Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

Hi All,
I've noticed the odd thread where it's been advised not to use pattern wings, that they are hard / time consuming to fit and get looking right. I wondered if anyone had recent personal experience of using a steel pattern wing on a 944 S2 or Turbo, good or bad?

My S2 is suffering from the usual rust on its near side wing, but it is on the front as well as the rear. Quite bad bubbling on the front section. So I've been advised that a replacement is probably the best option since to repair it would get close to the cost of even an original Porsche wing. Good second hand ones are like hen's teeth so I'm considering if a new original or a pattern (maybe as much as £600 cheaper) wing is the best option.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

It's normally a good rule of thumb that pattern parts do not quite fit as well as original. However I was not aware of anyone making pattern steel wings for at least 10 years now. Where have you found one?

Check out the Euro Car Parts web site.

It took a bit of investigation and some luck (via a seller on ebay that had a none 951 pattern wing). I found a company called Embo in Italy makes (or made) them. They gave me details of three UK resellers, one didn't exist anymore, one was not planning on ordering just yet and one was Euro Car Parts.

I gave ECP a ring but the computer said "no" so I contacted ECPs Product Manager. A very helpful chap who contacted EMBO for me and I think got the wings on the ECP system. However, I still need to order through the local branch which is proving difficult. I've put in a request to check availability but no one gets back to me whenever I call. I'm not sure if the problem really lies at Embo but actually buying one of their S2 wings is very difficult.

If ECP do manage to get any they should be about £230 including VAT which is not bad, if they are good quality and easy to fit etc.

It's not just the fit of pattern parts that can be bad it is also the quality/treatment of the steel.

On Pug 205s you could spot a crashed one by the rust on the wings/bonnet!

Good point about the quality of the steel, I hadn't really considered that. Still I suppose with fitting and paint the total cost might be half that of the Porsche part, I wonder if it would last half as long?

At the moment I'm most likely going to get it in for a brand new oem wing, it deserves the best really. But I'm still interested to know other people's experiences. It's seems strange to me that in this day and age it's not possible to produce pattern parts to be exactly the same as the original.

Why not consider getting someone into metalshaping to repair the originals?

If you know someone around Leeds / Yorkshire that can do that at a reasonable price, let me know. That's what I had in mind when I first got the car but my local mechanic didn't want to do it. I took it to a Porsche specialist garage and they gave me the advice that it would be more economical to fit a new one since mending it would be nearly as expensive and it would rust again somewhere else anyway.

If this seems wrong then let me know. I was certainly under the impression that fixing rusted wings was the usual way to go until now. Like I said there is rust to the rear ((in the usual place) but also quite bad at the front, I presume this makes the repair more expensive.

I repaired my own. It wasn't that difficult. A skilled body guy should be able to do it easily for a few hundred quid.

IME the wings only tend to rust in certain areas as a result of rust traps being present there.

Daytona bodywork may be worth a shout even if they are a bit of a distance.

Do you mean Daytona Coachworx? If so they are too far from me, don't want to add too much to the cost in travel as well.

I think the £200 repair estimate might be optimistic. But even so, you see the point, cost would not be much different to get a whole new pattern wing. The repaired wing would be around 1/3 new metal I guess, so hardly the same quality as a brand new genuine Porsche one.

If I can find someone local to do a good repair for a reasonable price, it's still an option. Or if anyone has something good to say about pattern wings, and I can get one, I'm still considering that. However, I'm edging towards the genuine new wing because I know it will be quality and, although expensive, it will be money well spent. And unlikely to need redoing whilst I have the car.

New wing mean refit. Get one side right the other may need play.

I would ask to let them see the fit before under sealed, check the under seal and paint match.

Lot more involved then doing a repair

Thanks t3rra that's an interesting point. Not sure why the guy from the garage was pushing me down the refit route. I did trust that he believed it was the best option for me. Maybe the wing is just a lot worse than most and he figured it really would be a big job to repair. It was a Porsche specialist garage so I'm assuming he knew how hard a refit would be.

About 3 years ago, my 944 turbo had a 6 year old wing hit, replaced on insurance, quoted 250 for a cash job to pull dent and re paint.

Wing replaced was £2200 ish. First paint wasn't a good match. Had I not complained they would off happily sent car back like it.

He probably based the price on a cosher wing fitting up. I know a few bodyshops really do pile up the cash for pattern stuff (albeit bodykits) in order to make them fit. On my MGB, my painter tried to fit the wings and gave up, which is what many painters did then. The few who fitted them with the owners saying they looked 'fine' looked terrible in reality and caught just about everywhere. Even by BL standards, the fit was terrible. But there was a massive price difference ; A FG wing was £60, a pattern one £120, a cosher one was £220, far too much for me to pay back then. I never thought I would see them hit an eye watering £460 a side however! With both fitted and painted I cannot see the logic in replacing wings on a 'B; an overpriced car would be cheaper to buy in the long run!

OTOH the above is academic. No one has fitted the pattern wing so it is hard to go on. Maybe secondhand is a good route but I doubt Porker wings are cheap secondhand!