Quote:
Originally posted by Keith S
Anyone else done any recent 'back-to-backs'?
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Well, my daily life is an fairly interesting back-to-back car experience, and I find it very fun to have 2 cars with such contrast. So much so that the SO and I have made a deal: rather than get the 964 I was planning on for my birthday, I'm shopping for a 1966 Porsche 911 coupe. In exchange, I'll sell the '83 Targa
and we'll get a 3rd "more sensible" car to be determined at a later date.
(I'm fighting that last one a bit - I expect to keep the 2 '66s in shape enough for daily driving, and I suspect this is a ploy to get her hands on the RR, which is a favorite with "the girls" for running about and being seen in. I can hear it already: "Oh, just take one of your other cars, there's a bunch of us going and we need the room." Should I lose the ground war on that front, my fallback attack is making the 3rd car an old Crown Vic - "Honey, take the Ford, it's newer and has just as much room. I don't know if the Rolls is as reliable - it's so old, I worry about you driving it!" Hah!).
Why these two cars? As I've mentioned, the contrasts interest me. Both the 1966 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow and the Porsche 911 represent major philosophical changes in the way their respective companies built cars - and amazingly, those design decisions set the tone for each company for
decades afterwards, each into the 1990s! The Rolls-Royce Silver spirit/Spur was built on the Shadow platform using the same basic engine, brakes, suspension, and interior accents until the mid-90s; Porsche kept making air-cooled flat sixes for 30 years as well. (I'll skip a lengthy speech on how well I think each has done at staying true to their early goals, and simply say I don't think either has done a good job.)
Both cars were originally built with the same intent (to be the best) for similar markets (the wealthy) for totally opposite purposes (luxury v. sports car) using different philosophies ("never so much as change your own oil" v. owner/mechanic). One is a 4700 lb 6.23-liiter behemoth that makes driving as comfortable as sitting in your living room, the other a 2030 lb. 2-liter speed-demon so raw you almost long for the luxurious days when we rode everywhere on horseback.
Finding a decent 1966 looks to be a challenge, though. Even setting aside the issues of rust, old age, and scarcity of parts for certain areas, there appears to be no sense of history associated with the first 911s - just about every car I've looked at has been modified with
flares and other
nonsense and/or had the engine replaced with a different generation.
What's weird (and worse), imo, is that every single car in the US seems to have been changed to
Guards Red at some point (okay, usually in the 80s). There's apparently a mix-up: it was Ferrari that said sports cars should be red; Dr. Porsche was rather fond of brown, folks.
Ah, well - until I find it, I'll enjoy my '83.
Emanuel