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I am a 76 year old semi retired orthopedic surgeon.  Have loved the 356 Porsche for over fifty years.  One of the great misses in my life was when a fraternity brother offered me in 1965 a 64 356 SC  for 3200 dollars with 15k miles on it and mint.  His father was quite rich and would send him to Germany every other year to pick up a Porsche, drive in through Europe and ship it home as a used car.  It was metallic silver with black interior and racing seats.  I can visualize it as I write this.  But my father was not rich and I did not have a car much less a porsche.   I would party my way out of college and into the draft a few months later and spend five years in the navy and two years in Vietnam as a Diver, demolition and bomb disposal expert.  I got  out of the service and went back to school on the GI bill.   Through the years had a 66 Vette,  a 71,74, 82, and 83 Porsche Cabriolet and a sunbeam Tiger.    My guess an escort radar detector saved me around three quarters of a million and a few months in jail.  I have a cobra replica now and have placed it in the classifieds to see if there is any interest from those in the forum for  a trade.   I am concerned if I keep this death machine I will die.  I am certain if I had the cobra in my twenties I would already be dead.  My best to all of you  and thanks your informative post.    david

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Last edited by NAVYEOD
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WTM, and welcome back fellow Vietnam Vet. Sadly I parted with my 57 Cabriolet as being 82 it was getting too difficult folding my legs getting behind the wheel. My latest ride is now a Rebel Green JCW Mini Convertible that returns that SEG ($hit eating grin) my 356 did. The thrill is back, the tuned exhaust sound and the wind in my hair mimics the Cabrio but so much easier getting in and out.

That "getting in and out" is catching up with a lot of us, but welcome to our madness from one of the Speedstah Guys in the Northeast!  I retired a while ago - That was a good thing, as it gave me the time to finish my Speedster!  Been a lot of fun ever since, so good luck with finding one soon.  They pop on here in the classifieds here from time to time or linked from other sales sites, so keep looking.....   And Good Luck!

Gordon - The Speedstah Guy from Massachusetts

Thanks to all for the warm welcome.   Nolan, welcome home.  After retiring from  private practice I decided to work for the VA for a while to help our brothers and sisters that served.   Found once I got there that I could not make myself leave.  People don't realize the battles our Vets face once they come home from  the battlefield.  I get to help some real heroes.  Now doing this for eight years.    Shopping hard for a speedster and maybe found one with  2100 CC Bergman engine.   read a lot of bad and some good on these engines.   Any advice?    God Bless you all.   david

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Hi David. Welcome!! I messaged you privately about  a near new speedster I’m putting up for sale soon as I take delivery on a new one in January. These are awesome little cars. Good luck on your search. I too had several cars that were too fast for a Social Security recipient. Recently sold my 2007 Shelby GT 500 cause it didn’t know how to go under 100 MPH. The speedster is plenty fast for me now…

Welcome!

The right car is out there somewhere.

Bergmann engines have always had a dubious reputation as they reportedly have spotty build quality and mixed new and used internals that adversely effect engine life and reliability. There are plenty of other engine builders with better reputations.

I am not speaking from personal experience, only the sharing the observations of others over the years.

Carpe Diem.

Those recaro seats are more comfortable than roadster seats and the roll up windows are awesome, I have those seats and roll up windows, and they work and make it more pleasant and makes rain much less of an issue.

It looks like Mr Deemer's car but in brown.  FYI,  I think his went around 30K...



BTW, it was probably built around 1984, so it has aged and might need lots of stuff to freshen it up, think of a 30 year old car so it might take quite a few K's to get it to where you want it but it depends on your OCD level or if you just want a driver.

IMO, from a value equation, a newer build while more money makes more sense as leather, paint, carpets, engine are no longer inexpensive to upgrade.

Last edited by IaM-Ray

That's how I feel about snow skiing.  Once upon a time, I was pretty good at it, enjoyed it immensely and taught it to others back in the 1970s, but today I realize that I might fall and break something the recovery from that might take forever (because I don't have much "forever" left!)

Still, I'm often very tempted to rent an outfit and join my smaller grandsons on the slopes.  Their Dad knows I can ski, but they don't, so it might be fun surprising them.  I doubt that I'd get going all that fast on an intermediate slope.

That's how I feel about snow skiing.  Once upon a time, I was pretty good at it, enjoyed it immensely and taught it to others back in the 1970s, but today I realize that I might fall and break something the recovery from that might take forever (because I don't have much "forever" left!)

Still, I'm often very tempted to rent an outfit and join my smaller grandsons on the slopes.  Their Dad knows I can ski, but they don't, so it might be fun surprising them.  I doubt that I'd get going all that fast on an intermediate slope.

Do it! Health and safety is over rated.

When I was a kid we had a boat we built from a kit.  We started building it in the basement and then realized we couldn't get it out from there and finished it in the garage.

It had a Sears Elgin outboard motor.  It was a 25 hp motor but could be locked at 7.5 or 15 hp.  At first, my dad restricted us to 15. I don't think he ever locked it at 7.5. I can't remember if we could ski at 15 hp but we could use an aquaplane or disk.

We usually started sitting on the end of the dock and getting jerked off.  (getting jerked off, heh, heh)

Never was able to drop.  I could pull up on two behind a 35hp john boat without even getting my upper body wet, but a slalom took horsepower for me.  I finally learned how behind a a buddy's jet boat with a 455 Olds V8 in it.  Came up the first time.

