I have a furry as part of my traveling race crew. He has a super cute little girlfriend and they met in the furscene. That is one more chick than anyone has ever met a a Porsche event.
That's quite a uniform for that cohort. Enforced with all the ruthlessness of an all female HOA board, no doubt. The 24/7/365 yoga pants and flip flops uniform works better, even if they all sport doodle tats and the occasional facial fishing tackle.
"The first part of this statement is a rather unpleasant topic. We were informed that in the late night hours the public bathrooms were left in varying states of unsanitary conditions by our attendees. The hotel noted that some guest rooms had sanitation issues as well. The hotel went as far as to describe the conditions as a “biohazard.”"
Basically, the furries were shitting and fucking where they shouldn't have, oh, and leaving their used adult baby diapers in wastebins.
Maybe it's supposed to be the dude from "Regular Car Reviews" on YouTube in the suit, isn't he into that? Also it's at a Cars and Coffee so it tracks (yes I realize the graphic is likely AI generated.)
Great article! I have a sorted C6 that no 996 has ever passed on track. And I'm in the PCA. Also, I have an S2000 race car with trailer should anyone want give Option #6 a go.
so, there is this recently retired guy, who has a relatively sorted '08 Boxster, who would like to have a '80's +/- air cooled 911 coupe as a fun driver (no thoughts of track use). any thoughts on what the best bang for the (small pile) of bucks would be? thanks.
was not referring to me, who is supposed to be retired but keeps getting sucked into consulting fun, which pays fairly well and funds my bicycle hobby.
if I had garage space I would be buying the mostly restored AH 3000 near me for only $19k, or a NC Miata with PRHT, or a '73-74 Formula Firebird, or .........
There's nothing that'll turn a girls head faster than a sportbike. Sure, they'll look away when you take off your helmet and they realize you are old enough to be their dad but they will look.
This never happened not even once when I had one. I did how however have children wave at me constantly. I don't mean a couple of times. I mean every time I left the house.
0 - I thought for a moment the furry was the CarFax mascot.
1 - Where are these $3000 trailers?
2 - I have a very nice 2010 Boxster S for sale. I think. My wife mentioned keeping it (bought it out west for a single road trip task) but hasn't been seen reaching for a checkbook.
As an alternative sportscar I used to recommend C3's but when dying young was no longer an option (my C3 now strikes me as a bit of a death trap), I would suggest a C4 or a C5 depending on which decade you are nostalgic for.
c4s are still dirt cheap i think. i think if you can get a decent intake and tune on an early car and put a not shit manual in there youve got a solid car
I owned a 2003 Boxster for a bit before my first son arrived, bought it in 2008 for under $20K... at that price I couldn't NOT buy it. Put snows on it and took it skiing (the skis JUST fit in the passenger side), traveled back and forth to Boston and NYC and the airport for work, and just enjoyed the heck out of it. But I'm an interior snob, and I also owned an E46 330i M Sport, and THAT interior blew it away. It put me off a 996, as did a drive in my bosses 996 Turbo (scary fast... he took out the AWD system and made it a drag car... yes I'm serious, that's a story...) since it was just a very quick version of my Boxster, but the roof didn't go down. I'll still own a 911 someday, but I want nice switches and cool lines and a soft leather cocoon and a decent stereo, so I'm going to wait until prices come down to sanity. Or maybe a well optioned Cayman...
I have a 2020 Miata Club with all the goodies that I've modified with even more goodies (suspension, steering wheel, exhaust, stereo). I love it, but I am often tempted to "upgrade" to a 718 Boxster GTS 4.0.
I've test-driven a few examples over the past couple of years, and while individual things about the Porsche are just undeniably better (solidity of the doors, quality of the interior materials, depth of the paint, smoothness of the engine, etc.), I find the overall experience to be lacking because the Porsche is not as fun a lower speeds and I can't run through the gears at reasonable speeds.
So, I've managed to resist this urge while many others continue to succumb to it.
The Miata is the total package for the driving I do. Sometimes being content is enough.
As an old(er) man, this is my advice: if the urge to walk away becomes overwhelming, park the car. Just find a spot for it, buy a nice cover, fog the cylinders, put sta-bil in the tank, and park it.
Come back to it once the urges pass, or after you acquire something else and find it to be wanting and sell it. Eventually, you stop caring what anybody else thinks and you can enjoy a thing for what it is, and a 2020 MX5 Club is quite a thing.
