Steve 96C4S

So I rarely have anything Porsche related happen at work. I'm in sales and the subject of 993's or Porsche in general just never comes up in conversation. I was visiting a future client 2 days ago and he invites me back into his Chevy Chase, MD. office to discuss what we have to offer and what we can do for him (saving him $11k over 3 years by switching to us for his internet and phone and changing this partial T-1 internet speed from 786k to 22/5 mg in the process ) and I look at the wall of his law office and notice a HUGE painting by an AA Corbett. It's this guy wearing a black and pink Porsche tee shirt and was painted in 1988, the year of my old 911 Carrera. I was shocked and elated to see it so I mentioned it to him and asked him if he was a Porsche driver, hoping that would spark a conversation about his car and Porsche in general.

He chuckled and said he drove a Chevy but the guy in the painting was the head or President of either local Washington DC Porsche or Porsche USA (or something like that, I just can't remember exactly what his title was). I said I'd love to be able to take a picture of it but had no camera. He said to bring one back with me when we completed business 2 days later and signed the papers. I did, and here's the pics.









The painter is either a relation to the South Beach Diet book author or the author himself but again, I'm not sure exactly what that relation is. He painted another painting in his hallway as you enter the firm. Pretty cool stuff! Just wanted to share this with you folks as my work life just never intersects my Porsche obsession.

I'm guessing most of you guys have this happen much more frequently than I do where you meet someone in business (some of you are in high powered businesses compared to what I do) and find out this person is into Porsche and then you strike up a cool conversation about it and maybe even eventually become friends over it - simply because you both love Porsche. Any interesting stories about that?

Steve R

PS - this is the indirect connection in some way to this painting...I think the painter is a relative to the South Beach Diet guru: the AA = Arthur Agatston ... (The creator of The South Beach Diet, Dr. Arthur Agatston, is a cardiologist based in Miami, Florida. In the mid-1990's, Dr. Agatston designed a diet to help his heart patients lose weight. They weren't achieving success with the popular low-fat diets of the day, so Dr. Agatston took matters into his own hands! The diet caught on locally and soon attracted media attention.)

ABCar

I often show people pictures of my car at work and they see it parked out back as well...many ask me about it. Needless to say I like to talk about the latest upgrades I am doing or dreaming of...why I love it so much and sometimes if they really are interested in the Porsche thing...I will give them one of my infamous "deathrides" which is a circle that includes a one mile interstate stretch.
Usually, all they can say when I shut the engine off is, "Wow".
Interestingly, my patients used to be much more interested in my Cayman S (gone now) than they are my 993. Still, I try to help them correct their mentality.

btw, great idea for discussion and I love that painting.

JDHertz11

Luckily I work around cars all day. My business is in a niche market of the auto industry so I get to talk cars all day!!! Cool painting, I like the 80's mustached look so accurately painted...

Allen

This probably won't mean much to most people...but I program PLCs at a major German car manufacturer in Alabama...it's actually a major competitor to Porsche. When programming and troubleshooting PLC code, I use "test bits" as place markers, to turn portions of code on/off, etc. Some of the (older) PLCs still use numerical values to identify the memory bits. For these PLCs, I have always used the bit 00993 as my test bit. So anywhere in this plant you go...if you need to find changes/temporary code/markers, etc...you simply search the program for bit 00993 and you find my code! I know it's a small thing.....but it kinda gives me a little bit of Porsche while surrounded by "the other guys" all day long

Nurburger

Looks like Pablo Escobar....

IXLR8

I'm an electronics technologist in the federal government, so I have very little to do with cars or motorcycles in the workplace...good thing too, because after getting out of flying, I told myself I'd never turn my hobby into my work again.

I don't take my car to work for various reasons; boring city driving in traffic, parking conditions (door dings) and envious people who key cars, but I do have my office walls plastered with pics of my Porsche and Alps motorcycle tours.

The pics do strike up many ongoing conversations with co-workers, not just about Porsches, motorcycles or motorcycle touring, but also about maintenance and repairs to vehicles. I'll also talk aircraft with a few of them having been a flight instructor for many years.

cannon1000

PCNA is my customer.

matt777

70's **** star??

I wish my job involved the hobby. Maybe one day.

Edward

Maybe I shouldn't tell you that my some of my work passcodes involve, er, various elements of porsche numerology

Edward

Canyon56

+1

porschemikeandnancy

The intersection of one's personal auto choice and work used to come up - especially with my boss, the Co. President in the late 70's, early 80's. He used to chastise me for driving 911's as in his opinion it "set the wrong impression with prospective customers". Frankly, I never heard a bad comment from customers - either prospective or existing. One time I was visiting the Publisher of a newspaper in upper New York State. A small town where you didn't see many "furrin' cars". The publisher drove a Mercedes E class wagon. We were negotiating about something and I mentioned his Mercedes (because at the time he was pleading "poverty") he said: "you're not driving a baby carriage yourself as he looked out the window at my (then) '89 911 Cabriolet.

At the opposite side of this type of story, I actually owned for a short while one of the first Ford Fairmonts. Not a bad little sedan. Mine was a 6 cyl with a manual floor mounted tranny. I picked up the CEO of a major German Newspaper Company at Logan Airport (boston) and drove him and his lieutenant back to our offices in the 'burbs'. I had previously driven (in Germany) in his S Class Mercedes. (funny story, as we drove to lunch that day - summer of about '80 or so - he was deliberately playing with the air conditioning in his car. I am positive he wanted me to see that his car had A/C - unusual even in an S Class at that time in Germany (where the summers are quite cool).

Anyhow, as we drove (both of them in the back seat - with me playing Chauffeur in the front seat) he looked around the back of the car and said: "this car is cheaply made" (and he was right). The point being in that case, driving a POS actually made them think less of me and my company. I told the Co. president that story and really rubbed it in. It was the last time the subject of what car I drove was ever mentioned.

cgfen

funny stuff for PLCs........................ good on you!
but
do you really think BMW is a major competitor to P?
They make some interesting cars, but the only direct competition is see would be Cayenne vs X5.

i doubt if many people cross shop Z4 vs Boxster or 911 vs 3 / 5 series coupes.

not sure how the panamera fits into the equation.

i hear ZF just moved into the neighborhood.

oops, never mind, i just saw you wrote Alabama, not SC.

cheers

Craig

cgfen

funny you should ask, about 2 minutes after i posted the above response, i got this email from my wife

"I was just talking to a colleague, and she has been tasked with finding a new 911 because (employer deleted) is going to give the #1 sales person in our organization (for NA sales) a Porsche (two year lease)."

Not a bad spiff!

Craig

Canyon56

Mercedes SUVs.

cabrio993

That's just a drawing of Pablo Escobar with a Porsche t-shirt.