Stephen Heyse: A Porsche Lifetime

Chesapeake Region

Stephen Heyse: A Porsche Lifetime

Stephen Heyse

Member Profile: Stephen P. Heyse

(Current) Cars: 1967 European 911S, Silver Metallic/Black leatherette; 1993 Carrera 2 Cabriolet, Grand Prix White/Blue top and blue partial leather/rear seat delete; 2000 Boxster, Ocean Blue Metallic/Graphite Grey partial leather.

When it came time to buy a vehicle, what made you choose your Porsche and is this your first Porsche (if not please detail prior Porsches.)

While in college at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I had a subscription to Car and Driver. After reading their road test of the 1967 Porsche 911S in the January 1967 issue, I was hooked and knew I would have to own one someday. A visit to the Chapel Hill VW/Porsche dealer convinced me that it would be a while given the price tag - $7,500 (about $62,500 in today’s dollars according the US Inflation Calculator.) I own a 1965 Midnight Blue Metallic Corvair Monza at the time that I considered my poor-man’s Porsche since it had a 6 cylinder rear-mounted, air-cooled engine. I found a wrecked Corvair Corsa in a junkyard north of Durham and swapped the instrument panel so that it had a tachometer and some other gauges. It made several roundtrips between Chapel Hill and Long Island where may wife, Christine (Chris), and I were from and survived several winters in Syracuse, New York, where I went to medical school. Its traction in the snow was a major asset there. It was fun to drive, including in road rallies, but having a 2 speed automatic transmission left a lot to be desired.

After competing medical school, we moved to Northern Virginia where I was entering a family practice residency at The Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church. I had sold the Monza to a friend before leaving Syracuse and needed a commuter car. I found a 1966 Corsa for sale in the Washington Post. It was Marina Blue Metallic with a 140hp engine and 4 speed transmission that had been “souped up” by the previous owner with a Holley 4 barrel carburetor replacing the 4 individual carbs, tuned headers, glass packs for “mufflers” and some other tricks. It was quick and very loud. It was getting closer but it still wasn’t a ‘67S.

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Chesapeake Region

In late 1974 we moved to Buffalo Grove, Illinois, when I worked in the Regional Office of DHEW (now DHHS) as a commissioned officer in the US Public Health Service to satisfy my Selective Service obligation. Chris was very pregnant with our daughter Jennifer (she was born the next day!) but we went Porsche shopping as soon as I got my first paycheck. I found a 1966 Polo Red 911 for the incredible price of $1,000 that “needed work” in the Chicago Tribune. It was a rust bucket the had seen one too many Chicago winters with a broken rear torsion tube and it was stuck in 5th gear. For some reason I thought I could fix and restore it but after a few months of picking at it and having various body parts fall off I sold it to a guy with a flatbed for the same price. However, I felt I was richer for the experience because I had learned a lot about where to look for rust.

We moved to Columbia, Maryland, in 1976 when I transferred to the US Public Health Service Hospital in Baltimore. I still had the Corsa for commuting but continued to have lust for a ‘67S. In July 1977 I finally found it in an advertisement in the Washington Post that read “Porsche - 67 991S, strong, needs htr. boxes. Asking $2,500.” It was nearby in Fulton, Maryland. After carefully inspecting it for rust in all the likely places, I offered $2,200 and became an owner of a Porsche that was drivable.

According to the Certificate of Authenticity, it was originally delivered to D ’Ieteren in Brussels, Bel-

A Porsche Lifetime (cont’d)

Stephen Heyse

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Chesapeake Region

A Porsche Lifetime (cont’d)

Stephen Heyse

gium on September 22, 1966, which explains the French instrumentation. The original interior was black leatherette but somewhere along the way the front buckets had been replaced with full leather seats that were badly worn. (I have since had them recovered with the original leatherette.) Cibie driving lights and an air horn had been added along with wide chrome rocker panel trim from a ’68 or ’69 911. The skinny original 4.5x15 wheels had been replaced with 6x15 Fuchs and spacers had been added all around to recenter the treads. The radio was and still is the original Blaupunkt “Stuttgart” with AM, FM, and SW bands. When the car was brought to the US in the early ‘70s, the turn signals where changed to US specifications. I was able to find some used heat exchangers in good condition in York, Pennsylvania, that are still on the car.

The Silver Metallic paint was tired and, despite appearing to be rust-free and Ziebarted, I soon found rust areas particularly under the rocker panel trim on the driver’s side. I had the inner and outer rocker panel pieces, as well as the jack receiver, replaced at a body shop in Davidsonville, Maryland. I spent the next year getting the car ready for painting doing the preparations myself. I had it painted at a MAACO shop which actually did an excellent job that lasted until I had the car restored in 2019/20.

