Sunday, July 25, 2010

For Artichoke Annie: Her 912 Recreated

A polaroid of Artichoke Annie's long-lost Tangerine-colored Porsche 912. Or is it?

C H O P ,   S O R T   O F — New reader, Artichoke Annie, mentioned in a recent post that she once owned a 1968 Porsche 912 painted a Tangerine color. She must have been AWESOME back in the day! She also mentioned that she didn't have a single photo of the car, so I thought that I would create one for her. What's the good of Photoshop if you can't recreate history once in a while? Annie, if you click on the photo, and then 'save image' on a Mac, or right click on a PC to save it to your hard-drive, you now have a photo of your car you can print out. If your car had the extra-cost, five spoke Fuchs wheels, let me know. I can change the chrome hubcaps here, but I'm pretty sure most 912s came with this wheel treatment. There is a Navy Blue 912 in town to this day, and it has these chrome wheels and hubcaps.

I remember a bright Pea Green 912 in my town. Did my readers know that back then Porsche would paint a car ANY color you wanted, as long as you paid for it of course? There were stories about people bringing samples of leather shoes, clothes, other car paint samples, their pet's leashes, you name it, to the Porsche factory, and for a price they would create the correct pigment color and paint your car. They supposedly KEPT all of those special formulas forever, in case you needed touch ups or wanted your next car in the same shade. I seem to remember racing Porsche Carreras in bright orange, but not regular production cars, so Annie's may very well have been a special-order color. 

For this Photoshop rendering, I found a photo of a 912 through Google images. I placed it on a generic wooded background that might have been anywhere Annie might have parked in front of. I changed the color to Tangerine, and then I placed it in a Polaroid frame background. I used a couple of filters to simulate the aging process which 'disrupts' the pigmentation a bit, and I added a wrinkled texture to make the polaroid appear as if it had been handled a lot. Annie said she bought the car in '69, so I wanted this image to look 41 years old. I keep files of textures for my art; in this case I overlayed 'wrinkled paper' for that last step. 

The 912 was the 4 cylinder volume sales model of the 911 lineup, and they actually sold more 912s in Europe than 911s in those years, helping to keep the company afloat in lean years. They were also used by die Polizei, the German Police. They never sold as well in the States with most Americans preferring the more powerful 911, so Annie had a pretty rare car on her hands for awhile! She also had what many people felt was the better handling Porsche by way of it's lighter overall weight. With Porsche's engine hanging way back past the rear axle, the lighter the engine, the better and safer the handling. It was the smart Porsche to buy.

For the Wiki on 912s, click here.

Hope you enjoy it, Annie. I'm very glad you found my blog!

UP D A T E :  At 10:00AM EST, I made a couple of 'fixes' to the image, and I updated it the entry. Annie, if you've saved it already, this version is a little bit better, lol. : )

UP D A T E  2:  PhantomX has alerted me to this very cool early 911 scale model available on eBay. It's right up Annie's Alley, lol! It's a 1964, but is very similar to the '68 912. Ya gotta love eBay, and thanks Phantom!

16 comments:

  1. Thanks, Mare. I was smiling the entire time I was working on this image. The "good" in the people that have found this blog just shines right through, doesn't it? Ross doesn't have any idea how much his blog has done for me, lol!

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  2. CASEY, YOU THINK YOUR THE LUCKY ONE, WELL, PHANTOM, MARE,ANNIE AND MYSELF ARE THE LUCKY ONES. YOU ARE SO VERY SPECIAL. IT'S JUST FUN TO COME BY YOUR DOORSTEP EACH DAY AND SEE WHAT YOU'VE COME UP WITH FOR THE DAY. I'VE NEVER WRITTEN SO MUCH IN YEARS AND TOLD SO MANY SECRETS. LIKE WHEN MY BROTHER WAS AWAY AT WAR AND BEING A LITTLE GIRL AND MISSING HIM SO MUCH THAT MY MOM LET ME SLEEP IN HIS BED TILL HE CAME HOME SAFE. SHE TOLD ME THE MINUTE HE CAME HOME FROM THE WAR AND IF IT WAS AT NIGHT HE WOULD COME UP TO HIS ROOM AND LET ME KNOW HE WAS BACK. SHE KNEW I WOULD SLEEP BETTER KNOWING I'D BE THE FIRST ONE HE WOULD SEE. AND I DID SLEEP BETTER.
    NOW ON TO OUR WONDERFUL ANNIE. HOW SPECIAL TO DO THIS FOR HER. ANNIE, CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? A PICTURE OF YOUR CAR. WHAT A TREAT. LIKE I JUST SAID CASEY, YOUR SPECIAL.
    HI MARE.
    GRANNY

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  3. when I started this blog in late February this year, I had no idea what I would do with it, how long I would keep it up, or who the heck would ever want to look at it. Heck I wasn't even sure I would be able to come up with stuff for it every day. Now it's just so easy and fun. It really is just like sitting across a breakfast or dinner table from friends. Who knew?

