A book you should see if your local library has:
The Gold-Plated Porsche: How I Sank a Small Fortune into a Used Car, and Other Misadventures, by a guy named Stephan Wilkinson. The man is part gearhead, part adventurer and every bit a great story teller. He went to Harvard, but I don’t believe he graduated because, as he admits, he spent more time working on (“majoring in”) cars than hitting the books. Spent a summer or two on the high seas (and trying to stay out of trouble at a myriad of ports-of-call) as a merchant seaman. On a volunteer basis, drove an EMS vehicle. Built and flew his own airplane, an impressive two-seater called a “Falco” (
http://www.seqair.com/). Wrote for Car and Driver, eventually rising to the point of becoming editor where he was, in relatively short order, fired "for general crankiness, insubordination, and out-of-fashion pants..."
Anyway, at his wife’s suggestion that he needed a new project, he bought a 1983 Porsche 911SC to restore, spending around $10k on the car (in horrible condition) followed over the next few years by about $60k for the restore, he being the one doing virtually all the labor. For that money, a friend pointed out to him, he could pick up a late-model, perfectly operational 911 Turbo, "What's the fun in that?" being his response.
About half the book is about the car, the other half is on the other miscellaneous craziness in his life alluded to above. It’s
all good.
I can pretty much guarantee you'd enjoy the book.
Porscha
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