Money2536's Grey Black 997.2 GT3 RS Journal
 

Hello Rennlist. For those that don't know me, my name is Matt Moreman. I live in The Villages, FL just north of Orlando. I am the CEO/Founder of Obsessed Garage...well let me rephrase that, all of you on Rennlist and I founded OG back in 2014. Earlier in 2014, I was formally diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder. I was having a really hard time functioning. Through some self discovery and urging of a therapist, I decided to begin sharing the ownership experience of my 991.1 GT3 and F80 M3 in a well photoed and hopefully well written journal on Rennlist and M3 Post. It was a way to get out of my own head and possibly let others in. What I could never have anticipated was what happened next. I couldn't have written this script had I tried. In short, the Rennlist journal necessitated a YouTube channel in order to host the videos of things like my wash process and 14 different exhaust saga on the .1 GT3. A buddy from church made a logo that led to me making a website to answer everyone's questions about the products I was using in and around the garage to share links where to buy them. All this sharing eventually ended me up in a board room with a bunch of regulatory attorneys and compliance officers that would walk me out the door of my 15 year Wealth Management career that freed me up to double down and create a global brand that has completely changed my life. Deep breath... All of this started here, on Rennlist. So I'm back to make a new journal sharing the pursuit of functional excellence on my unicorn car, the 997.2 GT3 RS.

GT3 Journal
https://rennlist.com/forums/991-gt3-...3-journal.html
M3 Journal
https://f80.bimmerpost.com/forums/sh....php?t=1000683

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In the interest of full transparency, here is the story. I've always wanted and have been planning to find the perfect 997.2 GT3 RS 4.0. Today, at 42 years old, the 997 generation was a little before my time. I was getting my first M3 back then and wasn't at that level, but boy did I want one and had assumed I'd build my wealth management business big enough that it would afford me the ability to get whatever cars I wanted in the future. The RS 4.0 was atop of that list. That future is very different and much better than I could ever have envisioned it would be, and the dream of having a 997.2 has never died. The plan was to have the most modern GT3 or RS and the 997 would be the collector. I made a specific revenue goal that I felt would allow me to get one. Here we are today, I'm very close to that revenue number, but we have one very big problem. The RS 4.0 has run away from me with them now being $600, $700, even $800,000+ for the level of car I was hoping to acquire. I've ratcheted my dreams back quite a bit, but I'm still not quite ready to pull the trigger on allocating the capital to having a now $300,000+ 3.8 997 RS in addition to a modern driver GT3 of some sort. I've been scouring Bring a Trailer, Dupont Registry, Forum Classifieds, Auto Trader, etc. looking at 3,000, 6,000, 9,000 mile examples all of which have ballooned upward (likely rightfully so due to numbers of these cars being so low). Selfishly, I want the car from the guy that drove to cars and coffee once and month and otherwise looked at the car. I want a beauty queen not a track utility vehicle. But...these cars a still a little out of reach and seem to be running away like the RS 4.0. So I've come up with a plan. A risky plan that involves some fuzzy logic, but it's a plan that I think I can make happen.

My friend Wes from Titan Motorsports posted an Instagram story of a 30,000 mile Grey Black car they had for sale. Last week I hurt my back, so I was into my 3rd day of laying on the couch. When I ran out of things to watch on Netflix, I found myself scheming and dreaming. I sent Wes a text asking about the car. He gave me a few tidbits about where he got it and why it was for sale. He only lives 45 minutes from me, so I asked him if he'd be willing to bring the car up here. He knows me well, and knows the details about the cars I have done giveaways on. I asked him if I bought this car and dialed it in sharing my experience, did he think people would be stoked about that. This car certainly wouldn't be the fulfillment of my long-term dream vehicle, but my question to him was, "Can I make it great?" With 30,000 miles, I was certain it had a bunch of track miles, but I didn't want some janked up car that I couldn't fully dial in. Although quite a bit less than most of the other cars for sale on the market, a $260,000 gamble is a big risk. Would enough people participate in this to make it work? Could I really pull this off?

