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I think the big deal for most these builders is having a clean no issue title. You can’t have a $1m car with a salvage or rebuilt history. Plus if I have to find the donor for my own build you know it will be the best I could find if I was to spend that kind of money on the final product.
Some of you may know that I was an avid 964 backdater myself.
This was from 2010 to 2018 when a trend emerged worldwide and many tuners emulated Singer.
At that time I created a 1-page business case, which led to me stopping this type of conversion.
It shows the special situation for the Porsche 964 in the US market generated by Singer, but also worldwide.
Hope it's not too complicated. Feel free to leave a comment.
I follow the market regularly and have been dedicated to preserving the 964 ever since.
I am curious where you got your info from? I did a similar thing but my numbers vary greatly. I used the factory portal I had access to for a short time but was focused more so on turbo and coupe production. It would have required every coupe vin to be researched as to how many were C2 vs C4 and I have not seen any source claiming to actually have accurate info regarding this.
I have a total of all C2/C4's NB coupes - speciality at 27,219
targas 3,317
Cabs 14,944
Turbo look 1,352
CUP all 232
3.3 turbo 3,863
3.3 TSL 86
3.6Turbo 1312
3.6TS & package 93
Speedsters including TL 1261 ( I Think the Speedster numbers are incorrect)
The RS/A and others we all know are not included.
In total including every variant I have 54,830 units vs your 64,189. I am assuming you are including vins 001-060 which were not used for street cars and all began at 061.
I am curious where you got your info from? I did a similar thing but my numbers vary greatly. I used the factory portal I had access to for a short time but was focused more so on turbo and coupe production. It would have required every coupe vin to be researched as to how many were C2 vs C4 and I have not seen any source claiming to actually have accurate info regarding this.
I have a total of all C2/C4's NB coupes - speciality at 27,219
targas 3,317
Cabs 14,944
Turbo look 1,352
CUP all 232
3.3 turbo 3,863
3.3 TSL 86
3.6Turbo 1312
3.6TS & package 93
Speedsters including TL 1261 ( I Think the Speedster numbers are incorrect)
The RS/A and others we all know are not included.
In total including every variant I have 54,830 units vs your 64,189. I am assuming you are including vins 001-060 which were not used for street cars and all began at 061.
For my bottom-up / numbers by model I end up with the 64.189 as you have mentioned. Which leaves a difference of 437 units compared to the official number from the newsroom, which I explained in the comments marked in red.
I decided not to try to solve this issue because the numbers for the WB models C4 Coupe (Jubilee/ TL) as well as the C2 TL Cabrio/America Roadster is a mess in my opinion. I let other people do this (turbolook register).
For the bottom-up I have the book from Jürgen Barth 1st edition 2010, Motorbuch Verlag, ISBN: 978-3-613-03241-5.
The book contains all details for the 964 production 1989 - 1994 by model, by ROW/US+CAN with the associated FIN/ motor numbers/gearbox type/ tech. specs and PRODUCTION UNITS!
We name it the 'Barth Bible' because it has proven to show correct numbers when you crosscheck with other books / sources.
All the numbers you see in black on my sheet should be very solid.
Since I don't care too much about the Turbo numbers (sorry) and the Cabio numbers, my focus is very much on the NB Coupes (type 330/331for the C2 =18.219 units, 130/131 for C4) and Targas (440/441 for C2 = 3.534 and 230/231 for C4= 1.329).
In my sheet you find the 14.438 for the C4 Coupes marked in red because 1085 of the WB Jubilee/C4 TL is included and this number is very much debated. The solid number for the NB only Type 130/131 is 13.353!
Hence my numbers for the NB Coupes C2+C4 total 31.572 and Targas 4.863.
Your numbers are 27.219 and 3.317.
The difference is too big to be explained by the prototypes 0001-0050 and the special vehicles 51-60!
And I have no reason not to believe the Barth Bible.
I focus entirely on the LHD C2 manual Coupe numbers! Because that's the car everybody wants to own now. And that's base of most of the backdates.
Yes you can convert a C4 I know, have done it myself. It's not an original C2.... ( Singer should buy C4s and leave the C2s for us).
I would be far more interested to find out how many cars have been ripped / destroyed in the times when it was an unloved child.