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  4. LIFE LEADS US ALL IN DIFFERANT DIRECTIONS.I NEVER THOUGHT I'D BE SPEAKING TO STRANGERS ALL OVER THE COUNTRY [ONCE IN A WHILE THE WORLD] I JUST PRAY I PICK THE RIGHT FOLK TO TALK TOO AND NOT GET MYSELF INTO TROUBLE.YOU NEVER KNOW WHO YOUR TALKING TOO.
    CHURCH TIME FOR THE NEXT HOUR. CATCH YOU LATER

    GRANNY

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  5. I woke up a little later this morning, it was Sunday after all. Made a pot of coffee and checked my emails, nothing much going on there unless you’re a swinging senior. I may be a senior but in all honesty my swing is a bit rusty.

    My next click was to casey/artand colour to see if there was a new posting. Well knock me over with a feather and pass the Kleenex box please; I seem to have something in my eye – a little tear.

    Featured there in all her past glory was my little 912 Porsche, it must have landed there when I tripped and my treasure photo box went flying from my hands.

    Casey you are a dear, thanks so much. What a wonderful world when a complete stranger would take so much time to do something like this for me. It’s a crazy world with a common “hello ross” beginning and a cook named GRANNY to stir the pot and keep things cooking – Mare, Granny and Me/as in I - end up at Casey’s place. We are the guests that come to visit and are slow to leave.

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  6. Casey, I have already printed out your perfectly captured picture of my 1968 Porsche 912 and have tacked it up on my note board above my desk where all things important eventually end up.

    There are many wonderful stories of my little car both happy and sad. First, not longer after acquiring her she became responsible for a little business I started – “Annie’s Wax Museum”. Porsche owners were like ants in those days forming their own colonies and speaking in headlight blinks as we traveled down the highways and byways. Most Porsche owners were very picky about how their little babies were cared for and the thought of allowing them to ever see the inside of a carwash was unheard of.

    We lived on the beach in Corona del Mar, CA and weekends were filled with visiting beach going friends several of whom owned Porsche 911’s with alphabetic endings. Well one thing led to another and soon I was hand washing and waxing these beautiful hunks of metal. Word spread, cars were dropped by my place in the a.m. and picked up after work, and a business grew that lasted several years. I even gave the cars a feather dusting just prior to pick up by the owners.

    The sad story really deals with the instability of the car and it’s fondness for fishtailing under certain conditions and most definitely in the hands of a novice driver like me. On the one particular evening, oblivious to the fact it had recently rained and the streets still glimmered with its wetness, the rev of two engines could be heard, my friends 911E and my 912, the race was on. Never mind the facts that I was underpowered and inexperienced, this race was going to be mine.

    Off we went, my friend generously allowing me the first jump, which did nothing more than to really spur me on. Down the street I flew much too fast for the approaching turn, I slammed on the breaks (mistake one), started to fishtail and I over steered (mistake two) the rest is a bit of a blur. My husband sat frustrated and helpless in the passenger seat a witness to this horror. Eventually (probably mere seconds) we came to rest after have I had done a complete 360 and was finally slowed by scraping a lamp post along the driver’s side while going backwards.

    The miracle to my indiscretion was that no innocent bystanders or drivers were involved and I came out of it with a few chipped teeth when my head it the steering wheel and a minor laceration on my shoulder from the broken driver’s side window. The police saw fit not to ticket me, an act of kindness that did not go unnoticed – I never raced again.

    The victim in this case was my completely innocent Tangerine Porsche 912 who suffered the brunt of this blameless abuse. I was told she wasn’t a pretty sight, the cost of a new door versus used door the only thing separating her from being totaled. But my memory of her that night was of a tangerine tinged sparkle leaning gingerly against a lamppost.

    I never saw her again after that night, too embarrassed and ashamed to face her, I had no words to proclaim in my innocence. It was one of those love affairs that you just had to walk away from without any words spoken.

    Casey, you have brought my love back to me as we were in the beginning. I remember the day we are parked alongside this country road and enjoyed a lovely picnic in the woods. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

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  7. Casey, I have already printed out your perfectly captured picture of my 1968 Porsche 912 and have tacked it up on my note board above my desk where all things important eventually end up.

