The above picture from July 2010 with my father is one of my many treasured moments with him in life. He had been working on the car for over eight years, but never had it on the road. He had done all the body work himself. The motor was done by the famous Duane Spencer at Shasta Engineering. Upholstery done by a local friend. But the wiring was not working. Electrical switches gone bad with age, connections deteriorated, and some wires just rotted through. My brother John, my brother-in-law Tim, and I had all helped Dad work on the car after he bought it in January of 2002. (For $1500, a pile of parts on a trailer.) But this wiring problem, this was always something that I focused on with the cars we had worked on. So I traveled up from San Diego to Cottage Grove to help Dad with it. 6 hours or so into it, we got it running and driveable. The photo above captures that moment, the pure joy on my dad's face and the sense of accomplishment on mine. Dad's long desire to have a Porsche were going to pay off with driving his very own 912. (Original blog post here of that moment including pics of the firs ride.)
Dad (Charles "Chuck" Kaiser) as I mention in the above linked post had rebuilt many cars…going back to his days as a hot rodder in the 1950s when he built up a '49 Ford into a street racing machine. Following that up with all sorts of cars as I grew up, my brother and I helping, including: Volkswagens, a Cord Hupmobile, a Corvette or two, my 1969 Ford Ranchero, John's 1970 (71?) El Camino, and Dad's long term project: a '41 Ford Pickup. But it was this Porsche that became his enduring love. Since I had helped him get it on the road, at that time he promised me that when he couldn't drive it anymore he'd give it to me. There were also other requirement's, including that I had to have a garage. One of the first things we did when we moved here to Missouri in 2016 was to have a garage added to the house that we bought. When visiting him in July 2023 he told me it was time, and started the process. To be honest, I didn't believe him, he really loved that car and I didn't see him giving it up, but he did. It took several months for the shippers to pick it up. During the time after he sent me the paperwork, while picking tomatoes in the garden by the Porsche's shed, he suddenly put down the tomatoes, went into the shop...sat on his comfortable chair there, and passed away. It shipped after his death.
My siblings know why I love having this car, it is a tangible thing that points to all the intangible memories of my father, all his joy and creativity, and his love of family.
A few pics of it upon arrival in Missouri:
