Thank Frankel It's Friday – Finding the right man for the job

Most have been easy to rectify. The pitted wheels now look as good as new while their once corroded nuts genuinely are new. Vandals had ripped off the metal trim piece around the rear screen, but Porsche had those in stock in Germany. I didn’t even need a new screen which was my big fear. There are some issues with paintwork – a mismatch where a wing was repaired and some flaking around the fuel filler – but I know a man who has not only done wonders with the paint on other cars of mine, he also owns a 944 so knows all the issues and likely costs.

Probably the single biggest change, at least so far as my enjoyment of the car is concerned, was getting rid of the off-the-shelf Yokohama tyres it came with – just four years old at one end but 11 years old at the other – and replacing them with a brand new set of original specification Michelin Pilots. This might sound like a contradiction in terms but it’s not. Porsche has been working with the big tyre OEMs who have been supplying tyres for decades and now you can buy brand new rubber built to modern standards, with the crucial unique-to-Porsche ‘N’ marking, that is visibly indistinguishable from the tyres the car would have had from new. And they are made for models all the way back to the 356. On my Porsche everything is better: the car has nicer steering, more grip, a better ride, less road roar, sweeter steering and a more neutral balance with even more benign breakaway characteristics. To call the already good handling transformed would only be a mild exaggeration.

So far, so very easy. But until now the car has had one problem I have been unable to fix. At some stage during its quiet recent years, some rodents broke in and held a party in the cabin. Thoughtfully they only gnawed one hole in each seat but, perhaps less considerately, they worked around the car making sure all four seats had patches of foam showing through the fabric before departure. Naively, and because it had been so simple for Porsche to supply the rear screen surround, I thought a new roll of material could just be ordered from Porsche too. Not so. The screen trim is a part common to 924s, 944s and 968s of which many thousand remain. The cloth upholstery however is unique to the 968 Sport of which a grand total of just 306 were built, and I guess a sizeable chunk of those have disappeared now too. Demand is limited to say the least.

Porsche itself was unable to help. When the car went to Dick Lovett’s Porsche Swindon dealership, an officially appointed ‘Classic’ centre for factory-approved restorations, they too drew a blank. I know plenty of people in the Porsche business and most I spoke to shrugged and said ‘have you tried Ebay?’ I had, and to no avail.

And then a casual conversation with a photographer who owns a 912 yielded a new lead. He knew a bloke, would vouch for him and felt sure that if anyone could help, he could. So I rang him up, told him my problem and asked if he had any material. He did not – but he knew another man in Germany who just might. I sent him some photographs and few hours later he was back on the telephone saying he had found enough material – just – to do the job. If I sent him £90 it could be mine.

I love moments like that, when an apparently and hitherto insuperable problem simply disappears; I can now see no reason why the 968 cannot finally look as good on the surface as it always has been underneath. The car is booked for next month. I’ll let you know how it goes and if the work is as good as I expect, may even tell you who he is.