    There are many wonderful stories of my little car both happy and sad. First, not longer after acquiring her she became responsible for a little business I started – “Annie’s Wax Museum”. Porsche owners were like ants in those days forming their own colonies and speaking in headlight blinks as we traveled down the highways and byways. Most Porsche owners were very picky about how their little babies were cared for and the thought of allowing them to ever see the inside of a carwash was unheard of.

    We lived on the beach in Corona del Mar, CA and weekends were filled with visiting beach going friends several of whom owned Porsche 911’s with alphabetic endings. Well one thing led to another and soon I was hand washing and waxing these beautiful hunks of metal. Word spread, cars were dropped by my place in the a.m. and picked up after work, and a business grew that lasted several years. I even gave the cars a feather dusting just prior to pick up by the owners.

    The sad story really deals with the instability of the car and it’s fondness for fishtailing under certain conditions and most definitely in the hands of a novice driver like me. On the one particular evening, oblivious to the fact it had recently rained and the streets still glimmered with its wetness, the rev of two engines could be heard, my friends 911E and my 912, the race was on. Never mind the facts that I was underpowered and inexperienced, this race was going to be mine.

    Off we went, my friend generously allowing me the first jump, which did nothing more than to really spur me on. Down the street I flew much too fast for the approaching turn, I slammed on the breaks (mistake one), started to fishtail and I over steered (mistake two) the rest is a bit of a blur. My husband sat frustrated and helpless in the passenger seat a witness to this horror. Eventually (probably mere seconds) we came to rest after have I had done a complete 360 and was finally slowed by scraping a lamp post along the driver’s side while going backwards.

    The miracle to my indiscretion was that no innocent bystanders or drivers were involved and I came out of it with a few chipped teeth when my head it the steering wheel and a minor laceration on my shoulder from the broken driver’s side window. The police saw fit not to ticket me, an act of kindness that did not go unnoticed – I never raced again.

    The victim in this case was my completely innocent Tangerine Porsche 912 who suffered the brunt of this blameless abuse. I was told she wasn’t a pretty sight, the cost of a new door versus used door the only thing separating her from being totaled. But my memory of her that night was of a tangerine tinged sparkle leaning gingerly against a lamppost.

    ReplyDelete
  8. My full thank you is posted on my blog, Casey - http://helloartichokeannie.blogspot.com/

    I tried to leave it here on your comment page but kept getting too long/full messages. Oh well. Please ready my full thank you. Your art work was greatly appreciated.

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  9. you're entirely welcome! It was really fun to do and I'm glad it brightened your morning. And you're not the only one with a rusty swing, lol. I wouldn't even know a swing if it knocked on my door and introduced himself to me.

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  10. Annie: just read your tale of the fishtail! i'm sure you realize you weren't the only one that a Porsche did that to. I've known three friends personally with early 911s and all three of them ended up totalling their cars for the very same reason. The only reason sPorsche can still use the rear-engine layout in it's new 911s are the new tire technology, they're at least 10 times wider now than they were in the 60s and 70s, haha, and electronics. They use so many eletronic doodads to control the rear engine weight bias that you could probably use their computers to fly to the moon.

    I've even done a piece of art using bits and pieces of images of a '55 356, that I call "Trailing Throttle Oversteer" and the 2 pieces of wood joined together form a slight S shaped skid... I have to take a decent photo of it, I don't think I have yet.

    thanks for telling the rest of the story! I"m smiling thinking of all the gorgeous Porsches you made beautiful back in the day!

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  11. Annie 3, lol. Sorry about the Blogger software glitch. I can't complain though, it's all free! I wouldn't have a website at all if i had to pay for it. I'll click over to your blog. But don't worry, your thanks have come through just fine here!

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  12. OH ANNIE, DIDN'T I TELL YOU HOW NEAT THIS BLOG WAS TO COME TOO. IT MAKES ME HAVE FAITH IN PEOPLE AGAIN. I WISH I HAD CASEY BRAINS.

    GRANNY

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  13. Casey, I do INDEED LOVE (underscore!) EBAY!! It is my friend indeed!

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  14. i like to check out the cars for sale on eBay, to see if there are any '67 Tbird 4doors left for example, and now the toys that Phantom has sent links to amaze me with their prices. i've never bought or sold anything using it but I like to wander through it anyway.

    So much for my bike ride. I got distracted for a bit, and by the time I was at the end of our driveway it was raining, lol. Not supposed to last all afternoon though, just a shower. we could still use the rain, so I don't mind. It might be time for a nap instead, lol. I really pushed myself yesterday all day.

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