Anecdotal, but as a dual Porsche/Miata owner I can offer a little perspective. Being able to rag on that little underpowered, tin-can-thin crapwagon at 100% at all times is exactly what makes the Miata a hoot. Anyone who wants it nicer, faster, bigger (ie more Porsche like) is in the end wanting a different car. Driving the Miata is definition of "shit eating grin", but people forget that it's the shit that's a big part of the magic.
Having lucked into getting on the 911 train before prices got stupid, I’ve had three generations over the years. A 964 C2, my current 993 C2…and a 2004 996 C2 Targa in between ((https://flic.kr/p/2qkaZFS).
The exterior only had a few good angles, the interior was as cheap as you say, and was by far the least special of the 3. And yet, the 996 was the best city runabout out of them all. Responsive power, a clutch that didn't require leg-days, great visibility (made even better by the glass Targa bubble), and its station as the poor-man’s 911 worked in its favour in paranoia reduction. For the $25K I paid for it, it was a hell of a value. No way I'd take a BMW over it.
In an ideal world with a bigger garage (or a wife who took transit), I’d have kept it as the city runabout next to the 993. But in this world, it was eventually replaced by a street-parked Miata NC PRHT. The enthusiast value on that one is even better.
"One effect of this was that the best guitar makers of the day rapidly expanded their production facilities and, in the case of Gibson and Fender, were bought out by larger corporations anxious to get on board with the latest fad."
Not just the best guitar makers of the day. By the mid 1960s, through perfecting cost engineering and some novel concepts on how to mass produce an electric guitar cheaper than Gibson or Fender could do, Nat Daniel had grown Danelectro to the point where the company was shipping railroad carloads to Sears and Montgomery Wards.
In 1966 Daniel was 54 years old and, like Leo Fender, he sold out to a big corporation that owned a record company, in Danelectro's case, the Music Corporation of America (MCA). MCA immediately moved to a larger plant in Neptune City, New Jersey, employing around 500 people, and changed the overall marketing from catalog giants and jobbers to trying to compete directly with Gibson and Fender in music stores. Danos had a cool sound and many notable guitar players used them but they were designed to be made cheaply (a solid wood frame covered with masonite, and pickups the eschewed bobbins and just wrapped the wire around a bar magnet and stuffed it inside surplus lipstick cases) and standing next to a Gibson or Fender they looked and felt cheap. Combine that with the fact that electric guitar sales had already peak in '65, Danelectro was gone in 1969.
What I think is interesting about the collapse of the electric guitar market in the late sixties was that was when Bloomfield, Clapton, Hendrix, Page, Garcia and others were taking the instrument places it had never been. Radio was full of guitar jams - that period saw the rise of "underground" FM stations playing extended cuts.
Maybe there was such of glut of used instruments left over from folks who started playing during to boom but gave up that even with growing interest in guitar virtuosity there was enough supply to meet demand.
The trouble with cars in this era of the 996 is not the mechanical aspect, it is the electronics aspect, parts that weather they are used or not, just decay , circuit boards and chips that are designed to fail, and the older they get, the more precarious ownership becomes, there is always something that can be done with the mechanical bits that fail, but very few people have the knowledge to reverse engineer a circuit board and write the firmware that goes on it, best to buy something pre 90’s.
I bought an Austin Healey 3000 a couple years ago from a classic dealer locally who mostly deals in vintage Porsches. He had a rough 928 S4 in his parking lot he wouldn't sell me despite me making overtures. I wanted the challenge and just to have one for kicks. I give him credit for saving me from myself. There is a reason only a few of the very best 928s are worth more that a couple thousand dollars. They are about the most complicated cars work on you could imagine.
Oh wow, I forgot about that (if I ever knew about it; was in college at that time). I see it had a whopping 10 hp more than the standard I-6. Truly the malaise era of cars.
I've owned and driven just about every year and model of 911, from a January 1965 built 911 to a 1996 993. I currently own a 2002 996 Targa. The previous owner spent over $20,000, including RMS, IMS, and every single suspension bushing, strut, and shock. All at the dealer. It does drive like a new 911, sorta! And mine has a lot of options, from sport seats, MY02 wheels, and full leather package (even the steering wheel airbag is leather). I like it, but I will be selling it soon and picking up a half finished 1971 911E Targa project to complete with my son.
Why? For all the reasons Jack stated.
Did I enjoy the ownership experience? Absolutely.
Will I take advantage of all the shills saying the 996/Targa is now a Celebrated collectible? HELL YES.
