first car was an e30 BMW 325 so naturaly I wanted an e30 M3 but after watching my e30 rust I pleasantly found I could buy a 944 for much less than my M3. The galvanized body is a huge plus up here.

I got my first one sort of by chance. I have always enjoyed working on cars. I'm one of those "Jack of all tradesk, master of none" guys. Had a '65 VW sunroof car that I loved. Looked forward to driving it to work every day. I had almost completely finished it (paint, interior, wheels/tires, syspension - had a bigger engine waiting to go in), when I walked out into my driveway one Sunday morning to find that it wasn't there (1992). I had a friend that wanted to sell his wife's '67 912, so that was my first Porsche - which I sold only last year. While I had the '67, I also bought a '72E. Liked them both, but sold the '72 several years ago. Next I found my '69 911E, which I'm completely rebuilding. I will be keeping this one forever.

Can't pin it down to just one thing. There's so much to a 911: performance, one of the best-looking bodies of all time, timeless design, Porsche's racing heritage, etc. But if I had to nail down one item that seals the deal for me, it's gotta be the SOUND of that air-cooled flat six. Nothing else sounds like it, and everytime I hear one coming down the block it still perks my ears and raises the hairs up on the back of my neck.

I love cars period. And for me you can't get a better looking, reliable, faster, exclusive, handling, history and DIY friendly car for the $$$ than a 911 turbo.

(I love non turbo's 911s too) :)

thought it looked cool when i was a kid. thought the people driving them were cool when i got older. guess that about covers the initial appeal.
ryan

I had or worked on quite a few of them: 356C, early 911s(never owned one, but worked on a few owned by friends) 912, 914, 924 and currently own a 944. I have always liked the styling, but have concluded that the earlier models were far superior in actual craftsmanship and materials. The reliability isn't what it should be considering the costs, and repairs are expen$ive, even if you do your own work which on the more recent models is difficult if not impossible. When the 944 finally goes, my relationship with the marque will end as well. Part of that is just a matter of age. Gettin' harder to "get out and get under".

Now if Porsche would come up with something as simple as the original 912, I would be VERY interested.

Oh yeah...Noah touched on this one....THE SOUND.

Gotta love the sound of that flat six.

Just about every.........reason..........imagineable......... PERIOD.
I could go on for hours, filling up countless pages of examples why.
And yes, it does make me feel better owning several Porsches, especially the 993!
Maybe a certain Ferrari could do the same.........MAYBE. But I can't afford the one I want, they are complete trash in the reliability department, and I'm realistic, so no sense in wasting my time dreaming.

For me, it started as a childhood dream. I was like 16, and read about the latest innovations in Road and Driver (or whatever), and was really impressed with the impression of quality engineering.

A few years later, I test drove my first 911 -- a 996, iirc. I was impressed with the responsiveness -- it went where I imagined it needed to be, effortlessly.

A few years later, I decided for sure I was going to have one. But first, I had to test drive everything else, to make sure I was getting the best car. Nothing else was as much fun. Nothing else looked as good on the lot. Nothing else had the amazing handling. Nothing else made me smile in the corners quite so much. I love the roar of an air-cooled engine, sounding like a pack of angry dogs with a bad smoking habit, the pure driveability of it, the way that the car is designed to be fun to drive.

Then I finally bought one, and was thrilled at how easy it was to work on. Everything really was built well. Parts were easy to come by, and not really any more expensive than parts for my Honda. I loved the fact that I could take it to the track on Saturday and then to work on Monday, like Todd says.

Awesome cars, all around. For me, it isn't a question of whether or not I'll own another, it's just a question of which one I'll buy next. :)

Drove my brothers 77 Targa 15 years ago.
He was always into Porsches when he was living at home in the late 70's

That feeling is still fresh in my memory and finally purchased an 82 SC Targa a few weeks ago:D

It's a bad, bad addiction http://www.pelicanparts.com/support/smileys/happy.gif

one word- oversteer!

I think it was 1964...a friend had a 356 B, but that wasn't really it for me...not enough muscle, I guess. Then a PLAYBOY "cars" feature ran a tiny picture of a 911 show car....I think the seed was planted then. But first, I had to go through a couple of Pontiac GTO's....Life was fun when I was young & dumb, and threw all the paychecks away on booze, cars, and girlfriends...

drove a friend's car when i was 18. hooked from the get go, well when i blipped the throttle, i was hooked.

but honestly, this is just one piece puzzle. i plan on a 69 Z28, some early MB, 3.0 CSI.....oh, hot rod 1970 GMC shortbed p/u.....

Longevity.....

Probably 1977-1978 Dad gave me a 911 (actually a 935) remote controlled car.. (One of first mattel wireless toys)

It was the Martini, just like this one.
So I spent countless hours just admiring those lines and Dad used to tell me stories about the 'German' cars in the Carrera Panamericana and how they beat everyone else.
Good memories.. (i think the car still at my Moms..)

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1114048941.jpg

I'm laughing, but only because I "graduated" from a Beetle too. Funny, but now things have gone full circle; my 911 got me back into another Beetle. My daily driver is a '70 Beetle with a 1600 dual port. My 18 year old son drives a Beetle, and is saving for an SC.

Why Beetles and 911's? German engineering and quality; fun to drive (in far different ways), simple to work on for the DIY'er, and it's just plain in my blood. My mom is a German immigrant. I spent summers in Germany as a kid, where an uncle had a sunroof Beetle and one of his friends had a 911 Targa. The seed was planted very early.

Short answer - I drove one.

Long answer:

Growing up in small town Iowa, there really wasn't much around other than American metal. I always dreamed of owning a '65 Fastback Mustang.

Ten years ago I went to visit my (then) girlfriend (now wife) in the SF Bay Area and she picked me up in a friends '76 911. That was to be the car I drove while visiting!

I moved to the SF Bay area later that year and bought my '86 911 within six weeks of moving and two days before I even started a new job. It was a gamble on whether I was even going to be able to afford the payment.

Mustang? What's that?

Well lets see, when I was 7/8 years old I rember seeing a Black 911 widebody (around 85/86) in a parking lot at the mall, it was parked by the "expensive" store "May Company"

The girl that got out of the car from the pasenger side was very pretty. (what did I know at age 8 right?)

Then on vacation in Colombia (South America) I met my "rich" uncle who had a silver 911 widebody (85? 86?) everyone in town used to talk about him and his many cars, but the one that used to always come up was "El Porcha" , when the neigborhood kids asked me if I knew the driver, I said, yeah that's my uncle. He used to pick me up and take me to one of his many "fincas" (ranch) and I remember him driving over 100Kph on the twisty roads and me holding for dear life, he would just laugh at me because I would scream for dear life for him to slow down. Let's just say he live life in the fast lane.

I guess those 2 moment in my childhood stayed with me, and I swore I would get one some day.

So I did, funny thing is, when people speak to me about my car, they say - "when I think of a Porsche I think of a car just like yours" "even though the new ones are a bit different"

Most of the people here are 25-45, and the air-cooled 911 was the sht in the '80s when we started noticing cars. Just fulfilling an adolescent fantasy. Same as those pot-bellied babyboomers drooling over muscle cars today.

I grew up in my Porsche - litterally. First ride in it was home from the hospital a few days after I was born. Family vacations, time with Dad, etc.