Buying your 911-what did it awaken in you...

[jester911]

I have to start out saying, like many of you I am sure, that ever since I saw early 911's race in Camel GT that I loved these cars.

I really put the dream of owning one out of my mind until several years ago when my kids got older.

So 7 years ago this fall I bought my 911. I didn't realize it then but there was this other little dream I had when I kid that came to life.

It didn't come right away. It was more incremental.
I start to take my car out on every curvy road I can find.

Then I start to gravitate more and more around car guys and events. All this time I am sort of unsuspecting of something coming to the surface.

Then last fall, a couple of buddies and I were BSing and we started talking about stuff that we always wanted to do since we were kids.
I blurt out that the 2 things I always wanted to do was..
1. Fly a fighter jet.
2. Drive a race car.
Well one of the guys happens to own a spec miata.
He asked me if I would like to take it to drivers school.
Gee let me think....

So after doing that in Feb. I have been taking my car to any track thing I can get. Now I am seriously considering putting a roll bar in the car.
That little notion I had as a kid was totally brought to life by buying this car and driving it.
I know many of you have had similar experiences.
It truly has become a sickness

[WPOZZZ]

I've been driving BMWs for the past 18 years and always wanted a Porsche. I've been looking and thinking about it more in the past 6 months. Then my brother in the bay area picked up a nice 993 and that started me off!

[Rob Channell]

Congrats, Jerry. Loads of fun to be had on a track. It awakened in me the kid that used to love riding gokarts. It brings me back to my kid years when I could never get enough time in the gokart, sliding it around corners over at my neighbor's house.

Try the roll bar and add the harness bar and 5 point harnesses and maybe even some seats. It makes a difference when you don't have to try to hold yourself in the seat in a corner.

Welcome to the dark side. Slippery the slope is on the dark side. Consume you it will.......

[Dantilla]

A few years ago, I heard that if you join the Porsche Club, you can actually drive on a real race track. So I bought a used Porsche and joined.

Who knew it would lead to my car having a roll cage and big numbers on the door?

[aftermath]

It awakened my credit limit. I used to drive autocross in a 90 mustang, sold it regretted it, when it came time for my mid life crisis I knew I wanted something that would challenge me as a driver and be unique. So I now have 2 non running porsches. But Im getting there. I bet I will have more fun in these pcars than I ever did in the mustang.

[Peter Bull]

It all started with a test drive in a friends '72 911 S. What a sweet machine! I really didn't like Porsche at the time though, it had this vulgar macho image that stuck to it somewhere in the eighties. But the test drive lit a small flame, and I bought my 911 about a year after. More than six years ago now. After having owned it for a couple of months I realised that it was actually the car I had allways wanted. Which surprised me, not my friends though. It is still my favourite toy.

/Peter

[Jim Richards]

It awakened my wallet and my PayPal account.

[jester911]

Jim, I know what you mean. My wife asked me the other day when I was going to be done with my car.

Done?! I had no idea you could be done with it. Unless of course you sell it and get another one. Then repeat as necessary.

[JP911]

It awakened a cash pipeline out of my pocket into a gaping hole called 911. But I wouldn't change a thing! What makes me laugh is how I went from barely knowing how to change my own oil to having comfortably removed engines, rebuilt suspensions, upgraded brakes, etc. I got into this as a hobby and now it's a full-fledged addiction!

[anthony]

First I always wanted a 914 because my uncle had one. One 50mph trip around a clover leaf cemented in my mind the desire to own one. When I was a teenager going to the orthodontist's office once a week I'd read Road and Track and the other car mags cover to cover. My uncle would also give me his old Panoramas. I guess I was hooked at an early age.

The cost keeps me off the track right now: $300+ per weekend, the extra safety equipment, and the chance of damaging my car. I've been doing a good number or autocross though for the last couple years.

I'd take your friend up on the offer to drive the spec Miata. Who's liable though if it hits a wall? Stuff like that can ruin a friendship for life.

I went to the vintage races recently and fell in love with open wheel cars. You can buy a nice Lotus junior formula car for less than $30K. Now that looks like loads of fun. I'm sure there are other open wheel cars like a Formula V or Formula Ford that could be had for even less.

P.S. I'd love to fly a figher too - preferably a P51 Mustang with a 2000 hp Merlin engine. :-)

[Jim Richards]

My wife has come to the conclusion that I will never be done spending money on our 911.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

It awakened a serious parts buying and selling addiction, and a real appreciation for the Pelican Community of folks.

[dtw]

Funny Jim. Last night my wife was asking for an update on my car. It was one of those "genuine interest" line of questions as opposed to the "when the !@$% are you going to pay attention to me and your daughter and stop spending all the money and tracking grease onto the carpet" type inquiry. So I noted how close I was to being done (car being blocked now), but then started easing her into the idea of how the gauges would probably benefit from a restoration at NHS...

[Dan in Pasadena]

Awakened the 21 year old I was when I first saw a Light Yellow '76S rolling slowly through the streets of Geneva on the Fourth of July, 1976. I was with my then-girlfriend and future wife of 20 years. I had one more semester of college to come back to and I told myself I was buying a Porsche "just like that one" when I was done with school.

30 years passed, raised two kids, divorced in '98-'99, both kids graduated college in 2004. Time to do something for myself!

[jackb911]

My first three cars were Corvairs, including a Spyder and a Corsa Turbo. My dad worked for GM, so foreign cars were verboten. But I was always fascinated with Porsches as I liked the way a rear engine car handled compared to the Mustangs, GTO's and Chevelle SS's that my buddies drove.

I saw my first 911 at the 1967 Nashville Auto Show...it was a Polo Red '67 911S coupe. For me, it was what psychologists call "a significant emotional event". I was totally mesmerized. I'll never forget that car.

As soon as I finished college and got a real job, I had my first Porsche within a year, a nice pre-owned '66 912, s/n 453551, purchased at Brumos on 2/28/72.

Currently I'm driving Porsche #20, and trying to gather the funds for #21.

[Jim Richards]

Do the gauges, Dave...do the guages.

[Dan in Pasadena]

Originally posted by jackb911
...I saw my first 911 at the 1967 Nashville Auto Show...it was a Polo Red '67 911S coupe. For me, it was what psychologists call "a significant emotional event". I was totally mesmerized. I'll never forget that car.

Jack, I can relate to the "significant emotional event". My mother's boss had a Kiln Red 356C (I think it was) when I was a young, non-driving aged teenager. Rode my ten speed over to the store where she worked and I remember thinking, "what a nice car it was for a man that age"!

Later, my senior year in high school at this tiny little foreign car dealership - the only place that sold "weird" BMW's, Triumphs and Porsches then - they had this new silver '72S behind the small display window and I literally had my nose pressed against the glass thinking, "Man, I'll never be able to afford a car like that!" - They probably cost, what? $8-9,000 then?

So guess who is "a man that age" now? I shouldn't have waited my whole life, kudos that you did not!

[911quest]

Well I worked up the ladder starting with VW's but always wanting to get to the top of said ladder I told myself I would have a 911 by the time I was 28 Iam now 29 and have two 911's
of all the types of cars I have worked on and owned Porches's are sometimes the most fustrating but also the most rewarding cars to own, work on and drive.

[Craig 930 RS]

Awakened the desire to be a Track Whore. Which I now am ;-)

[aigel]

Took me less than a year before the rollbar went into the SC.

Now I actually need the back seat in the 993 for the offspring!

G