SCRAPHEAP CHALLENGE

Josh Sadler has made a career out of rescuing and restoring the revered 911 Carrera RS. John Evans meets him

- John Evans

I suspect Alfie and Olive have seen it all before. The two powerfully built Belgian Draft horses stand at a gate || like those critics on the Muppet Show, peering down on another star-struck visitor gawping at their owner's 1974 Porsche 911 Carrera 'RS 3.0' (in quotation marks because it's not all it appears). It's one of three RSS and near-RSs of this era that Josh Sadler keeps in his outbuildings.

This October will be 50 years since the first 911 Carrera RS was unveiled at the 1972 Paris motor show. By the end of the model's production run, one year later, almost 1600 examples had been built and a legend born one that would inspire ever more powerful successors, albeit none quite so special as the original.

We're accustomed to rare and valuable 911s being restored and preserved in climate-controlled garages. Not so Sadler's RSS. One of them, a genuine 1973 2.7, finished in Gulf orange, has featured in videos being driven on the very edge and is shortly to go to Le Mans where it will be a star attraction at the model's anniversary celebrations. Meanwhile, last February, Sadler won the first-class award in the VSCC Pomeroy Trophy Competition at Silverstone at the wheel of his other RS (in truth, a 1973 car rebuilt on a 1975 bodyshell, finished in yellow). His third RS is that aforementioned 1974 'RS 3.0' in black, a replica RS with a 3.5-liter engine and which he campaigns on hill climbs and circuits. It's a competition car and looks like it.