Porsche 912 Gets First Clean in 18 Years, Dry Ice Is Involved

Instead of the usual wash that covers the vehicle inside and out, this example of a Porsche 912 is getting cleaned with dry ice, but only for its undercarriage and wheel wells. While the engine and transmission will be taken down to be rebuilt, the wheel wells need to be cleared of the factory-applied undercoating, as well as the grime that adds up in decades of use.

In the case of this example, the 911 gets attention from Larry Kosilla of AMMO NYC after it spent over 18 years outside a mechanic shop in Greenwich, CT. The vehicle is set to go through a restoration after assessing its status. However, cleaning it through traditional means would take days, and the end result would not be as nice as what you can see in the video that was embedded below.

As you can observe, the dry ice is perfect for clearing oil, gunk, and dirt from the mechanical components of the classic Porsche. In addition, as Larry explains, the dry ice machine can be adjusted on the fly to allow a more precise clearing of the dirt on the surface of the undercarriage without risking the removal of paint.

With the owner's permission, Larry went ahead and used the dry ice machine on a front fender, and it proved effective in removing paint in layers.

This is never to be done with paint that is not meant to be removed from a vehicle's body. If a full restoration is planned, it is interesting to see what happens when the machine is operated on painted surfaces that are cleaner than the undercarriage of a vehicle.