But this seems to be a mission impossible.
That's why I work with assumptions in my conclusion. I assume 80% survived the late 90s/ early 2000s.
I assume only 10% tiptronic. Yes you can convert to manual....not matching numbers.
I assume 5% RHD cars / 95% LHD.
And I assume 1000 Backdates have been built by tuners worldwide since 2010 when the Singer hype started.
Whatever the correct number is, it's a low number compared to manual F-Model and G-Model Coupes still around!
And that's the reason why IMO the price will increase further.
Interesting. I need some time to look this over. Clearly Barth's bible would be the rule. It just baffles me why the numbers I have on turbos which are clearly spelled out in Gabriel & Franz.s book Air-cooled turbos matches so closely to my numbers and what I found by punching in all vin numbers from 001 to 061 and then the last known published vin's and beyond at least 50 vins. This would contradict everything I have done research on and what the Porsche database I had access to showed me. I could understand if I had too many but when we have less for some and more for others I need to determine what is the truth. I will take your word for now but I need to spend more time with this for some reason it doesn't add up despite the source.
I know unequivocally that the 963 3.3T numbers you have posted are incorrect as are the 3.6T. I have no doubt I am correct with these after many sources and research I have done confirming it.
So I did some research and will need some time to verify but something clearly does not add up.
I reviewed all my info I had been collecting for over 20 years and my numbers don't come close. No matter how I look at it I know that the turbo numbers I posted are accurate. So we have one contradiction.
it has to be over 15 years ago I had unrestricted access to Porsche's PCSS history. I did not need a randomly generated code for US spec cars. This made life a lot easier. Unless there are a large number of vins well outside the last known we have something wrong with what was posted or Porsche has updated the system since.
I ran many vins enough to give me comfort in my numbers. I specifically looked at first vins up to 70 to verify that they did in fact all start with 061 instead of 001 as all sources at the time claimed were actual cars. I also verified that there were M718 coded cars many were being counted twice. The break point for the 3.6T was 288 but actually IIRC 288 was not 718 coded but 289 was. That gave us 228 M718 coded US spec 3.6T's. I was also able to verify that 466 is the last known vin. So that confirmed my numbers of 406 US spec 3.6T's. This includes all the S and package cars. I did not cover all variants but focused on coupes and turbos but took the same approach. I used reliable sources to verify the last vins and they clearly showed to be accurate. With any number after the last known to not exist in the system. Since both the C2 & C4 including tips use the same vin numbers and are commingled I did not have the time to run every vin so my focus was on total units made. So again unless they started the sequence again many numbers after the last known vins published by both Adrian Streather and Red Book we have a conflict. His book is quite old and most any info I have from then I found to be incorrect. Not saying he is but who knows what happened back then.
Red book and Adrian both show 27,975 C2/C4 coupes being sold worldwide. My numbers eliminate the 60 vins as Porsche claims do not exist in Porsche Classic Originale vol 2. This still puts us way apart. How is it that all these sources had access to internal documents to publish their numbers and yet we now how Porsche coming out and saying far more were made? I understand Jürgen Barth's Signature would be gospile but these numbers are ones I cannot corroborate. According to my research and that of others, without verification from the Porsche PCSS I have to conclude that more info is needed to change everything we have learned about these cars overnight.
Maybe you can post a pic of the book and some pertinent pages. I would love to get my hands on one. Porsche has been very secretive about these numbers so I am surprised, I have never heard of this book up until now. I have his and Franz's book on the 3.8RS/RSR and it is a fantastic bit of work. It is my understanding that Barth worked with franz on his turbo book. So here is an issue. Franz's book I know to be accurate when discussing the 964 turbo and the numbers we have are too far apart. So which is correct? For now I am leaning towards Franz since his numbers match mine within 1. That makes me skeptical about the others. We know all the specialty cars but the coupes are just way too many no matter how I see it. I know we have found a few outliers but I would need some numbers to verify that any exist over the known last vins in such significant quantity. With nearly an additional 5500 coupes that changes things but I have no supporting or objective evidence saying so. I am not familiar with the newsroom. They just state a total number but I need some additional info before I can trust these new numbers. For now I am sticking with only 27,209 coupes being produced both C2/ C4. Until I can find some objective evidence in the PCSS I am going to stick with what I have very little doubt are the correct numbers.
