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My 996 turbo, the story so far.....

Great looking 996 turbo. I prefer the original wheel colour, but the personal plate looks good!
 
trig_112 - Thanks again mate, glad you like the plate. :thumbs:

g7jhp - Thanks very much. I know what you mean, both colours seemed to go quite nicely with the seal grey. It took me a while to decide to go a bit lighter. Glad you're a fan of the plate.
 
Something that I'm personally not a fan of on the standard car is the headlights. To clarify though, this is not the usual dislike of the shape or style of the 996 headlights, I actually like the style of them. I do however think there is too much chrome. I had seen a few photos of people who had taken the lights apart and painted the inside and I'd done it myself to several cars in the past, but couldn't quite bring myself to go that far.

So I looked at alternatives that could be removed to easily revert the car back to standard, which at the time, was still an option. I made a decision to try Lamin-X headlight tint film. I liked the idea of being able to remove the film if I wasn't happy with the way it looked, as there were very few photos of what the colour I'd chosen looked like on a seal grey 996. The shade I'd chosen was referred to as 'Subtle tint' by Lamin-X.

by Dave W, on Flickr

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr
 
I think the plate's the best change you made! It's a good plate.

Because the "V6..." plate on a 911 is just wrong. It always makes me laugh when I see V6 plates on BMWs for the same reason.

Great looking car, well done.
 
Viffer said:
Great photos Dave, I recognise that road, the A4059 from Hirwaun to the A470 below the Storey Arms, one of my favourite routes if I'm on the bike or in the car. Great views.
Steve

I used to live in cwmdare, my dad still does, every trip home to the north east whether on the viffer or the 911 starts with that section of great road. I'd have to really restrain myself in a turbo....
 
skinny_monkey - Thanks very much.

BHZ661 - Thanks, I appreciate that.

Griffter - Cheers, glad you like the plate. I know exactly what you mean about the V6 thing, it was on the car when I bought it. It's like seeing a TVR Tuscan with a V6 plate.

Steve Gom - Sounds like a great way to start any journey. I love the roads and scenery around there. The A4061 is also quite good fun.
 
Steve Gom said:
Viffer said:
Great photos Dave, I recognise that road, the A4059 from Hirwaun to the A470 below the Storey Arms, one of my favourite routes if I'm on the bike or in the car. Great views.
Steve

I used to live in cwmdare, my dad still does, every trip home to the north east whether on the viffer or the 911 starts with that section of great road. I'd have to really restrain myself in a turbo....

Bloody Hell, another Steve with a 911 and a VFR. Your Dad might have questions to answer :lol: :lol: :lol:
Steve
 
Now that I was on the slippery slope of Porsche modication, it was only a matter of time before something else had to be done.....

I wasn't really a fan of the gold colour on the Porsche emblem with the grey. I decided to change the front emblem and the wheel centre caps to remove all the gold. I looked at a few different options and ended up going for a gunmetal emblem.

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

I changed the coloured centre caps for silver emblems with a black surround.

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

The rear 'turbo' badge was also replaced at this stage with matte black Porsche lettering.

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

Here's a shot of what were, at the time, my two cars. The TT had gone through a few cosmetic changes since the last photos were taken as well.

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr
 
Here's a few more shots of the car along my favourite road in the Brecon Beacons.

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

After looking over a few of these photos I was starting to think there was a bit too much grey. I think the front end colours were all too close and that the headlights blended into the rest of the bodywork too much. I imagine these headlight tints would probably look a lot better on a different colour car, where there's more of a contrast.

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

Not long after these pictures were taken I decided to remove the headlight tints. The film came off very easily and after a quick clean and polish to remove any residue they were back to how they looked before the tints went on.
 
Here's how the front end looks without the headlight tints. Pretty much back to standard apart from the grey front emblem.

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

I'd also recently changed my daily driver from the TT to an FTO. I'd wanted one years ago when they were fairly new, but ended up going for something different at the time.

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr
 
My car has a black interior and when I bought it the previous owner had fitted white dials and it had arctic silver coloured door handles and storage bin covers. I wanted to have more of the interior bits painted to balance it out, but I thought the silver looked a little bit too bright next to the black. I had the interior parts painted in an Audi colour called quartz grey and had the arctic silver parts painted to match.

The parts I had painted were the centre console, door handles and storage bin covers, the horseshoe and the dial surround. At the time I chose not to get the ashtray cover painted, but changed my mind very shortly after and had it done to match the rest.

I also had the steering wheel and a few other parts retrimmed in alcantara. I opted for black alcantara with light grey stitching and had a 12 o'clock band done in grey alcantara. The parts I had retrimmed were the steering wheel and airbag, the gear gaitor, the centre console armrest and the side panels of the lower central console either side of the a/c controls. The company I had to do the work are called Tiggy Design and I'm very happy with the work they did.

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

The last change I made at this time was a new set of mats. To continue the theme I went with a grey binding around the outside and I paired it with white Porsche lettering.

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr
 
I've always thought the standard rear spoiler looked a little bit too small on a 996 turbo. I know as a styling exercise it is designed to look like a relatively subtle ducktail style spoiler but this is just my opinion. I do however really like the aerokit rear wing, but felt it was a bit too expensive to have retrofitted once you take into account painting etc. So I started looking for something that I liked that wasn't either really expensive or one that I thought was a bit over the top.

I found this spoiler on eBay of all places and the company selling it was based in Germany. I believe it's a copy of a spoiler that Techart used to make. I know spoilers are a very subjective and divisive subject, but this is the style that I like. It was only available with a carbon fibre finish, which was not something I was actively looking for and I originally intended on having it painted to match the rest of the bodywork. Seeing it fitted though, I quite liked the way it looked so decided to leave it as it was.

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

And of course, the obligatory shot of the two cars together, as I'd made a few modifications to the Fto as well.

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr
 
After deciding to leave the carbon spoiler unpainted, I felt I needed to balance it out with a bit more carbon. I loved the idea of genuine carbon mirror cases, but couldn't justify the cost of the full replacement cases. I'd seen a few sets of carbon mirror covers on eBay from China. I decided to give them a try as they were very reasonably priced. The quality was better than I was expecting and they were easy to fit as they just stuck to the existing mirrors.

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr
 

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