Disappointing.. from the Thread title I thought this a post on tracking

 

Cause to me, sports cars and sport sedans ae made for people who appreciate driving, performance and have some basic knowledge of cars!

For everyone else, any 100 HP car would suffice, if you got extra money, get all the bells and whistles to make your ride comfortable and luxurious... 500 HP wouldn't make your grocery shoppig any better!

 

I put it down to the continuing dumbing down of the country. People are increasingly helpless in dealing with the practical aspects of daily life, instead focusing their energy on worshipping celebrities, texting or talking on the phone with friends constantly, immersing themselves in mind-numbing "reality" (contrived) TV shows, etc etc. But God forbid a light is activated on their dashboard. Even the Toyota problems are troublesome. Brakes aren't working, so can't you turn off the ignition, or put it in neutral? Too many people don't think anymore, at least not about things relevant to their lives. They prefer being in a constant state of distraction.

Damn, I am really sounding like an old fart now. Time for a glass of wine to mellow out and distract myself in the Olympics. Oops.

 

What the heck? No big deal. For some people the clue something's amiss has to be a bit more obvious. A light on the dash is not enough. As long as they're not flying the plane we're on, is that so wrong?

 

What's wrong with that? Except for the mass quantities of mindless sex, I'd much rather be a smart old fart than a dumb young one.

 

i guess i don't agree. i don't care who buys sports cars. the more the merrier.

i agree with Dan/Edgy that the larger population of people who buy Porsches has certainly changed the character of the "typical owner" but there are lots of people here who are enthusiasts who don't ever drive their car 7/10ths or 9/10ths. that's OK to me. I'm more on the purist side generally but i don't begrudge my friends who don't track their cars.

and guys like Dan and Abe help preserve that culture in increase the knowledge and appreciation of the machines.

the OP ran across somebody in a Cayenne. maybe he doesn't know squat about cars but he cares a lot about quality and likes the ride?

 

Maybe not but it DOES make shopping FASTER!

 

I do wish folks who have Porsche's--who may not have the passion or as much history with the brand as many of us do--would at least be taught the simple pleasure of blipping their high-beams as another 911 passes by. I don't know why, but the simplicity of recognizing someone who shares the same interest, feels like a secret shared...and when a blip goes unreturned because the other driver doesn't know the history of the gesture...well, I weep a little inside (OK, maybe it's not that traumatic).

 

I don't care if someone tracks their cars or not, but if you cannot drive properly on streets, have no clue what a dip stick is, not able to tell if your tire pressue is low, or basically don't appreciate what engineers have put into a car, why would you wanna buy an M5, while a 525 would do you just fine?

My dad never tracked his cars and never will, but he understands good engineering, proper handling, quality of craftsmanship, and what makes a car great... if he appreciates the performance of an M5, good for him and he deserves to drive one while he probably would never get to 7/10th of the performance.

I am talking about the people who only buy an M5, BECAUSE it was THE MOST EXPENSIVE 4-door BMW! Same thing is happening to Porsche owners who don't appreciate the performance, and just wanna be seen driving a Porsche!

 

You mean, people buy expensive stuff just to show that they can buy expensive stuff or because they like the way expensive stuff looks? NO WAY ?!?!?!?!

Seriously, how self centered are you? There is no such thing as deserving to own a car, you have the money that you've earned and you go to the dealership and put down the money, its that simply. You have people buy all kinds of things just because they like the look or want to show what they can buy. Its nothing new and people do it will all kinds of things: houses that take 20 minutes to walk from one end to end, watches that have ****ty hand me down movements but cost tens of thousands of dollars. Have you never met that douchebag that drove a Countach just because its a Lambo? Or that Ferrari owner that doesnt know where or what a Maranello is? Or thinks Dino is some kind of character from cartoon?

This sort of thing has been going on for ages. People who go on about it need to get the f*ck over themselves. Its nothing new and has been happening for ages.

 

How about this?

Some fictional guy down the street you don't like. He has no idea of how a four stroke engine works and idiot lights mean something bad to him. He likes Porsche and it appears makes him happy to own one.

A fictional sister whom you love. She had no idea of how a four stroke engine works and idiot lights are a bad thing. She likes Porsche because her new friends own the dealership and now she is happy to be driving one (a new PDK!)

You're having a bad day. Everything is going wrong. You see the guy down the street think "What an ah. Who does he think he is driving that ostentatious red Porsche?"

Your sister drops by your house a half hour later, you are glad she's out driving in her new white Porsche. She's putting miles on and asks you how PDK is different from an automatic. How do you react? You think what exactly?

 

I recently saw an elderly woman driving an M5 to do her grocery shopping and found it interesting if not amusing. It was all I could do to keep myself from asking her about her apparent choice. Was it her son's car? Was this the car the BMW salesman recommended? (It certainly didn't have the ride I would expect her to prefer.) Did it remind her of her glory days in dirt track racing and running moonshine?

Our own reactions are interesting when we associate a car with an image of an owner. It implies that we think we are communicating something to others about ourselves with our car choices. So, at what point did we buy the car because we liked it....or because it was a style accessory to communicate our intelligence/knowledge/driving prowess/socioeconomic status? Want to feel cognitive dissonance?....just find someone you really don't like who drives exactly the car you chose or lust after.

Who says the creator doesn't have a sense of humor?

 

Why is it anybody's business what car someone else buys or why they buy it or how they choose to take care of it?
This attitude, that I SHOULD BE THE STANDARD FOR HOW THE WORLD SHOULD OPERATE, is pretty creepy in its underlying authoritarianism.

What are the permissible qualities one must possess in order to own and operate a 997 or M5?

Why limit your "insight" to sports cars, maybe you should establish some standards for society in general?

I always wondered what a teacher should look like or even a policeman.

 

First off, WATCH what you say! We are all sharing our opinions here... you are probably in the same camp of those people you described. Do you feel offended that I think people who don't know how to drive should probably just buy a Kia and call it a day?!

It HAS been going on for year for sure, but it is more so these days than it was back in the 70s! As people have dubmed down and are all about showing off. At least in the past it was with luxrury cars more so than sports cars, and that makes me wonder... the silver lining is that we can buy those cars off their hands after 2-3K miles at almost half price!

 

The truth being, whether anyone likes to admit it or not, the new (got cash)customer is the largest untapped market that Pcar has and the "aircooled die-hards" is the customer less likely to switch away from the Pcar anyways, so we need to live with it....... The Panamera launch in Singapore speaks to that.

Very similar to the major transition that Harley Davidson has navigated through over the last 15 years. difference being that with the HD market expansion has brought sticker decreases and horrible resale values to used bikes. Pcar has avoided that so far..........wait a minute, current values of 996 notwithstanding.

It's quite possible that with the large push on the boxster/cayman will create a similar vacuum. Time will tell.

don't everyone reply in anger, I'm just drawing comparisons between the "new Pcar owner, the weekend biker"