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To quote my cinematic inspiration: "sometimes you've just gotta say What the F___". I worked my way through college delivering pizza 50-60 hours per week. I knew no one else was going to just give me what I wanted in life, so I bought myself a 1979 928 in Tobacco Metallic for graduation. Twenty-five years later, I've had 2 928s, two Turbo Cayennes, a Macan S, and currently a 2008 997 Turbo Cab.
A work colleague six months younger than me died on his office floor one morning six doors down from mine. After that I said, "screw it, I've saved enough for retirement". I soon thereafter acquired a HELOC and put together a list of cars suitable for HPDE, the 997 C2S being chief among them. Saw one on-line at Porsche of Arlington (VA) at about 11:30 AM a few days later. Told boss I'd be a little late coming back after lunch and proceeded to dealership. Called said boss at 2:30 PM and told him I was not going to return at all that day as I had copious amounts of paperwork to sign.
I wanted a porsche somehow since high school. I don't really understand why I am a car guy but no one else in my family or extended family really cares about cars at all. I guess it had to do with going to a public school district with high test scores and affluent families who buy their kids crazy cars when they turn 16. This is the dark side of paying a **** ton of money to buy into a nice neighborhood with top schools. Parents think their kids will be a shoe in for stanford or harvard or yale but in reality it is just as likely that they can learn bad habits, get a taste for a higher life/lifestyle expectations they won't be able to afford themselves in their adult life, or just in general turn into a spoiled entitled brat.
Bitter rantings aside, I drove BMW M3 almost exclusively for almost 15 years. Heck I had two of them. But as I aged and as BMW changed business models and flooded the market with cars and cheap leases, the specialness of the cars started losing luster to me. That and the fact that my M3 drank oil like crazy and destroyed the cats, my love affair with BMW was over. There were just too many 18-35s driving M3s which was great when you are an 18-35, but when you get older and you are driving a kids car, I feel people will look at you as someone who never had a M3 as a kid or is having some sort of lower rent mid-life crisis.
Having graduated from medical school, obviously a lot of doctors drive Porsche. Man, I wish good habits rubbed off on me instead all this egotistical stuff... Since I never practiced medicine, I couldn't get a 911 right away (took me 10 years longer than planned, but better late than never). But it is something I always still wanted to do. I thought I was going to wait until I made partner of something/sold a company/ made VP before I got the car, but I was never in the running because you actually have to work for say goldman sachs or a law firm to get promoted or make partner. I myself am basically an idiot, but I have the money and have maxed out all my other investment classes (real estate, stocks, retirement, cash reserves, token job income, etc), so I said **** it, even if I have never done anything in my life to deserve driving such an awesome car (other than not losing my money in the first place and avoiding financially draining girlfriends and wives entirely), I will get one anyway because after all, who said life is fair.
In terms of more emotional aspects, I love design, engineering, performance, history, and pedigree so a 911 was an obvious choice. A little too common, but still far more exclusive than a BMW ///M car for example. I will admit there is a degree of snobbery as well. I mean this in a sense of spending a ton of money on a car that is barely useable. A 911 is way more practical than a ferrari, but in my opinion not by that much. I am not a fan of the newer 911s, so I got the 911 GTS because I am obsessed with the powerkit. I love telling people it was a $16K option that only gets you 23 horsepower and no bump in torque. For me, I feel like turbo cars are cheating. I can appreciate them, and accept why they need to be installed in newer cars, but its like the automotive equivalent of bringing an asian kid to a math exam and having him take the test for you.
So this brings me to why I bought a Porsche. I have the ego, I have the appreciation, and most importantly have the money. Buy the car and have a blast or put more money in an overbought stock market so some ******* day trader in a bathrobe trading in his mom's basement can take my money to buy a ragged out S class and pretend to be a russian mobster on staten island?...no thanks. From a practical standpoint if I take care of the car, I will not lose that much in depreciation. No guarantees in life, but 911 has a lot more brand equity and resale value than say a 3 series BMW. Unlike most cars, a good 911 bought right by someone with decent mechanical skills can almost be an investment. The depreciation is just the price of fun and fulfilling your dreams. It was time and I am thankful I am able to drive such a great car regardless of the fact that I already dented the lips on both my front centerlock wheels in less than 1000 miles of conservative driving. I think they still call that learning curve.