I have a friend who has several contacts from the Gods of Porsche, including Barth. They helped with verifying his 962 tub is the Dauer press car. So I will see if I can impose on him to reach out for clarification.
Thanks for the info it is always nice to see other sources but I am shocked after all these decades that we are just seeing this info now.
Sure I can.
On the wiki you can even see that he wrote this book. Unfortunately only on the German version of Wikipedia (underlined in red).
The 1st edition in 2005, my edition is from 2010.
Therefore, my book ends with information and data about the Type 997.
On the first page you can see the source reference and the reference to Jürgen Barth's private archive.
Have attached a few pages regarding the 964s.
The most important are the pages with the production figures per year.
I searched and the book is still available on Amazon.
But fear only in German.
For starters Thanks for sharing your book and research. I will need to source a copy of it one day. This is the only source I have seen that breaks out C2 and C4's in my 20+ years of looking.
It will take hours for me to go over this info. What I do see which is strange is he is showing vins from 001 to 060 through final vin number. Yet his numbers reflect the first 60 vins not being used.
Some interesting things when comparing his numbers against mine. Nearly all match within a few. I hate to say it unless I am reading this incorrectly, and I constantly find errors in my math but his numbers for 3.3 turbos match mine exactly. He shows 3863 as do I and Gabriel and Franz. You have the number as 3660.
This was done quickly before my 2nd cup of coffee. Combining C2/C4 coupes only since I don't have that breakout:
For 89 I have 2008 units for RoW and he shows 2010. For US we agree on 1057.
For 90 I have 3897 units for RoW and he shows 8282 for the US he has 2057 and I have 1257****
For 91 I have 7780 units for RoW and he shows 7779 for the US he has 1547 and I have 1548
For 92 I have 4784 units for RoW and he shows 4782 for the US he has 653 and I have 655
For 93 we both agree on 3189 units for RoW for us we both agree on 460
for 94 we both agree on 100 units for RoW* for US we both agree on 129
* he has 2 C4 NB for RoW 1994 MY
**** We basically agree on most counts except MY 1990. We are apart by 4,385 for the ROW Coupes and another 800 US coupes. In total this is where we are over 5k units apart. What I don't understand is how we can be so close on nearly everything but 1990MY production. My focus at the time was based on US production. I know I Have found a few outliers from the 1990's. What I do find odd is I had a last number of 1317 for the US MY. I am not sure where the extra units are coming from. My records show I researched vins around the beginning and end of all known vin numbers. When I punched anything above 1317 the PCSS showed no vehicles for a number up the sequence. I cannot confirm any vins over 1317 for that MY. I also find it interesting that in some cases I have more units than he shows. It is possible that a vin in the sequence was scrapped for some reason or used for another purpose but I do find it strange that I could find vins above the count he is claiming?
For instance, 1991 he has the last known vin as 1607 yet I was able to pull up a vin on the PCSS for 1608.
There are many things I have to question which will take time. What also baffles me is he has some vin sequences ending in numbers higher than the units he has accounted for. I have a RoW vin I was able to punch in at 7840 he has 7839 yet the combined number of units for C2/C4 he shows only 7779 made. These kind of discrepancies (if they can be called that) make me question his numbers. There is a truth in there somewhere but I See your notes look like mine and it can be a bit of a head scratcher.
It will take a lot of time to decipher what is going on here. If this was a current release I wouldn't be questioning it but I see too many contradictions to my personal research. I have to assume neither of us are right and the truth falls someplace between. I do know what I did so I am fairly confident in my numbers however I do admit 1990 was not on the tops of my list to check.
I do have indirect access to the PCSS so I will try to see if I can run some vins to verify but I don't want to take advantage of the person helping. I wish I had more time with the open PCSS back in the early 2000's but it didn't seem as important back then. I Was clearly punching in too many vins and someone shut me out which was very upsetting.
I am pleased that other than the 1990 MY our numbers are quite close in general. I did not look into anything other than the turbos and Coupes at this time. One of us has an error for 1990 which should make it easier to pinpoint what the truth is. In either case 26,864 or 32,054 as I see it with my quick calculations these are very rare and I have no doubt very few remain.
