When only one car will do

Glen Ediger is a man of varied interests and accomplishments.

He works as an industrial designer for Vornado Air LLC in Andover, with his work garnering innumerable patents on fan designs, with several of those designs on display in art museums. He has researched and written books on Mennonite threshing stones and the history of the Mennonite immigration from Russia to America.

He’s also developing his own unique art form, which he has dubbed “Environmental Exposure,” where he uses weather to age various metals and woods to create abstract landscapes.

So it was no surprise when Ediger turned his attention to classic cars that he settled on a famous German sports car, the Porsche 356.

“I liked German iron, so every Sunday afternoon I would scour the Internet, pricing and learning about them. I learned I couldn’t afford a 356.

“I like well-engineered, well-designed cars, but I also like history.”

So his Plan B involved finding a Porsche 911 built in the late 1970s or early 1980s.

“Six or seven years ago, they were more affordable. Part of my strategy was that my wife (Karen) would realize that I was looking for one, so it wouldn’t come as a shock if I found one.”

His wife had actually built a model of a Porsche 914 while she was in school, so he had an edge there.

When a friend, Wayne Schrag, told Ediger he had just seen a Porsche for sale in Hutchinson, it was time to put that strategy into action.

“The next day, Karen and I went to Luxury & Imports and this was the only car on display in the showroom. I looked at it and my jaw about dropped,” Ediger recalled. “I had a mental list of what I was looking for and as I walked around and looked at the car, I said to myself, `This is 100 percent what I’m looking for.’”

“It” was a 1982 Guards Red Porsche 911 SC, the SC standing for Super Carrera.

The Carrera was originally a Texas car, but was apparently traded in by an owner from McPherson. That’s about all Ediger knows of its history.

But he was impressed with the quality of the bright red paint, which he believes is original, based on the factory decals which show no sign of being replaced or masked off for painting.

The car is powered by a rear-mounted, air-cooled 3-liter “flat” 6-cylinder engine, which puts out 204 horsepower, which is routed through a 5-speed manual transaxle.

“I can go from zero to fast as quick as I want,” he said. But he’s never been tempted to see how much of the 160-mph speedometer he can use up.

“The thing that sold me, aside from the paint job was when I took a test drive and I looked down at those gauges and I said, ‘Now that’s a sports car,’ ” Ediger said.

The only non-factory items on the car were the Carrera graphics along the lower-door edges and a “whale tail” rear spoiler that feeds cold air into the engine compartment, all added by a previous owner.

He got what he considered a good deal on the Carrera and has been in love with it ever since. There were issues to be resolved: reinstallation of the shrouding for the heater, which draws hot air off the engine compartment, and repair of the aftermarket radio.

But the tan leather interior was in great shape for a 30-year-old car and Ediger and his wife were soon enjoying showing the car and collecting trophies at area car shows.

“Not everybody appreciates an imported sports car … they just see a red car. But one out of 10 get it and I really enjoy talking to people at shows.

“My favorite thing is when a dad comes up with a little kid and asks them where the engine is. They walk around back and he says, ‘There it is.’ 

“That’s when I say, yeah, it apparently went down the assembly line backwards.”

Ediger says the only other collector car in his future is the 1953 Chevy 210 sedan his wife grew up in. It’s been sitting in a barn collecting dust for the last 20 years and once he’s retired, he and Karen plan to tackle the job of getting it back on the road.

For now, they’ll make do with a classic Porsche 911 SC.

This story was originally published January 19, 2017 at 1:58 PM with the headline "When only one car will do."