Wes brought the car up. The car has clearly been driven. It has 30,000 miles on it, has harnesses, and you could see some wear on the harness bar meaning they weren't there for show. It has a boatload of service records all indicating it had been on the track quite a bit. I took it for a drive around the block. It was super strong and felt pretty great. The car is fully covered in PPF. I could see the etching from some aftermarket stripes underneath it and some obvious repainting of the front bumper, but the exterior was sound. The shifter felt notchy and the alcantara was pretty janky, but I could fix all that stuff. Part of that fixing is fun. It's a good shell for me to do what I do best. $260K is probably a bit too much for it, but I had a couple of circumstances that made it worth doing now. I had a trade-in credit from the sale of my 991.2 RS that would save me $16,000, and at year-end getting the upfront depreciation of the vehicle through the business. My unique situation is that cars are direct contributors to the realized income of product sales that come from them, so I can depreciate a passenger vehicle much more than a normal business. So here we are, I'm rolling the dice!


These "giveaways" fall into the lottery/gambling legal category and require some things. Basically, I can draw up rules, post bond in a few states, and sell some stuff on my website that hopefully adds up to more than what I spent on the car. Essentially it affords me the ability to own and modify a car to my standard and not lose a bunch of money on the the aftermarket parts I put on it. Selfishly it also garners a lot of attention and organic traffic to my site. I personally am not a gambler. I don't buy lottery tickets, so I try and sell items that people wouldn't mind owning even if there wan't a giveaway. What I can't do is sell the normal stuff in my store and giveaway $260,000. What I think is possible, is that this garners so much attention that it not only pays for the car, but gets me my RS 4.0. Ha, ha... (One can dream)

Now that you know the whole story let's dig into the car. I'm going to photo, video, and journal all that I discover and do with the car over the next 8 months. Barring me finding some major issue, the giveaway will run on www.obsessedgarage.com from June 1 to July 31, 2023. You'd be able to buy some cool stuff that would enter you, and I'm going to randomly draw the winner and change someone's life forever. To be safe since I'm now a business and not just some afflicted dude sharing too much, I reached out to Rennlist and paid to become a forum sponsor since I'm technically promoting myself here.

The car is an original 2011 Grey Black/White Gold car.

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This is what it currently looks like. It is lowered, yellow Titan cage, Numeric short shifter, clearly White Gold stuff was removed and yellow stickers were done, full PPF, wing risers, and painted mirrors and wheels. Next up will be a chronicling of the current state of the car and my modification plans.

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Current Exterior Condition and Plan
 

Write up coming...

Current Interior Condition and Plan
 

There are a few of things going on with this interior that I think lead to its current condition. I'd say it's in worse condition than you'd expect for a 30,000 mile RS, but it's not terrible. Everything that I want to address fixable. One contribution would likely be that there were 4 previous owners likely all with slightly different standards. All of which, I would guess are just a tad below my insane expectations. Another is that this car was clearly used as it was intended on the track. Wear in the seats from harnesses and scratches from helmets during the violence of driving a car at the limit are pretty evident. Things like shiny leather, scratched up plastics, kick marks from enter and exit, and messed up alcantara are all a little out of what you'd expect to see in a car at this level, but its not uncommon. Care for leather and alcantara is almost always done incorrectly or not at all. Scratches and wear and tear I'd chalk up to owners not coveting cars like I tend to do. I would wager those before probably had more means than I do and looked at this for what it is, a car. The good news, is that in some ways it will be more fun for me to chase making this better.


Front Trunk area looks pretty decent. Carpet looks like new. All the plastics are in good shape. I'm missing one of the clips, but those are available. I'm pretty sure the hood struts are also toast. Is that a common issue for the hood struts to barely hold up the lid? I deep clean all the plastics with Meguiar's M39 and coat with Gtechniq Crystal Serum Light and Exo. I don't do much to the carpet other than vacuum. I used to buy the lid protector, but I've found then unnecessary as I rarely ever fill up the frunk.

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I'm going to try and repair the steering wheel, but we will see how well it comes out. I may replace the wheel if I can't get to look like new. I'll remove the wheel and clean it on the bench. The alcantara can be sanded. I'll show you how to do that in a later post.

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Pedals are aftermarket. I think they are okay. I like the Numeric pedal set as it includes a dead pedal, but I'm not sure I'll mess with them. The floor mats are decent, but I'll think I'll replace them with fresh ones.

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The seat belts are super dirty. I thought about replacing them, but I intend to ditch the yellow roll bar in favor of a Satin Black version. It's a Titan Motorsports bar. They are already making me a satin black on to swap. I'll have that done in a few weeks. Getting rid of the yellow bar allows for the red to make sense. I'm not a proponent of matching my calipers to seat belts. That never made sense to me. I think I can restore the belts and fix the chalky white belt holders. I'm also missing the seat belt adjuster cover.