Thanks for the post. Now If I can just find a copy of that book in English. I will report back when I have the time to do more research. For now I am sticking with my numbers but if there were 800 more Coupes delivered to the US I would be happy to be mistaken.
For starters Thanks for sharing your book and research. I will need to source a copy of it one day. This is the only source I have seen that breaks out C2 and C4's in my 20+ years of looking.
It will take hours for me to go over this info. What I do see which is strange is he is showing vins from 001 to 060 through final vin number. Yet his numbers reflect the first 60 vins not being used.
Some interesting things when comparing his numbers against mine. Nearly all match within a few. I hate to say it unless I am reading this incorrectly, and I constantly find errors in my math but his numbers for 3.3 turbos match mine exactly. He shows 3863 as do I and Gabriel and Franz. You have the number as 3660.
This was done quickly before my 2nd cup of coffee. Combining C2/C4 coupes only since I don't have that breakout:
For 89 I have 2008 units for RoW and he shows 2010. For US we agree on 1057.
For 90 I have 3897 units for RoW and he shows 8282 for the US he has 2057 and I have 1257****
For 91 I have 7780 units for RoW and he shows 7779 for the US he has 1547 and I have 1548
For 92 I have 4784 units for RoW and he shows 4782 for the US he has 653 and I have 655
For 93 we both agree on 3189 units for RoW for us we both agree on 460
for 94 we both agree on 100 units for RoW* for US we both agree on 129
* he has 2 C4 NB for RoW 1994 MY
**** We basically agree on most counts except MY 1990. We are apart by 4,385 for the ROW Coupes and another 800 US coupes. In total this is where we are over 5k units apart. What I don't understand is how we can be so close on nearly everything but 1990MY production. My focus at the time was based on US production. I know I Have found a few outliers from the 1990's. What I do find odd is I had a last number of 1317 for the US MY. I am not sure where the extra units are coming from. My records show I researched vins around the beginning and end of all known vin numbers. When I punched anything above 1317 the PCSS showed no vehicles for a number up the sequence. I cannot confirm any vins over 1317 for that MY. I also find it interesting that in some cases I have more units than he shows. It is possible that a vin in the sequence was scrapped for some reason or used for another purpose but I do find it strange that I could find vins above the count he is claiming?
For instance, 1991 he has the last known vin as 1607 yet I was able to pull up a vin on the PCSS for 1608.
There are many things I have to question which will take time. What also baffles me is he has some vin sequences ending in numbers higher than the units he has accounted for. I have a RoW vin I was able to punch in at 7840 he has 7839 yet the combined number of units for C2/C4 he shows only 7779 made. These kind of discrepancies (if they can be called that) make me question his numbers. There is a truth in there somewhere but I See your notes look like mine and it can be a bit of a head scratcher.
It will take a lot of time to decipher what is going on here. If this was a current release I wouldn't be questioning it but I see too many contradictions to my personal research. I have to assume neither of us are right and the truth falls someplace between. I do know what I did so I am fairly confident in my numbers however I do admit 1990 was not on the tops of my list to check.
I do have indirect access to the PCSS so I will try to see if I can run some vins to verify but I don't want to take advantage of the person helping. I wish I had more time with the open PCSS back in the early 2000's but it didn't seem as important back then. I Was clearly punching in too many vins and someone shut me out which was very upsetting.
I am pleased that other than the 1990 MY our numbers are quite close in general. I did not look into anything other than the turbos and Coupes at this time. One of us has an error for 1990 which should make it easier to pinpoint what the truth is. In either case 26,864 or 32,054 as I see it with my quick calculations these are very rare and I have no doubt very few remain.
Thanks for the post. Now If I can just find a copy of that book in English. I will report back when I have the time to do more research. For now I am sticking with my numbers but if there were 800 more Coupes delivered to the US I would be happy to be mistaken.
Hi Anthony,
as I said, I did not spend a second on the Turbo numbers. I don't care.
I'm focussed on the C2 Coupe, manual with LHD only!
And I have no reason not to believe in Barth's numbers.