I’m coming from the 996 forum but thought I would share. I remember when I first fell in love with Porsche’s. At my school, there was a teacher with a trust fund (or a wealthy spouse or a great stock trader...who knows), who drove an Arena Red 993 Turbo. I would drool over that car every time I saw it. It’s the first 911 I remember loving and is still my favorite.
Fast forward to my early twenties (this was 2011 or so) and I needed a new car, as my 325i had high miles and needed several grand in repairs so I decided to part with it. I went to the Audi dealer up the road from my job looking for a pre-owned s4 in the low $20k range. The salesperson said they didn’t have any available, but they had just taken a one-owner 2001 C4 on trade with 30k miles listed at $28k. She asked if I wanted to drive it and I obliged. I will never forget the way the car squatted when I mashed the throttle, the sound, the gauges. I was more hooked than ever, but the extra six grand over budget and fear of an expensive repair deterred me from owning one. That day I promised myself I would buy a Porsche before I was 30. In hindsight, I wish I bought it back then.
Fast forward again to Christmas 2016. I met up with an old friend who had a boxster s he wanted to unload before moved out west, gave me a great deal, and I bought it in mid-2017 when he was ready to sell. It needed a little love but I had reached my goal. Nevertheless, I knew I still had to have a 911.
After getting married and buying a house this year, I saw how new priorities start to get in the way of old passions. I told my wife that I wanted to buy a 911before we started a family and she agreed!
I started my search for a 997 early this year. However, when a beautiful, one-owner 36k mile 996 C4S popped up at a Porsche dealer a few hundred miles away, I gave them a call because it was my favorite 996. After we agreed to a price and some preventative maintenance as part of the deal (IMS, RMS, Clutch, etc), I went to pick it up. It has been two months since I got my car and I have only three months left until my 30th birthday. It still feels as special when i fire it up every day as it did back in 2011 when i first drove a 911. Dreams do come true!
I wanted a porsche somehow since high school. I don't really understand why I am a car guy but no one else in my family or extended family really cares about cars at all. I guess it had to do with going to a public school district with high test scores and affluent families who buy their kids crazy cars when they turn 16. This is the dark side of paying a **** ton of money to buy into a nice neighborhood with top schools. Parents think their kids will be a shoe in for stanford or harvard or yale but in reality it is just as likely that they can learn bad habits, get a taste for a higher life/lifestyle expectations they won't be able to afford themselves in their adult life, or just in general turn into a spoiled entitled brat.
Bitter rantings aside, I drove BMW M3 almost exclusively for almost 15 years. Heck I had two of them. But as I aged and as BMW changed business models and flooded the market with cars and cheap leases, the specialness of the cars started losing luster to me. That and the fact that my M3 drank oil like crazy and destroyed the cats, my love affair with BMW was over. There were just too many 18-35s driving M3s which was great when you are an 18-35, but when you get older and you are driving a kids car, I feel people will look at you as someone who never had a M3 as a kid or is having some sort of lower rent mid-life crisis.
Having graduated from medical school, obviously a lot of doctors drive Porsche. Man, I wish good habits rubbed off on me instead all this egotistical stuff... Since I never practiced medicine, I couldn't get a 911 right away (took me 10 years longer than planned, but better late than never). But it is something I always still wanted to do. I thought I was going to wait until I made partner of something/sold a company/ made VP before I got the car, but I was never in the running because you actually have to work for say goldman sachs or a law firm to get promoted or make partner. I myself am basically an idiot, but I have the money and have maxed out all my other investment classes (real estate, stocks, retirement, cash reserves, token job income, etc), so I said **** it, even if I have never done anything in my life to deserve driving such an awesome car (other than not losing my money in the first place and avoiding financially draining girlfriends and wives entirely), I will get one anyway because after all, who said life is fair.
