ELFENBEIN

Elfenbein

Andrea Vailetti shows us how to escape the city in his 1973 Porsche 911T.

Photographer by trade, petrolhead by fate, Andrea Vailetti was raised amongst engines, and you may have even spotted his work on the Type 7 feed before. The weekends of Andrea’s youth were spent in the garage, building and restoring motorbikes at his father’s side, an avid Enduro rider. A passion for machines tends to stick; eventually it led him to become a passionate motorcyclist, but today, bringing classic cars back to life is a way to spend time with his father and brother, bonding over a shared passion.

Over a coffee in his hometown Milano, Andrea told us about his cars over the years, but there’s one car in particular that has captured his heart: a 911 T 2.4 from 1973. The details have a particular meaning: it had to be a ’73 - just like the Carrera RS 2.7, “the pinnacle of the 911.” And it had to be a 911 T 2.4, with the black trim giving a racier feel. It also had to be Ivory White, Vailetti’s favourite colour for a classic 911.

When he first saw the car in 2014 it was painted orange; the bonnet and fenders had been replaced with later fibreglass components, and the interior basically consisted of a single, driver's side seat, inexplicably borrowed from a Mitsubishi Pajero. For some reason, however, Andrea and the seller clicked and at the reassurance that the car was matching numbers and originally finished in Ivory White, a deal was quickly closed.

A Porsche Classic document soon confirmed that the 911 T 2.4 had indeed left Stuttgart painted in Elfenbein; and that the chassis and engine belonged together. With that, Andrea towed the car to a 911 specialist near Pavia and entrusted him with an ambitious restoration process that would ultimately require over a year to complete.

The main focus of the project was originality but Andrea and his mechanic agreed on some historically-minded adjustments. They fitted shorter gears and chose a period-correct straight exhaust to enhance both the power output and sound, amongst other small tweaks. The icing on the cake is the steering wheel - a 1970s Momo Jackie Stewart bought new by Andrea’s father and found in the family garage.

When the car finally came back to life and rolled out of the workshop in its newly rediscovered Ivory White paint, he was overwhelmed with excitement. For twelve long months, he had waited patiently and regularly checking in on the progress: now his dream car was finally ready. But after turning the 917-inspired key in the ignition, he didn’t drive towards his home in Milano. Instead, he left Pavia in the opposite direction, headed towards the same hills where his passion for engines was first sparked.

When he first saw the car in 2014 it was painted orange; the bonnet and fenders had been replaced with later fibreglass components, and the interior basically consisted of a single, driver's side seat, inexplicably borrowed from a Mitsubishi Pajero.

Andrea towed the car to a 911 specialist near Pavia and entrusted him with an ambitious restoration process that would ultimately require over a year to complete.

Back in the eighties, his father and his uncle bought a country house in the village of Zavattarello to store their Enduro bikes and spend the weekends closer to the dirt tracks they loved. It was in that garage that Andrea learned to tune carburettors, and the surrounding roads were where he learned to drive. This was a homecoming, in his dream car.

Today, he still goes out to that slice of countryside as often as he can, a way for him to unwind and enjoy his car to the fullest. The narrow, winding roads are the ideal ground to appreciate the car’s driving capabilities, which are hard to match even for more modern cars. In fact, says Andrea, after driving the 911 T 2.4 it feels almost pointless to own anything similar; to prove his point, he recalls selling both a 356 and a 964, since neither could match the thrill.