Many of you were not born when this story began, but it may now be coming to a climax.
As oldtimers with nothing to do may remember, my 2001 981 broke down on the highway in July 2010. I took it to a New Jersey mechanic I know, who could do nothing with it. I then had it towed down to my local independent Porsche guy (Washington, D.C.) who had always done solid work for me before and is reasonable. I should note that thanks to him, my wife's BMW 3 series, with over 180,000 miles on it runs like new.
Anyway, the Porsche guy searched around for a low-mileage engine and couldn't find one he approved of and told me he'd like to look at my engine and see what he could do. The car has been sitting on his lot this whole time, although it looks great, superficially.
He has just gotten through rebuilding a couple of 911 engines he had in line before me and I think he's going to get to it next week.
My guess is that he will fix the car no matter what and I'll have my choice of paying for the repair or letting him sell the car, with a cut going to me. This is a good guy, and I'm really hoping he can fix it and I can buy it back.
Keep watching this space.
2001 Base, purchased in 2004, replaced engine at 130K+, RIP 2017