Originally Posted by hoggel

In late 2004 I was finally ready to buy my first Porsche and a C2S in arena red is what was needed. I’m a car guy, not a rich guy, so price was critical. After a few months following all the usual websites and their asking prices and being a diligent e-bay watcher I was pretty sure I was an expert on the 993 S market. I had looked at a few and driven three but none had been the right car for the money I had.

In February of 2005 I was headed out on a business trip to Richmond, VA. There was a flight connection in Chicago so before I left Utah I checked the internet and found a 97 C2S in Arena Red at a dealership there. It was a tip so I was not too interested but I ran the Carfax. The Carfax listed five previous owners so I dismissed it.

It snowed in Richmond the night before my departure and delayed my morning flight out. When I got to Chicago my flight to Salt Lake was long gone and all flights west were cancelled due to an approaching blizzard. The only flight I could get out of Chicago was to Dallas so I booked to Dallas and on to SLC the next day. But I had five hours to kill in Chicago before the flight to Dallas would board. So I thought I would go take a test-drive in the 993 just because I had never seen an arena red S and I had never driven a tip. I called the dealership and made an appointment to check it out and rented a car to drive to the suburbs.

When I got there the car was sitting out front looking a bit worse than I had imagined. First off it was dirty! Okay, it had just snowed and was about to snow more but I had called and made an appointment. The car had a lot of fine scratches in the paint like it had been sitting in storage and someone was using it to stack boxes on? The rear tires were worn out. The rear wheels were curbed. The lip on the bottom of the front bumper was cracked. And it was a tip. It was the oldest and saddest car on the lot sitting among the Lambos, Ferraris, Bimmer 7s, … .

The salesman asked me if I wanted to drive it. There was no way I was going to buy that 993 but I had rented a car and driven all the way out there and had never driven a tip before so I did drive it. I was VERY unimpressed. It kept shifting up to 4th and I couldn’t get it to kick back down. I stopped at a light and it started out in 2nd? I only drove it about 10 blocks and never got over 60 mph. I kept fiddling with the air controls but the car never got warm. When we pulled back into the dealership I told the salesman it was not the car for me. He said okay and asked if I wanted to come in a have a coffee at their bar and warm up. It was cold so I accepted.

While I was sitting on their leather couch enjoying their fine cup of coffee the sales manager came up and said, “What would it take to put you in that car today?” I almost laughed out loud. So, playing along, I dropped a number that was so ridiculously low that we could both laugh. He said something like, oh .. ohh … ohhhh … you really now how to hurt a guy … okay, it’s a deal. And he looked like he was serious! So I said, “You have to throw in new rear tires, fix the wheels, and give me $28k for my bimmer in trade.” He said he would have to see the BMW so I showed him the web page I had set up to sell it. He said he would ship the Porsche if I would ship the BMW. I said okay. We signed the papers and I headed back to the airport.

On the way back to the airport I started thinking OH ****, WHAT HAVE I DONE! No PPI! Dubious history! The price was crazy low! Why were they willing to sell it for that and why didn’t I start lower? But the body was straight, everything seemed to be in the car, the interior was okay, and the price was so low! But I hadn’t even looked underneath the car. Crazy!! I didn’t sleep much for the next couple weeks. The day before it was to ship I called the salesman and asked him if I could get out of it. He said that he would check where the title was so I knew it was a done deal.

Finally the car arrived at 5AM on a Friday morning. In the garage it did look pretty fine in the spot where there had been so many VWs before. I got out the buffer to see if a couple of the finer scratches could be worked out. Twelve hours later I stood back and the car was looking damn fine!

I have had the car for 19 months, put 20,000 miles on it, participated in a couple track days (2 more coming in a couple weeks), ran some autocrosses, and I love it. The only mod is the RoW M030 suspension and now it handles the way a pcar should. I wish it had a 6 speed but I love the price I paid for the car. If it just had one more gear I don’t think I would have any complaint.

I drive it in manual mode or D3 when I’m in town or on a good road. On the track or autocrossing it’s in manual. On the freeway it’s D and cruise control.

Originally Posted by Adrienne

Just curious (and a little scared to ask) where did you get the tranny from?

Originally Posted by hoggel

Oh no. [hiding]

Your car will be about two more weeks in the shop then it will have a new chapter as my daily (nice day) driver with tiptronic ... six to tip. I had planned to sell the targa after the swap (with full disclosure) but my wife suggested we keep it instead of her Boxster. Of course I think that is an excellent idea.

Originally Posted by hoggel

That's right ... tip to six!

Originally Posted by 95 C4 993

Did Concourse do the work? Sounds great what your doing!!

**I still owe you a bottle of wine for the window fix issue a few years back!