The hype train is hilarious, but has hit every Porsche. I see a 912 on Hagerty for 141K!! Anyway my father has a 2003 911 6-Speed Carrera 2 Cab he bought nearly new at steep discount (imagine that) back them. It did suffer the IMS issue about 15 years ago and he had a new engine put in at more than it was worth. But he is an old doctor and doesn't care, its his car and the extreme ownership costs are something that doesn't phase him. He owned a V12 e-type from new till a house fire took it out in 2008. Maintaining that was eyewatering. Those have gone up a lot recently, but mostly were 30K cars till then. I looked at 996s when they were cheaper around 2020, ultimately as someone who does as much wrenching as I can while not having a lift, a 996 with its mail slot engine access scared me off. I ended up buying a 1993 968 Cabrio 6 speed which as served me well as fancy Miata. I think as a cheap car if you know what you are getting into a 996 was great. The auction sites and sales people have tricked the world into thinking collectable cars are an asset. They are a hobby, like tennis, diving, racing on weekends. You pay money for enjoyment with those hobbies why should a collector car be different? While I am in agreement with the distaste for tiptronics, I am not with you on cabrios. If like most people you are not tracking or autocrossing a vintage Porsche and only driving on nice days, a convertible is the way to go. The loss of stiffness is not a major factor scooting around backroads.
so are you sure those are girls with the furry guy?
I have a furry as part of my traveling race crew. He has a super cute little girlfriend and they met in the furscene. That is one more chick than anyone has ever met a a Porsche event.
Height makes up for a lot.
That's quite a uniform for that cohort. Enforced with all the ruthlessness of an all female HOA board, no doubt. The 24/7/365 yoga pants and flip flops uniform works better, even if they all sport doodle tats and the occasional facial fishing tackle.
I'm sure they're lovely people but it's hard for me to see the word furry and not immediately think of biohazards:
https://motorcityfurrycon.org/news/dear-mcfc-2022-attendees-an-open-letter/
"The first part of this statement is a rather unpleasant topic. We were informed that in the late night hours the public bathrooms were left in varying states of unsanitary conditions by our attendees. The hotel noted that some guest rooms had sanitation issues as well. The hotel went as far as to describe the conditions as a “biohazard.”"
Basically, the furries were shitting and fucking where they shouldn't have, oh, and leaving their used adult baby diapers in wastebins.
Maybe it's supposed to be the dude from "Regular Car Reviews" on YouTube in the suit, isn't he into that? Also it's at a Cars and Coffee so it tracks (yes I realize the graphic is likely AI generated.)
He's into fur, but he is not into women. Also, he cosplays as a bird, which is lame.
not just a bird but a bird with glasses
theres some observation there about self perception but im not clever enough to write about it
Does the bird go "cuck cuck cuck"?
Great article! I have a sorted C6 that no 996 has ever passed on track. And I'm in the PCA. Also, I have an S2000 race car with trailer should anyone want give Option #6 a go.
so, there is this recently retired guy, who has a relatively sorted '08 Boxster, who would like to have a '80's +/- air cooled 911 coupe as a fun driver (no thoughts of track use). any thoughts on what the best bang for the (small pile) of bucks would be? thanks.
Get a 1977 911S, it's the cheapest way into it and many of them have been kind of sorted out by now.
Recently retired? Do tell.
was not referring to me, who is supposed to be retired but keeps getting sucked into consulting fun, which pays fairly well and funds my bicycle hobby.
if I had garage space I would be buying the mostly restored AH 3000 near me for only $19k, or a NC Miata with PRHT, or a '73-74 Formula Firebird, or .........
Wow.. An AH 3000 for 19K. I though I got a good on deal on decent driver one at 30K.
There's nothing that'll turn a girls head faster than a sportbike. Sure, they'll look away when you take off your helmet and they realize you are old enough to be their dad but they will look.
This never happened not even once when I had one. I did how however have children wave at me constantly. I don't mean a couple of times. I mean every time I left the house.
0 - I thought for a moment the furry was the CarFax mascot.
1 - Where are these $3000 trailers?
2 - I have a very nice 2010 Boxster S for sale. I think. My wife mentioned keeping it (bought it out west for a single road trip task) but hasn't been seen reaching for a checkbook.
The $3000 trailers are with the $15,000 trucks our friend mentioned. Parked in 2019.
show me the hoefax
I look forward to the day your agreement with the bagel company expires.
The day I find out I have pancreatic cancer, I'll even tell the story of the public park that had to be renamed due to weirdo molester behavior!
