1989 Porsche 928 S4 light restoration project

 Welcome to the auction of my 1989 Porsche 928 S4. I bought this in 2009 in excellent condition and enjoyed it for 3 years as my daily driver in London, before sticking it in storage for about 8 years, most of which time it was under cover. Naturally though it's deteriorated somewhat in the interim, and I'd now class it as a light restoration project requiring some cosmetic & mechanical attention. It's a cracking proposition for someone who's into these, but with nearly 20 other classic cars and too many other projects to tackle I've decided that it's time to let it and a few others go so someone else can give it some love while I can concentrate on other things.  All too often when you look at the description of an older car, people might gloss over all kinds of details with phrases like 'the usual wear and tear', or 'condition as you'd expect from a 32 year old car' etc, which tells you nothing, so I'm going to go into a fair bit of detail to avoid any nasty surprises and to make sure a buyer knows exactly what they're getting.It was last on the road in 2012, though it's been fired up and run at various times on private land, just to check that it was still running and to keep the brakes etc freed up. It fires up straight away and drives and stops nicely, with the auto gearbox behaving exactly as it should, though it has an issue with the fuel injector relay which will need looking at. We'd hoped it was just the relay, but when I replaced that it still didn't fire up, so we fashioned a 'bridge' from some wire and connectors to bypass the relay and it starts up and runs perfectly. Obviously though it's not a proper solution so a diagnostic will have to be run to see what the underlying issue is. A little while ago when I was unsure of whether or not I'd be keeping the car, my father kindly acquired some parts and had them fitted, including a new fuel pump, fuel filter, complete set of spark plugs, 2 spark plug amplifiers, crank angle sensor and had the air flow meter refurbished, which likely explains why, no matter how long it's been left sitting, all you have to do is connect the negative terminal back on the battery and it fires straight up.The oil cooler (the small radiator under the nose that keeps the oil cool) took a bash that caused a hole when the car was transported some time ago, so we've bypassed it in order to ensure that the engine doesn't leak oil and therefore is protected from running with low oil levels when starting it regularly. A replacement cooler is around £250, or else I believe the existing one is reparable. Otherwise the engine sounds strong and appears totally fine, though you'll obviously want it properly checked over and serviced by someone qualified and before hitting the road in it. The fluids all appear as they should, with no scary colours in the oil that would suggest internal issues, so I wouldn't foresee anything particularly worrying, so I'd say you should budget perhaps a grand or two with a specialist to go through it and ensure it's still as strong and reliable as it was when I was regularly driving around London in it.Bodywise it's fairly scruffy, and presents better in photographs than in person. Being primarily constructed of aluminium though it's mainly just the paintwork that needs attention as opposed to rust. A few small areas are affected by galvanic corrosion, i.e where aluminium and steel in close proximity cause the surface to bubble, but it's only in certain localised areas such as the petrol filler cap, around wing mirrors and headlamps etc, and unlike conventional steel rust it's only skin deep and easy to solve. There's a smallish area on the roof above the driver's door where th paint has delaminated, and the nose panel, famous on these cars for being a technically advanced feature, has been resprayed in a slightly different shade of dark blue so will need recolouring. The driver's side piece of wing trim was lost when the car was being transported on a trailer a few years ago, but I've replaced it with a gold one which will need sticking on and painted. In fact, most of the paint on the trim strips on either side has come off so will need touching up. Basically - if your aim is to get the car on the road asap then you could more than likely get away in the short term with touching it up here and there, and giving the original paint a good deep machine polish, but really you'll want to have the car resprayed to look its best again. There's a single rust hole about the size of a 50p piece on the passenger side sill and one about the size of a 20p piece on the driver's side sill, but each appears to be completely localised and doesn't indicate rust elsewhere. I could have easily bodged them with a dab of filler and a blowover but that's not my style - I think it's a very honest project car so I'm happy to leave any cosmetic issues for prospective buyers to see that it's the only rust evident anywhere. Despite most of its panels being aluminium 928s can and