In terms of more emotional aspects, I love design, engineering, performance, history, and pedigree so a 911 was an obvious choice. A little too common, but still far more exclusive than a BMW ///M car for example. I will admit there is a degree of snobbery as well. I mean this in a sense of spending a ton of money on a car that is barely useable. A 911 is way more practical than a ferrari, but in my opinion not by that much. I am not a fan of the newer 911s, so I got the 911 GTS because I am obsessed with the powerkit. I love telling people it was a $16K option that only gets you 23 horsepower and no bump in torque. For me, I feel like turbo cars are cheating. I can appreciate them, and accept why they need to be installed in newer cars, but its like the automotive equivalent of bringing an asian kid to a math exam and having him take the test for you.
So this brings me to why I bought a Porsche. I have the ego, I have the appreciation, and most importantly have the money. Buy the car and have a blast or put more money in an overbought stock market so some ******* day trader in a bathrobe trading in his mom's basement can take my money to buy a ragged out S class and pretend to be a russian mobster on staten island?...no thanks. From a practical standpoint if I take care of the car, I will not lose that much in depreciation. No guarantees in life, but 911 has a lot more brand equity and resale value than say a 3 series BMW. Unlike most cars, a good 911 bought right by someone with decent mechanical skills can almost be an investment. The depreciation is just the price of fun and fulfilling your dreams. It was time and I am thankful I am able to drive such a great car regardless of the fact that I already dented the lips on both my front centerlock wheels in less than 1000 miles of conservative driving. I think they still call that learning curve.
I’m coming from the 996 forum but thought I would share. I remember when I first fell in love with Porsche’s. At my school, there was a teacher with a trust fund (or a wealthy spouse or a great stock trader...who knows), who drove an Arena Red 993 Turbo. I would drool over that car every time I saw it. It’s the first 911 I remember loving and is still my favorite.
Fast forward to my early twenties (this was 2011 or so) and I needed a new car, as my 325i had high miles and needed several grand in repairs so I decided to part with it. I went to the Audi dealer up the road from my job looking for a pre-owned s4 in the low $20k range. The salesperson said they didn’t have any available, but they had just taken a one-owner 2001 C4 on trade with 30k miles listed at $28k. She asked if I wanted to drive it and I obliged. I will never forget the way the car squatted when I mashed the throttle, the sound, the gauges. I was more hooked than ever, but the extra six grand over budget and fear of an expensive repair deterred me from owning one. That day I promised myself I would buy a Porsche before I was 30. In hindsight, I wish I bought it back then.
Fast forward again to Christmas 2016. I met up with an old friend who had a boxster s he wanted to unload before moved out west, gave me a great deal, and I bought it in mid-2017 when he was ready to sell. It needed a little love but I had reached my goal. Nevertheless, I knew I still had to have a 911.
After getting married and buying a house this year, I saw how new priorities start to get in the way of old passions. I told my wife that I wanted to buy a 911before we started a family and she agreed!
I started my search for a 997 early this year. However, when a beautiful, one-owner 36k mile 996 C4S popped up at a Porsche dealer a few hundred miles away, I gave them a call because it was my favorite 996. After we agreed to a price and some preventative maintenance as part of the deal (IMS, RMS, Clutch, etc), I went to pick it up. It has been two months since I got my car and I have only three months left until my 30th birthday. It still feels as special when i fire it up every day as it did back in 2011 when i first drove a 911. Dreams do come true!
So nice to see your dream come true moment happened at such a young age. Although many of us waited to an older age, I don't think the feeling was any different.
A work colleague six months younger than me died on his office floor one morning six doors down from mine. After that I said, "screw it, I've saved enough for retirement". I soon thereafter acquired a HELOC and put together a list of cars suitable for HPDE, the 997 C2S being chief among them. Saw one on-line at Porsche of Arlington (VA) at about 11:30 AM a few days later. Told boss I'd be a little late coming back after lunch and proceeded to dealership. Called said boss at 2:30 PM and told him I was not going to return at all that day as I had copious amounts of paperwork to sign.