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I didn't know that Porsches suffered from melty stuff. Luckily it's only the knobs on the head unit. I'll also pull off the Rennline cell phone mount. I'm not a phone mount guy. I'd also like to replace the pretty scratched up shift console trim.

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The driver's side door card and inner door sill are pretty jacked up. Suncoast as the inner door sills available, but I need to dig a little further to find a replacement cover for the speaker area on the interior door card.

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The shifter and e-brake are not 100% perfect, but I think they are good enough to keep. I'll pull off the boot and shifter and clean and sand the alcantara, but I'll probably just leave them alone. I do want to replace the latch on the glove box.

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Now...the seats. These suckers a way too much money to replace, so I'm going to fix them. Suncoast does sell a replacement cover for the upper, but I doubt those will be easy to get. Passenger side just needs to be deep cleaned. I'm going to get new Ed Guard bolster protectors just to start fresh. I'm going to follow-up with you and show you how I intend to repair the two problem spots on the driver's seat. I'm also pulling out the harnesses. Maybe someone could point me in the direction on where to get replacement plastic for the upper pass-through near the headrest? I will pull the seats out and deep clean them and carpets underneath.

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I will also clean the dash, center console, and door card leather and alcantara when the seats are out. The only major upgrade to the interior will be to add a hardwired radar detector on a blendmount.

Gorgeous car. I know it gets hot down there and it's personal preference, but I think that car would look so much nicer without the tinted windows (and with stock rear wing risers).

Good luck with the project. Will be entertaining to follow.

Can't wait to see the progress on this. Wonderful to think that all of this started on RL. What a spec!

Matt,
Enjoy the car — even if the ownership is brief. I have a ‘measly 997 plain-Jane white GT3’ and I am a bit shocked at how much I love the car, it has cursed me to never love a new car again. This era of car is the absolute best IMO. Looking forward to the video content. :thumbup:

What’s reserved mean?

Looks like a good project for your channel, lots of content here to help you get it back to spec.

So the plan is to try and hype up the “restoration” of the car and use that journey to get a huge following for it and then BAM! lottery it off for the big bucks?

Luckily most tracks make you keep the windows down, otherwise it would be magically terrifying… even so it’s still hard to see someone come up on you

Good luck with your 997.2 RS. Yes, different from your other projects however, your methodical approach will yield what you envision.
The Dundon D4 Power package is the real deal but, will let you speak to that.

Hi Matt - excited to see your progress on this car. I've been following you since 2015 when you were in your oversized two car garage washing your GT3 with the Kranzle. Have followed you through many exhaust setups on that car and other cars, got to meet you when you came to Esoteric in 2017 and still follow you to this day and am a customer. Still planning to eventually get a Kranzle from you at some point, just haven't made that commitment yet. Thanks for what you do for the detailing community and the car community in general.

The 997 GT3 forum is a great one. There's individuals on here that have tons of track miles, there's guys that know how to perform maintenance and repairs very well and there's guys who want to chat about the market too. I'm sure many will be happy to help if you need it.

I always thought I was a guy that wanted to flip in and out of cars, but the GT3 changed that for me. It's a car that even after three years, I don't want something else. I'm happy to admit when a car isn't for me but for my driving and what I want out of a car which is an engaging experience, the GT3 just checks the boxes. Would it be cool if Porsche re-released the 997 GT3 and we could all buy them new with no paint imperfections, yes, so I totally understand your goal of wanting the mintiest one you can find.

Keep this thread updated and reach out when you need it.

Joe

Welcome. Your car looks like a proper weapon. I personally like it as is, perhaps minus a few details like the window tint. I just got mine recently and it's at the shop morphing into a very similar car to yours. Anyway, looking forward to following your journey.

nice.

so you’re giving away the dream car at the end of the journal in june 2023?

Maybe this is unpopular opinion, but I'm surprised Rennlist allows posts like this without a Vendor account.

I get that its a journal and you want to showcase the car, but I can't see past the fact this car solely serves as a platform to promote your products and the eventual raffle. Nothing wrong with that, just seems like a Vendor post to me...

He says in the original post that he contacted Rennlist and became a vendor.

Thanks @jason95R I missed that in the wall of text/pics. See it now "I reached out to Rennlist and become a forum sponsor since I'm technically promoting myself here"
Was expecting to see his account listed as Vendor, which it currently is not.