than ideal for that purpose. I also lived in constant fear of something expensive breaking, add in the fact that I've never been a fan of red cars, and I ended up parting ways with it after a year or so. Still, I pined for another 944. Almost 10 years have passed, several BMWs including my never-finished E30, a couple of Mustangs, a Miata, a GTO, and probably some others I'm forgetting. But 944s were always there, lurking in my mind.
Well, last night I brought this home:
It's an 85.5, so it has the updated interior. 105k-plus, the odometer broke at some point in the past. No records, the PO told me that the timing belt was replaced about 3 years ago, so it's due. It was cheap, but there are a number of issues. The brakes are very soft. The tires are badly dry-rotted. The rear shocks (at least) are shot, it crashes and bangs over the smallest bumps. The paint, as you can see, is pretty far gone.
The dash is pretty well cracked, even by 944 standards:
The drivers-side mirror is loose on it's mount, I'll have to dig into that and see if I can fix it or I have to replace:
BUT, it runs great and appears to have good oil pressure:
And most importantly, it's rust-free! Even though rust isn't typically an issue with these cars, you'd be surprised what 30+ years in the rust belt can do, even with a galvanized body.
It also has a somewhat rough but mostly complete interior, complete with part of a craptastic aftermarket stereo system that someone (poorly) installed. It's going to need a windshield, too.
For tires, there seems to be exactly one in the factory size (215/60R15). They are Kuhmo all-seasons and are cheap, so I'll probably just get a set for now with an eye toward different wheels and tires down the road. I'm not a huge fan of the phone dials.
Short term, my plans are to get it safe and driveable. That means tires and shocks, and bleeding the brakes to see what's what with them, possibly replace components as needed. Longer-term, I'll work on the cosmetic issues, catch up on all the deferred maintenance, and just make it a nice-day driver with an occasional autocross and once-in-a-blue-moon track day.