As an alternative sportscar I used to recommend C3's but when dying young was no longer an option (my C3 now strikes me as a bit of a death trap), I would suggest a C4 or a C5 depending on which decade you are nostalgic for.
c4s are still dirt cheap i think. i think if you can get a decent intake and tune on an early car and put a not shit manual in there youve got a solid car
I owned a 2003 Boxster for a bit before my first son arrived, bought it in 2008 for under $20K... at that price I couldn't NOT buy it. Put snows on it and took it skiing (the skis JUST fit in the passenger side), traveled back and forth to Boston and NYC and the airport for work, and just enjoyed the heck out of it. But I'm an interior snob, and I also owned an E46 330i M Sport, and THAT interior blew it away. It put me off a 996, as did a drive in my bosses 996 Turbo (scary fast... he took out the AWD system and made it a drag car... yes I'm serious, that's a story...) since it was just a very quick version of my Boxster, but the roof didn't go down. I'll still own a 911 someday, but I want nice switches and cool lines and a soft leather cocoon and a decent stereo, so I'm going to wait until prices come down to sanity. Or maybe a well optioned Cayman...
I have a 2020 Miata Club with all the goodies that I've modified with even more goodies (suspension, steering wheel, exhaust, stereo). I love it, but I am often tempted to "upgrade" to a 718 Boxster GTS 4.0.
I've test-driven a few examples over the past couple of years, and while individual things about the Porsche are just undeniably better (solidity of the doors, quality of the interior materials, depth of the paint, smoothness of the engine, etc.), I find the overall experience to be lacking because the Porsche is not as fun a lower speeds and I can't run through the gears at reasonable speeds.
So, I've managed to resist this urge while many others continue to succumb to it.
The Miata is the total package for the driving I do. Sometimes being content is enough.
As an old(er) man, this is my advice: if the urge to walk away becomes overwhelming, park the car. Just find a spot for it, buy a nice cover, fog the cylinders, put sta-bil in the tank, and park it.
Come back to it once the urges pass, or after you acquire something else and find it to be wanting and sell it. Eventually, you stop caring what anybody else thinks and you can enjoy a thing for what it is, and a 2020 MX5 Club is quite a thing.
Anecdotal, but as a dual Porsche/Miata owner I can offer a little perspective. Being able to rag on that little underpowered, tin-can-thin crapwagon at 100% at all times is exactly what makes the Miata a hoot. Anyone who wants it nicer, faster, bigger (ie more Porsche like) is in the end wanting a different car. Driving the Miata is definition of "shit eating grin", but people forget that it's the shit that's a big part of the magic.
Best to get both.
Mario marked himself safe from 996 ownership, ty.
Well, at least YOU could do a better Aerokit!
Having lucked into getting on the 911 train before prices got stupid, I’ve had three generations over the years. A 964 C2, my current 993 C2…and a 2004 996 C2 Targa in between ((https://flic.kr/p/2qkaZFS).
The exterior only had a few good angles, the interior was as cheap as you say, and was by far the least special of the 3. And yet, the 996 was the best city runabout out of them all. Responsive power, a clutch that didn't require leg-days, great visibility (made even better by the glass Targa bubble), and its station as the poor-man’s 911 worked in its favour in paranoia reduction. For the $25K I paid for it, it was a hell of a value. No way I'd take a BMW over it.
In an ideal world with a bigger garage (or a wife who took transit), I’d have kept it as the city runabout next to the 993. But in this world, it was eventually replaced by a street-parked Miata NC PRHT. The enthusiast value on that one is even better.
"One effect of this was that the best guitar makers of the day rapidly expanded their production facilities and, in the case of Gibson and Fender, were bought out by larger corporations anxious to get on board with the latest fad."
Not just the best guitar makers of the day. By the mid 1960s, through perfecting cost engineering and some novel concepts on how to mass produce an electric guitar cheaper than Gibson or Fender could do, Nat Daniel had grown Danelectro to the point where the company was shipping railroad carloads to Sears and Montgomery Wards.
In 1966 Daniel was 54 years old and, like Leo Fender, he sold out to a big corporation that owned a record company, in Danelectro's case, the Music Corporation of America (MCA). MCA immediately moved to a larger plant in Neptune City, New Jersey, employing around 500 people, and changed the overall marketing from catalog giants and jobbers to trying to compete directly with Gibson and Fender in music stores. Danos had a cool sound and many notable guitar players used them but they were designed to be made cheaply (a solid wood frame covered with masonite, and pickups the eschewed bobbins and just wrapped the wire around a bar magnet and stuffed it inside surplus lipstick cases) and standing next to a Gibson or Fender they looked and felt cheap. Combine that with the fact that electric guitar sales had already peak in '65, Danelectro was gone in 1969.
