Martini RSR Conversion
January 25, 2008

The last update on this endurance project was in 2002. The pictures you are about to see are from 2004-present.

This car, as explained in earlier updates, is a very cool factory car....factory meaning Porsche. What you see here is a car in base white primer and the seams are being seam-sealed. We are sealing these seams because they were originally!

Most 911's, even the racecars, had the major joints sealed. Here, you are see that the smugglers box has the sealer and a special strengthening bracket welded on the opening. Can you say OG? OG is a term used for original. I will use this often, so now you know what it means. Here, Jack is applying the seam sealer.

We use a catalyzed seam sealer because it cures by how much hardener I mix with it. The other type takes about two days to dry enough to paint. Hollan is hand sanding the dashboard for final paint.

It's a giant masking job for us or anybody doing the same thing. Porsche has taping templates, which don't always keep overspray off of everything, but it leaves the job more OG.

The original black headliner will be removed after the car is final painted. A new black headliner will be installed.

Here, Jack is preparing for the final coat of paint on the bottom.

I'm painting the bottom while the car is in the rotisserie. It's easier to get under things, as you can see in the picture. My hair was a lot grayer three years ago.....err-uhh...I guess that's paint.

Jack is putting the final sand on the floor.

Now, when I talk OG, this is OG. The door jams on this car were never painted anything but the off-white primer and satin black.

Everyone is going to want to see the doorjambs painted the same color as the car. NOT THIS ONE. I have had many discussions with the owner of the car and he has agreed to leave the paint in its original form. ('73 RSR form)

This car was primed in the factory off-white primer, meaning closer to tan than white. Then, it was painted silver. Not base-coat, clear-coat, but silver. You can see on the A-pillar, the paint only got in as far as the door seal. The residue you see is the glue that held the glue in. You can notice the white paint between the white paint and the glue. Notice the Martini stripes on the rocker.

I hand wiped the A-pillar (doorjamb) with lacquer thinner and the black paint came off revealing the primer. The doorjambs were never silver.

More of the OG Martini stripes.

Now, the front nose is in white primer, but that's going to change.

You can't see the detail, but in certain areas, we're leaving the original "wear and tear" patina. Meaning...the trackside welds, the clearance dents, and anything that was left as the car was raced.

Porsche AG sold this car to Vasek Polak in its 100% original condition. I bought the car from Polak for Miles Collier's Christmas present one year. Collier and I were skiing at Heavenly Valley and I was sneaking to the phones in the halfway houses talking to Vasek Polak trying to convince him to sell the car cheaper because who would want this old Martini RSR. Well, it was Miles Collier's mother, Mrs. Reed, who always asked me to buy Miles something special for Christmas. Polak agreed on about the 10th run and we gave it to Miles on Christmas Day circa early 80's.

Now all of the sudden, you see the off-white primer. That's because I thought the car should be painted as it was when it was the 2.1 Turbo, but the owner convinced me "if we're going to make it look like the '73 RSR (normally aspirated), why don't we paint it as it was when it won at Dijon". I thought, to keep the car looking OG to early 1973, it would have to go back to Grand Prix white.

Now that all the body is in final white paint, I will re-spray the dash satin, leaving a little bit of overspray, as Porsche did. I will assemble the complete car with all the bodywork, and paint the entire car with regular Porsche silver urethane paint. I will not use base-coat, clear-coat. I'm sure there will be a fair amount of motting (that's when the metallic gathers and leaves shadow spots), but that is how these early cars were painted. We will start picking the pace up as we're finishing other projects too.

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