With all the backdating going on I guess there are less than 11.000 units on the road worldwide.
Compared with the originally produced 18.219 that's not much.
About 3000 of them are registered in Germany at the moment.
Hence, the other 8000 are somewhere in the ROW (from my perspective).
I have decided not to do any backdate based on a 964 any more.
These cars are great as they are and can be modified with modern technology in a way that they are even better than the Carrera RS 3.6.
That's what I'm doing now.
These cars are great as they are and can be modified with modern technology in a way that they are even better than the Carrera RS 3.6.
That's what I'm doing now.
Hi Anthony,
as I said, I did not spend a second on the Turbo numbers. I don't care.
I'm focussed on the C2 Coupe, manual with LHD only!
And I have no reason not to believe in Barth's numbers.
With all the backdating going on I guess there are less than 11.000 units on the road worldwide.
Compared with the originally produced 18.219 that's not much.
About 3000 of them are registered in Germany at the moment.
Hence, the other 8000 are somewhere in the ROW (from my perspective).
I have decided not to do any backdate based on a 964 any more.
These cars are great as they are and can be modified with modern technology in a way that they are even better than the Carrera RS 3.6.
That's what I'm doing now.
Chears Detlef
I understand, I feel the same way. For now I have to stand behind my research until I can find objective evidence of these 5000 cars existing. This is one time I am hoping I am mistaken. When the PCSS stopped showing valid numbers after the last known vin as it did with all the other years there is something that just doesn't add up. I find it strange that we are within 2 vins every other year except the one. My focus was on coupes as well. I like figuring out mysteries like this. It seems the more I learn the more there is to learn. So long as it is a coupe I don't care if they are C4 or tip I can always build something out of them. I prefer the C4 as it has the same braking system as the RS and Turbo's
And yes it does matter. If it is 5106 or 5906 US coupes we have seen too many chopped up and used for backdates and the like. More have been just crashed or cut up beyond repair for track cars. Many simply parted out by the hundreds for their engines and parts. My estimate is close to half no longer exist in the US and with singer and other backdates Baja and whatever outlaw build is done by more than a few hurts the remaining numbers. We see less and less that look like 964's. The existing cars trading hands are usually gussied up pigs. We lost another C2 yesterday and thankfully the car handled an end over end flip. Thankfully my friend walked away without a scratch.
I suspect most all of these will be 3.6 or 3.8 RS clones eventually. I am guilty of 2 myself. I appreciated the work you did, but I'm glad you decided to stop.
And yes it does matter. If it is 5106 or 5906 US coupes we have seen too many chopped up and used for backdates and the like. More have been just crashed or cut up beyond repair for track cars. Many simply parted out by the hundreds for their engines and parts. My estimate is close to half no longer exist in the US and with singer and other backdates Baja and whatever outlaw build is done by more than a few hurts the remaining numbers.
I don't understand why this made-up 50% number is still repeated. And now we're questioning Jurgen Barth? A celebrated factory Porsche driver, multi Le Mans champion, and publisher of a number of Porsche books with access to probably any Porsche file cabinet he wants? Must be some funny-smelling cigarettes involved.
Below are a few VIN runs through Porsche's dealer network databases in the USA, Canada, and GB. These are VINs that have been registered through a dealership and represent actual cars. With a few clicks you can find plenty of 1990 USA coupe VINs above #1317 on BaT. They're not hiding. Can we scale back on the hysteria now?
"For instance, 1991 he has the last known vin as 1607 yet I was able to pull up a vin on the PCSS for 1608."
I don't know what you were doing, but the USA/CAN/GB databases don't contain a 1608 VIN. Were you calculating the 9th digit checksum on these VIN guesses?
Yes, have seen the other thread of your project, very nice!
Will be a nice car for mediterranean alps.
My project took 4 months for the tech part and another 2 for the interieur.
When I purchased her last year in May, I subjected it to a test drive in its original condition to find all the weaknesses,
guess you know the area...
Today's condition pretty much like yours will be. Your magnesium wheels are cool!
I don't understand why this made-up 50% number is still repeated. And now we're questioning Jurgen Barth? A celebrated factory Porsche driver, multi Le Mans champion, and publisher of a number of Porsche books with access to probably any Porsche file cabinet he wants? Must be some funny-smelling cigarettes involved.