What I think is interesting about the collapse of the electric guitar market in the late sixties was that was when Bloomfield, Clapton, Hendrix, Page, Garcia and others were taking the instrument places it had never been. Radio was full of guitar jams - that period saw the rise of "underground" FM stations playing extended cuts.
Maybe there was such of glut of used instruments left over from folks who started playing during to boom but gave up that even with growing interest in guitar virtuosity there was enough supply to meet demand.
The trouble with cars in this era of the 996 is not the mechanical aspect, it is the electronics aspect, parts that weather they are used or not, just decay , circuit boards and chips that are designed to fail, and the older they get, the more precarious ownership becomes, there is always something that can be done with the mechanical bits that fail, but very few people have the knowledge to reverse engineer a circuit board and write the firmware that goes on it, best to buy something pre 90’s.
100%. Late 90s German electronics are absolutely terrifying.
928 it is then!
SIR
I bought an Austin Healey 3000 a couple years ago from a classic dealer locally who mostly deals in vintage Porsches. He had a rough 928 S4 in his parking lot he wouldn't sell me despite me making overtures. I wanted the challenge and just to have one for kicks. I give him credit for saving me from myself. There is a reason only a few of the very best 928s are worth more that a couple thousand dollars. They are about the most complicated cars work on you could imagine.
Perfect. You'd have the world's fastest AMC Pacer, if only it would start.
Wait, when did the Pacer come with a V8?
late 70s
wasnt a big or powerful v8 but it was there. not unlike the gremlin tbh
yeah, those were the sad days when a V8 "upgrade" could be slower and worse mileage than the base engine.
1978. 304 AMC V8. 130 untamed ponies of power.
The 928 bore an uncanny resemblance, except that it had dead fish eyes for headlamps.
Oh wow, I forgot about that (if I ever knew about it; was in college at that time). I see it had a whopping 10 hp more than the standard I-6. Truly the malaise era of cars.
928? Is that not the car that the U-Boat Commender (Tom Cruse) put in a lake?
Even with a salvage title Porsche are overpriced. https://www.autoweek.com/car-life/classic-cars/a37662877/risky-business-porsche-928/
I've owned and driven just about every year and model of 911, from a January 1965 built 911 to a 1996 993. I currently own a 2002 996 Targa. The previous owner spent over $20,000, including RMS, IMS, and every single suspension bushing, strut, and shock. All at the dealer. It does drive like a new 911, sorta! And mine has a lot of options, from sport seats, MY02 wheels, and full leather package (even the steering wheel airbag is leather). I like it, but I will be selling it soon and picking up a half finished 1971 911E Targa project to complete with my son.
Why? For all the reasons Jack stated.
Did I enjoy the ownership experience? Absolutely.
Will I take advantage of all the shills saying the 996/Targa is now a Celebrated collectible? HELL YES.
Go forth and MAKE BANK, sir.
The hype train is hilarious, but has hit every Porsche. I see a 912 on Hagerty for 141K!! Anyway my father has a 2003 911 6-Speed Carrera 2 Cab he bought nearly new at steep discount (imagine that) back them. It did suffer the IMS issue about 15 years ago and he had a new engine put in at more than it was worth. But he is an old doctor and doesn't care, its his car and the extreme ownership costs are something that doesn't phase him. He owned a V12 e-type from new till a house fire took it out in 2008. Maintaining that was eyewatering. Those have gone up a lot recently, but mostly were 30K cars till then. I looked at 996s when they were cheaper around 2020, ultimately as someone who does as much wrenching as I can while not having a lift, a 996 with its mail slot engine access scared me off. I ended up buying a 1993 968 Cabrio 6 speed which as served me well as fancy Miata. I think as a cheap car if you know what you are getting into a 996 was great. The auction sites and sales people have tricked the world into thinking collectable cars are an asset. They are a hobby, like tennis, diving, racing on weekends. You pay money for enjoyment with those hobbies why should a collector car be different? While I am in agreement with the distaste for tiptronics, I am not with you on cabrios. If like most people you are not tracking or autocrossing a vintage Porsche and only driving on nice days, a convertible is the way to go. The loss of stiffness is not a major factor scooting around backroads.
I agree 100% regarding cars as a hobby, rather than an investment. Looking at them as such steals all the joy.