So, there I was – bored out of my skull, sitting in heavy traffic just off the A23 at Purley, in Surrey, on my way to work in Croydon. The Capital Radio DJ assured me that the traffic was going to get worse before it got better. Just what you want to hear on a damp Monday morning.
Then, as I felt like letting out a scream of frustration, a green-and-yellow sportscar roared across the intersection ahead of me. Not just any sportscar, mind you, but what appeared to be a super-rare (and super-expensive) Porsche 356 Carrera GT.
As soon as the lights changed to green, I set off in as hot a pursuit as the traffic would allow, finally managing to catch up at the next set of lights. It sure looked like a Carrera, and was badged accordingly, but the lack of camshaft covers under the rear valance suggested it was running a pushrod motor. ‘Is it a genuine Carrera?’, I managed to ask through the window of my car. As the lights were about to change, the answer came back, ‘No!’ We swapped business cards and that was that.
Over the next few months – and we’re talking 1990, maybe – I kept in touch with the owner, David Foster, and would see the car whizzing past once in a while. And then I lost track of it – until about 18 months ago, when it appeared for sale at Roger Bray’s Porsche workshop, near Exeter, in Devon.
The owner, still the same David Foster, had decided to part with the 356A coupé so that he could concentrate on his Speedster. The Porsche was bought by Adey Shaw, a long-time VW enthusiast who had a hankering for an ‘outlaw’ 356 (don’t we all?). His automotive career had started with a Type 3 Squareback and progressed to a Bay-window crew-cab and a Beach Buggy (which he still owns), as well as a Type 25 crew-cab with an Audi five-cylinder engine. But he always had his sights set on an old Porsche of some kind.
Now, Adey had known of this car for several years, as he works for the company owned by – guess who? – David Foster, owner of the 356! He’d first seen it about seven years ago, and liked it then, but thought no more of it until he got a call from the owner to say that it was for sale.