Uh, of course I was lighter and more fit then.

I last waterskied in 1994 behind a Ski Nautique (sp?).  It took a few tries to get back my muscle memory, by which time I was already tired  The next day I couldn't make a fist.  The odds of me being able to pull up quickly now are... poor.  I'd like to try, though.

Last edited by Lane Anderson

The only family vacations we took when I was a kid were to church camp and a week long water skiing safari on Lake of the Ozarks (the Redneck Rivera). My parents' friends had an inboard/outboard open bow boat with a small block Chevy sitting in the back.

The usual MO was to book a couple of 2 BR suites in an old-school "ski resort" (think: trailer park) to house 6 or 8 families. We all packed everything we might eat for the week, and rolled 5-1/2 hrs down in a large American sedan (an Olds Delta 88, in our case), back seat floorboards piled high with food and whatnot.

People slept everywhere. I slept in a sleeping bag on the floor of a screened in porch for at least 5 years running. Nobody complained.

Depending on the resort, there was generally a smallish pool, a shuffleboard court, some pinball machines, a fish house, and a floating dock big enough for 20 boats.

We skied from sunup (5:00 AM +/-) to sunset (8:30- 9:00 PM). The boat came in long enough to gas up and load and unload people. There were always 8 people or more in the boat and at least 2 behind it.

The family with the boat were climbing tree trimmers from St. Louis, and were certifiably insane. With maybe 2% body fat on any one of them - they were coiled like springs, adrenaline running in rivers through their veiny limbs, always looking for a newer, crazier way to release their stored energy. After dark we would go go-carting until we were thrown out, then head back to play board games until the small hours of the night. We ate chips and hamburgers on our feet, running to meet the boat on the dock. Refueling looked like a NASCAR pit-stop, one guy checking the oil, one guy with the fuel nozzle stuck in the tank, one guy with a twenty dollar bill to pay the attendant.

We ran like this for 6 solid days until we pulled the boat out at the last possible moment on the last day, and all drove home (3 to 6 hours, depending) in wet swimming suits and sunglasses.

I learned to ski there. There was a two-strikes rule for kids and newbies - you either got up in two tries, or you went back in the boat. Nobody suffered fools kindly. We would occasionally tube, but only as a full-contact sport, with the boat making at least 3 tight circles at full throttle around the tube, before pulling out hard, taking the slack out of the rope and launching the tube at least 15 ft vertically off the wake. Those that hung on came back across that same wake in an effort to be thrown. 5 minutes in the tube was a full body workout and trip to the chiropractor - every joint was stretched and popped. It was a right of passage.

We got people up on 200+ ft long ropes, boat almost out of sight when the skier yelled "hit it". The boat would go by the dock, and a few seconds later, the skier would go by looking for all the world like he was self-propelled. We once got 20 people up behind the boat at the same time. I watched guys ski straight into each other, watched a man ski directly into a floating dock when he misjudged how much speed he had trying to glide in without getting wet. One guy skied off the dock in a 3-piece suit, just to make people wonder.

I was one of the "top men" on a two-high, 5-man pyramid. We had no top (3rd) level to top it off, but when one of the tree-trimmer's daughters was a few years older she climbed up to complete a full 3-level pyramid.

I'm told it was glorious, but I wasn't there to see it. The summer I was 15 was the last time I was there. By the next summer, Mom finally talked Dad into a different (saner, more boring) vacation, and I got a job to buy a car.

I've skied since, but it was never the same. Too tame. Too civilized. Too many rules. Not enough danger by half.

I doubt I could even get up on 2 right now, and I don't know that I'd enjoy it if I did.

But once upon a time, I was the high man on a ski pyramid. 

I love the geriatric course of this thread.  I finished high school in a small town on Lake Seminole in north Florida.   We had little to do but water ski and many of us high schoolers could barefoot once a rich kid got a 50 hp motor.  Before that 35 was the biggest and could pull us from a dead stop on the Slalom.    We even  had a ski jump  built for us by the Booster Club in town.  My first time over it was not pretty.   ski's hit the wetted wood and I was airborne.   I let go of the rope and was beating my arms to try to fly and not hit the water too hard, did not fly well and ate  the metal tip jump ski when I hit the water:    Loose teeth and a cut lip.    All the girls were really worried about me so it worked out

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I can't match Stan's story.  I grew up on a lake and we would ski several times a week.  We could get up on one ski behind the 25 hp boat.

One time I dropped off coming in too fast and went right across the dock.  That was tough on the shins.

Every Sunday there were sailboat races. They used anchored oil drums for course markers. I once hit one of those.

We pretty much lived in our swimsuits during the summer. This is probably a factor in sun damage and skin cancer now.



We pretty much lived in our swimsuits during the summer. This is probably a factor in sun damage and skin cancer now.

I keep waiting for the hammer to drop. I think I started swimming lessons at the public pool when I was 5 or 6. It was a great way for my mom to get us kids out of her hair, and somewhat supervised. I spent most of my summers at the pool until I graduated from HS.

Good thing my buddy just hipped me to the free screening at our local health dept. My first visit is Wednesday. So far, I’ve had two spots biopsied. Both benign. (Knocking on wood).

Last edited by dlearl476
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