Below are a few VIN runs through Porsche's dealer network databases in the USA, Canada, and GB. These are VINs that have been registered through a dealership and represent actual cars. With a few clicks you can find plenty of 1990 USA coupe VINs above #1317 on BaT. They're not hiding. Can we scale back on the hysteria now?
"For instance, 1991 he has the last known vin as 1607 yet I was able to pull up a vin on the PCSS for 1608."
I don't know what you were doing, but the USA/CAN/GB databases don't contain a 1608 VIN. Were you calculating the 9th digit checksum on these VIN guesses?
@-nick So you call it hysteria. I think this is important info any 964 lover would be interested in. I have been tracking this info for nearly 2 decades and up until the other day my info was correct. So excuse my surprise. It is important to me and irrespective of what you believe I have seen enough cars scrapped out to make the claims I do and others seem to feel the same way. I find it strange that up until the other day all my info was corroborated by several sources. So I am shocked to see this new info. So don't confuse my bewilderment for hysteria.
As I stated at the time some 15 years ago I had direct access to the Porsche database without the need for the 9th digit. There was no guessing going on. My info shows for all years but 1990 as being nearly identical to Barth's and other sources - the first 60 vins for some sources. When I started punching in a large number of vins I must assume someone caught wind of this and locked me out. Otherwise I would have done as many as I could. I also recently found an old harddrive I believed to be lost. I had 60 vins for US spec 3.6T's that were totaled and additional 20 or so vins that had S titles. I also had several hundred C2/C4 vins I knew to be scrapped out within a single year and that was over 15 years ago. They continued to be chopped up by the hundreds until 2017 or so.So believe what you want. I will see if I can find a way to retrieve the info but the drive was compromised.
The PCSS is what a dealer uses to confirm a cars existence. If they don't show they don't exist is my understanding.
For those interested this is what I found confirming the existence of these 20 cars in the PCSS system. This is based on my sample data of a little over half of the 20 non airbag cars posted by -nick. All show as Canadian C36 964140 C4 coupes. They all show a production invoice date of 9/15/89 for the later vins except 59062 which shows as 10/15/89 invoice date. A few show registration dates of March some have no info as ever being registered and 0 history other than the invoice date?? Although that could just be a lack of info and does happen. These were all code 900 Tourist delivery so maybe those that don't show registration never made it to Canada? I must assume that is the reason for the 14th digit being a 9 instead of a 0, 1 or 2 which would put them thousands of vins away from the US delivered cars is because of the non airbag but I am speculating. This would explain my confusion and why I never saw a vin this high. Something fishy was going on in 1990. But we are talking 20 cars. These cars are mentioned by some sources but they all have the vin info incorrect showing them being within the same range as the rest of the US spec cars.
For some reason this vin does not show. WP0AB2965LS452116. This vin does WP0AB2964MS411607 but my records show a 411608. I question everything and I am finding errors so I must assume that his info has its errors as well. Nobody including myself is infallible. When I punched in the vins 15 years ago they did not exist above 1317 for the US. So I am still not sure what is going on there. Most likely a skip in vin's but which and how many still need to be answered. Access to the system without the 9th digit today limits my ability to search vin numbers for the US unlike years ago. So something still doesn't add up. Clearly Barth's info has more detail than most sources I have seen but his numbers aren't all in line with the PCSS so I don't know what to believe. If he is missing one for 1991 and has his registration location incorrect am I supposed to blindly believe everything that is not in line with my experiences?
I must assume something happened back in 1990 that could be the reason why Porsche refuses to release this info through the same sources that released it for the 928 and 968's.
In any case find me a decent 964 coupe these days and I will show you a unicorn. I know of one nice cobalt over linen 964 Coupe coming up for sale on BaT soon. It is a rarity as most all I see for sale are cars I would run away from. I can't post on Bat But my understanding is this is one worth bidding on.
I will start another thread soon. Clearly the Singer lovers are annoyed by my interest in preserving the 964.
So call me a skeptic but as with most all sources the info is still in need of fine tuning. We have the best known source contradicting the factory records. However the system has its limits.
03-12-2023, 01:21 PM