The final motivation was sad but the end result was very cool.
I'm 6'5" and just under 290 lbs.... because I didn't fit in Aston Martin DB9 Vantage.
I did add a four inch spacer to the 911's steering wheel to give me room between the bottom of the wheel and the top of my legs and that makes it just a little more comfortable.
Before I get to my love of Porche, I want to share a story about my Dad. He grew up in a Garage. One Friday afternoon a gentleman stopped in and asked if he could look at his car? Dad said he wouldn’t be able to get to it till Monday because he was heading to Tucson Az for the weekend. The man said great, take my car so you can tell me what is wrong with it when you return. Dad and his brother took off heading to Tucson in a 356. Forty five minutes into the drive a canyon (salt river) comes up. It is full of all kinds of twisters. As they were working their way down enjoying the ride, his brother noticed a cop on the other side using binoculars. As they drove up the other side Dad decided to pull over where the cop was hanging out and check the oil. As he did, he told the cop Hi, jumped back in and took off. He said the cops jaw had dropped and just stared at them as they drove off.
As for me all my family are into 4x4’s and American muscle, when I was a kid I would buy the Auto traders and spend most of the time in the Euro section drooling over the 914’s 912’s 911’s and and vehicle that was a Euro convertible. Throu the years I had fiat x1/9 triumph’s, 300zx, prelude, RX8, but I had always wanted a 911sc. The only Porsche I ever sat in up until six months ago was a 1976 911 turbo back in 97 or 98. Living in the valley of the Sun I didn’t buy it for the 10 grand asking price because I thought it had the 2.7l and I knew the AC’s were not that great. In fact my email address is porche681 because I couldn’t get one with the s. I could never really afford a Porsche up until 6 months ago when I found a 2011 Porsche Boxster base with the colors and PDK and several options including sport, sport plus. I can’t drive manual anymore due to a nerve disease that has forced me to retire way to early.
Before I get to my love of Porche, I want to share a story about my Dad. He grew up in a Garage. One Friday afternoon a gentleman stopped in and asked if he could look at his car? Dad said he wouldn’t be able to get to it till Monday because he was heading to Tucson Az for the weekend. The man said great, take my car so you can tell me what is wrong with it when you return. Dad and his brother took off heading to Tucson in a 356. Forty five minutes into the drive a canyon (salt river) comes up. It is full of all kinds of twisters. As they were working their way down enjoying the ride, his brother noticed a cop on the other side using binoculars. As they drove up the other side Dad decided to pull over where the cop was hanging out and check the oil. As he did, he told the cop Hi, jumped back in and took off. He said the cops jaw had dropped and just stared at them as they drove off.
As for me all my family are into 4x4’s and American muscle, when I was a kid I would buy the Auto traders and spend most of the time in the Euro section drooling over the 914’s 912’s 911’s and and vehicle that was a Euro convertible. Throu the years I had fiat x1/9 triumph’s, 300zx, prelude, RX8, but I had always wanted a 911sc. The only Porsche I ever sat in up until six months ago was a 1976 911 turbo back in 97 or 98. Living in the valley of the Sun I didn’t buy it for the 10 grand asking price because I thought it had the 2.7l and I knew the AC’s were not that great. In fact my email address is porche681 because I couldn’t get one with the s. I could never really afford a Porsche up until 6 months ago when I found a 2011 Porsche Boxster base with the colors and PDK and several options including sport, sport plus. I can’t drive manual anymore due to a nerve disease that has forced me to retire way to early.
Cool stories and glad you got your Porsche. Enjoy!
When I was 17, my dad had a 914 and taught me how to drive a stick on the hills in north Jersey. I'll never forget that. I don't know what happened to that car. Mostly, like others here, I have been an American muscle car and motorcycle guy. My first Porsche came after crashing a Harley. Thought I would give motorcycling a rest, having two girls under age 8. Bought a used 1989 911 Targa. Sold it when it started dripping oil. Other cars in between, bought a 2010 Boxster. Now my C4S.
10-08-2018, 01:26 PM
Graduation present to myself
