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[quote=whiteballz;950606]There are millions of Porsche's on the road, one car does not make a difference in the scheme of things.
For all we know that Porsche was condemned (like the evo in a later episode)?[/quote]
It wasn't condemned for sure. Does a complete and running 911 ever go to the scrapyard? That's not a Fiesta we're talking.
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Also it wasn't a Top Gear episode, it was a JC straight to video 'special'. Gotta make some pocket money somehow I guess..
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[quote=McReis;950602]I'm sorry but that just isn't true. Any 911 that is working and driving normally can't be beyond repair. The value of a classic 911 is now enough to justify any deep restoration process.
Top Gear could be a great show but unfortunately irreverence became arrogance. That episode was unnaceptable for any serious classic car enthusiast.[/quote]
body work or chassis damage would make useless, engine and gearbox could be reused even then though.
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McReis we went over this in the Alpine club when he trashed the A610.
A car is "worth" ONLY what people are willing to pay for it.
So if ( as it was with the A610 ) an eBay purchase for £5K then it isnt' THAT valuable or worth "saving".
We can all get misty-eyed ( and I did with the A610 ) but being realistic cars don't "deserve" to survive. They are only machines and only worth what people want to pay to own them.
If you can buy a working 911 for £10K, WHY would you buy one for £5K and spend £15K restoring it ? ( A friend did worse than that with an E-type in the 80s. Spent 3 times what it ended up being worth doing a restoration - he could have bought a concourse for half the cost )
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And we should go back to the '80s, when various cars were speculated to several times their MSRP when sold, only to be discovered that they weren't the exactly the excellent cars they were, and, combined with the stock market crash, their prices plummeted.
For all we know, the Porsche that JC destroyed may've been scrap--the 911 is a unitbody car, and not matter what, be it a 911 or a Marina or Allegro, once the unitbody is holed by rust, the car can quickly become beyond salvageable, hence my write off comment. Even for classics, once the damage is deemed to be terminal, it's often cheaper to move on to an other salvageable example than try to fix a wreck.
Granted, such passion is what drives the car restoration industry, but passion must eventually be balanced with knowledge. Who knows-that 911 after it was scrapped may've had the salavagable steel in it recycled and used to make another 911. Anyone think of that possiblity? My father has scrapped damaged Ford T-birds to keep the healthy ones he owns running. That kind of cannibalism is what keeps the car industry going to an extent.
I also think that most of the Marinas destroyed on Top Gear were probably ready for the scrap yard and were beyond even the most determined efforts, and I'm one who thinks that the Marina should have some preserved examples--even crap should be allowed to exist in some form or another as the often heroic failures they were. However, at least one TG Marina survived--the one from the Ice Racing episode has appeared at various UK car shows recently, and is probabaly still driveable.
I'm no big fan of the 911 or even Porsche itself, especially with that ideot Wiedking running the company, but even I think it has its place in the world. But once its chassis is compormised or is requested under government order to be sold off or destroyed, there's no turning back, especially if the car's chassis is compormised, especially unitbody cars.
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Didn't watch the video, didn't read all the comments, so I don't really have any solid or well informed basis to make any worthwhile or sensible contribution to this discussion.
But it's a Saturday night, I'm bored and have nothing better to do at this very moment, so here goes:
If you buy a car and it's fully paid for (it's legally your property in other words), then I suppose you're free to do with it what you will, aside from breaking the law or endangering someone else.
Now if you decide that you want to destroy the car for entertainment purposes, or destroy it in an attempt at providing (and perhaps failing to provide) entertainment, or because you don't like the colour or any other reason for that matter, then that's your right. It might be sad to some, but it doesn't change anything.
On the other hand, government institutions destroying many a rare and collectable car in scrappage schemes, that's something entirely different...