often do suffer from rust here and there, but it would appear that this car has definitely dodged that bullet! The interior needs a bit of a clean up but is otherwise quite special. A previous owner seems to have had it subtly upgraded from the standard 928 interior, and its colours and styling is what made me choose this car over several others I viewed at the time. It's a lovely combination of light tan leather over matt black that I've rarely seen on any other 928, and it's been professionally fitted with a Momo steering wheel that might not be to purists' taste, but which I love and feels much more comfortable and sporting than the standard wheel. One small piece of carpet in the rear footwell beneath the driver's seat is missing, as is the plastic cover of the lever that tips the driver's seat forward (though the lever works fine). The seats could do with some leather cream and a colour touch up here and there, but are tear and scuff free. There's a small stain on the passenger footwell carpet which ought to be removeable, and the car has the often missing rear luggage cover. There are 2 or 3 hairline cracks starting to appear on the dashboard, but they're luckily still small enough that they can be filled with the appropriate product to fix them. The rubber seal around the driver's door is coming away in a few places, but isn't damaged and can be adhered back on. The cover for the passenger footwell fusebox was removed whilst we were testing the relays, but it's safe in the boot. The registration, which comes with the car, handily ends in 928, and I believe the rear reflector bar which stretched between the rear lights clusters is a feature of the later GTS cars which a previous owner has had professionally fitted to this S4 model. I recently bought from the States a pair of clear indicator lenses at a cost of close to £100 - if the winning bidder fancies them I'm happy to include them for £50, otherwise I'll sell them elsewhere. The rear wiper arm was removed years ago and can't currently be found - if I can locate it before the car is collected I'll naturally re-install it; otherwise they're a fairly inexpensive item to replace.The car comes with a V5 and the lovely original Porsche wallet containing 'guide to Porsche ownership, service book, driver's manual, guarantee and maintenance booklet and a little history.928s are genuinely amazing cars that are rising pretty nicely in value. Time was a good one was a couple of grand, but those days are well and truly over! If, like me, you view classic cars with one eye on what you like and the other on whether it'll be a decent investment, then you shouldn't go far wrong with one of these. 911s of this era have gone frankly bananas in price in recent years, as have the last 928 variant, the GTS; you'd be brave to bet against S4s appreciating as well. In fact, whilst prewar cars are dropping in value, and postwar cars largely stagnating, it's the 'youngtimer' models - Porsches, BMWs, Mercs etc from the 80s and 90s that are showing the strongest gains. You won't retire on the value gains from a 928, but assuming you'll need to spend around 5k on this one to bring it up to scratch, you ought to be comfortably within range of a profit, with the best S4s now hitting high teens and sometimes passing £20k.I think that covers pretty much everything. It's selling at no reserve, and I can arrange transportation at a fair price with the guy I used last month to deliver the car to my home from storage. You're obviously welcome to come and collect it yourself with a trailer within lockdown rules. I'm happy with cash on collection or cleared funds beforehand. You can take a look at the feedback I've had from selling a few of the cars from my collection this year and bid with confidence - (apart from the clown who won the auction for my old Ferrari, then ignored all comms before moaning when I eventually relisted it again!)The car is a few miles from Boston, Lincolnshire, PE22. Any questions feel free to drop me a line. Thanks for looking and good luck. 

On 03-Oct-21 at 21:10:07 BST, seller added the following information:

Forgot to mention - please don't bother asking what I'd take for it or whether I'll end the auction early. I'm going to see it through to the end. And no bidding without at least ten pieces of good feedback - any bids with zero or super low feedback will be cancelled due to an experience I had a while ago with a complete timewaster. Thanks.

On 04-Oct-21 at 00:28:38 BST, seller added the following information:

Forgot to add - each 928 S4 has a pair of EZK modules - basically a 'brain' that controls starting the car and makes sure various important elements (RPM, engine load and spark advance map) are all functioning correctly. My dad sent both modules from this car to 928 electronics specialists JDS Porsche a while back - one tested fine, the other didn't but was refurbished by them and both re-installed in the car, hence it always starts well!

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