We always kept it garaged and it was accident-free until June 2004 when I had an altercation with a van that had a can-opener for a front bumper that got tangled in the right rear wheel well and gouged a long gash in the rear quarter panel. To make the repair I was told I had to find a replacement for the quarter panel, not an easy task since it is a short wheel base model. Years went by until I found a body shop (actually a speed shop) in Milford, Delaware - Six Deuces Speed Shop. Chris and I had been having lunch at a restaurant across the street from the shop in November 2018. After lunch we noticed that the garage doors were open and that they were working on several very interesting hot rods, their specialty. They had just finished replacing the rear quarter panel of a ’70 Charger that they had fabricated from sheet metal because the replacement piece was unobtainable. I described what the ‘67S needed and, despite their never having worked on a Porsche, they put my car on their waiting list. in the meantime I had them address some minor issues on my 1993 Carrera 2 Cabriolet. After seeing the results, I was convinced this was the place to restore the ‘67S.

Prior to delivering the ‘67S, I took it to Ralph in Reisterstown to have a weak chain tensioner replaced and to have the carbs tweaked. In July 2019 Six Deuces began working on the car by stripping it down to bare metal which revealed all sorts of previously, unknown repairs from pre-1977. I had located an OEM left front fender and a rust-free right front fender from a race car that only needed the wheel well edge uncurled and a headlight bucket welded in (it had been removed for an oil cooler). I also found replacements for almost all the chrome pieces that were significantly less expensive than having the pieces rechromed. I changed the turn signal lenses back to the European versions the car had and replaced the fog lights with Hellas with amber lenses. In mid August, 2020, on our 53rd wedding anniversary, the ‘67S was ready.

The ‘67S has been and will always remain in the family but over the years we have had many other Porsches. In 1980, I need another commuting car since I had sold the Corsa the year before. I found a used 1970 914 in

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Chesapeake Region

A Porsche Lifetime (cont’d)

Stephen Heyse

Orange at 40 West Porsche/Audi. It was cute especially after I had it repainted Sunshine Yellow and it got me to and from work. But it had a mental problem; I ended up replacing its fuel injector brain twice.

Next came a 1983 944 that I bought for Eric after he sold the LeMans. He kept it for several years until he got into Saabs. He currently has a repair shop in Gaithersburg, Viking Automotive, focussing on Saabs but of course has expanded his business to other makes. He has been important in keeping the ‘67S running all these years. I decided I needed a commuting car to avoid exposing the ‘67S to the elements. I found a Silver with black leather 1982 928 5 speed. It was an amazing car but incredibly expensive to maintain.

Sometime in the late 1980’s I bought a 1967 912 for our oldest son, Eric, to restore. It ran well but the floor board under the brake pedal was shot and we never got around to fixing it. He was more excited about restoring a 1971 Pontiac LeMans he had found. I sold it a strange person who tried to trade an exotic bird for it. He planned to turn it into a Ruf slant-nose. I never saw him or the car again.

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Chesapeake Region

A Porsche Lifetime (cont’d)

Stephen Heyse

When Jennifer needed a car to commute from our home in Silver Spring to the University of Maryland in College Park, what better, safer vehicle than a used 1984 944 that I found for sale by the chair of the maintenance committee of the Potomac Region? It cost less than a Honda.

Not to be left out, Chris needed an “everyday car” so

logically I found a 1987 944S in Nougat Brown Metallic that a woman was selling at an insanely low price that matched the cost of a living suite she wanted to buy. When Mike took it down to UNC, I found a Black 1987 928 S4 to replace it at another insanely low price. This time it was because the car had about 150,000 miles on it and was “using a lot of oil”, about a quart every 200 miles. It turned out the oil was leaking out of the O-ring seal around the oil pressure sender - easy fix. Eventually I gave this car to Mike when we started inheriting Cadillacs from Chris’ parents.

At one point we had six Porsches: 1967 991S, 1982 928, 1983 944, 1984 944, and 1987 944S. Below is a picture of five of them in front of our home in Silver Spring.

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Chesapeake Region

A Porsche Lifetime (cont’d)

Stephen Heyse

For our 39th wedding anniversary, I bought Chris a 2000 Boxster in Ocean Blue Metallic with Graphite Grey partial leather seats. While she had gotten used to manual shifting, she appreciates the Tiptonic transmission.

In March 2007, I found a 1993 Carrera 2 Cabriolet in the perfect color combination: Gran Prix White with Marina Blue partial leather seats and a matching blue top. It had had several previous owners but had spent most of it s life in Florida. The seller needed to replace it because it had the rear-seat-delete option that didn’t work for his family of four. We keep it at our beach house on the Delaware Bay as our “dune buggy”.

At this time, we are down to “only’ three Porsches: the 1967 911S, the 1993 C2 Cabriolet, and the 2000 Boxster. However, the Porsche gene has clearly been passed on to Mike whose profile ran in a previous issue of the Patter.

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