It was all coming together. I decided to buy a 356 cabriolet after going to the Chattanooga Motorcar Festival. I had implemented my wife-approval strategy, and gotten a green light from Julie. I found a car, went to look at it, and was fairly certain it was the right car. I had even confirmed with Julie that buying a cabriolet was the right decision. Everything was falling into place. And then it fell apart. But I am getting ahead of myself.

While at the PCA Octoberfest I was able to talk to a few people about the door gaps on the 1964 356 Cabriolet I had found for sale in Raleigh, North Carolina. I was concerned they indicated there might be a rust problem with the car. The consensus was that it was likely just a leading problem. Apparently, the 356 was hand-built at the factory, and when repaired sometimes the leading work was not that great. This was likely the case on this car, and it could be easily fixed. But, I was cautioned to get a prepurchase inspection (PPI) and have the car looked it.

The following week I lined up an inspection at a reputable shop near the location of the car. I drove back up to Raleigh to have a PPI done. As I followed the seller in the 356 to Road Scholars, I imagined myself driving along in the cool fall air, top down. I was fortunate that it was so close to such a reputable Porsche shop. Road Scholars is world-renowned for their Porsche restorations. In fact, while I was there I saw a race care that was displayed in the Luft exhibit a couple weeks earlier at the Chattanooga Motorcar Festival.

The shop didn’t disappoint. Porsche race cars, 356s, 550s. You name it. They were all there. I could hardly contain my excitement. We dropped the car off, and I took the seller back to his house. They said it would only take a few hours, and I had some work I need to get done while we waited. I knew the car was in good hands.

And then I got the call. It had only been about an hour since we dropped it off. “You need to come look at this,” said the person on the other end of the phone. And so I went back to the shop to see what they had found. When I arrived, I was heartbroken. Rust! Not just a little rust. A lot of rust.

Each corner had rust around the suspension points. Someone had also replaced the front battery pan, and done a poor job. But it was worse. The main floor pans had been replaced with flat sheet metal, welded over the original pans. That meant that there was likely significant rust under the flat metal. Road Scholars recommended not driving the car in its current condition.

As bad as I was feeling, I couldn’t imagine how the sellers would feel when they found out. I called them, and they met me at the shop. They were as surprised as I was. I honestly don’t think they had any idea. Rust can get away from an owner when these old cars sit, and are not regularly inspected.

We briefly discussed where to go from here, and I left Raleigh heart broken.

Read the next part of the story HERE.