Ultimate... yea, right!
We all know very few topics Porsche related are easily defined, boxed, and understood, even with decades of hindsight. In fact, sometimes the more time that passes the harder it is to get definitive answers.
One of these interesting topics that comes up for discussion around here is SWT availability and actual inclusion on long wheel base (LWB) cars. Here are a couple good threads that touch on the topic.
The first is a "roll call" started by Rick (LongRanger) that attempts to document via registry archive mining some accounts of these cars.
http://www.early911sregistry.org/for...-%91S%92-Targa
The second is a fairly recent one where a simple question was posed by Jules and folks began to weigh in on the availability of the option and how period Porsche literature chose to document SWT availability.
http://www.early911sregistry.org/for...targa-question
1969 is one of those interesting years where the cars began to incorporate significant changes related to the transition from SWB to LWB as well as increasing oversight from regulations related to safety and the environment. The latter did not just happen at Porsche as the entire industry was making this transition. The SWT seems to be a perfect example of an option that may have been impacted significantly by the changing world in the automotive industry. Safety concerns, export market requirements dictating availability, feasibility of the option in general due to customer satisfaction, etc.
What is also interesting is that Porsche record keeping seems to have made a change in the Fall of 1968, according to kardexes from that era. Interior option codes changed in November 1968, and some aspects of the cars began to show up on the kardexes right around then. One of those is option 9356, W.HECKSC for ROW or S-R WIND for the US market. Note this code is not a US market only code as it is used across cars for all markets.
Another option code, 9316, PERSENNG, which I believe is the tonneau cover for the now exposed rear window area of an unzipped/removed soft window, shows up sporadically throughout the documentation. So it wasn't an automatic that every SWT had the tonneau cover noted. This doesn't necessarily mean the car didn't come with one, it just doesn't show up on the kardex. It has also been said that 9316 may have been an early option code for the SWT itself, but I am not so sure on this interpretation being correct.
Also worth noting is that around ~119310180, the records clearly begin to delineate SWT vs HWT (9354/9355). So something happened at the factory that started the specific call out of which rear window was to be in each car. Again, the record keeping was changing.
What follows are results of a fairly exhaustive effort of Kardex searching for the 9356 option. This list (for now at least) also includes SWT cars that do not have the option code on their respective kardexes (or is that kardices?). This is important and interesting for a couple reasons:
1. We all know factory records are spotty at best and the kardex was more for warranty work than being a "build sheet". So there are bound to be a few errors out there.
2. Many of the cars thought to be original SWTs but that are not documented as such on the kardex just so happen to have been built in the autumn of 68 when the aforementioned records began to change.
At any rate, I hope this thread proves useful. I like to think of the registry as a true reference tool whenever possible.
And finally thanks to those that helped out with this effort. This was a community driven thread. I am happy to name names but they know who they are and can chime in at will.
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Originally Posted by Mounger
