Cars

An event that has been over a year in the making finally came to fruition yesterday morning. Back very early in 2017, when that year’s Motoring Challenge flyer came out with the requirement to take a picture of a car from every decade I had in mind what I wanted for my 80’s photo.

Somewhere in the past, either during a Miata Club meeting when he was a member or during the process of my buying the CTBNL from him, my Fairy Godfather David mentioned that he had an 1987 Porsche 911 Carrera. When I first asked him about it, he told me it was in the shop having the top end of the engine rebuilt and wouldn’t be done for a couple of months. He said, “When I get it back we’ll get together and you can drive it and then we’ll take the picture.” When the car was finished, he was then busy taking care of an aging father, I was still working and we never could get together. I ended up using a Pontiac Fiero for that decade instead.

Fast forward to last week, I’m on my morning neighborhood walk and who should pull up next to me in a Jeep, but David. Turns out has moved into my neck of the woods and was out running errands. He says, “I still owe you that drive.” His dad had since passed away and I’m retired, so I tell him, “Let’s do this crazy thing.” He says, “We can set aside a morning and you can drive the ’87 911 and whichever of my other cars you want.”

I knew he owned a 70’s vintage 914 and a 2016 Cayman S to go along with the 911, but I didn’t know about the 2nd 914, the 2nd 911 and a 2011 Boxster Spyder. So in the 4 hours we spent together I drove all 6 cars on a 15-20 mile loop along mostly county back roads. I drove them, not outrageously and only sometimes spirtedly because I’m not a professional driver and I’m basically used to driving relatively new-ish Miatas. Plus I really didn’t want to get a speeding ticket, smoosh somebody else’s car or them (or me for that matter.) I’ll try and give you a brief synopsis of my thoughts on each car, in the order I drove them.

1. 2016 Cayman S – A large¹, comfortable, very fast, sharp handling Grand Touring vehicle. David would tell you that it handles to beat the band and from the couple of turns I took at speeds slightly faster than I have in the Miata it was so composed that I’m sure he is right.

2. 2011 Boxster Spider – Driving this was a bit like driving the Cayman, though a touch lighter with same horsepower. It has a 6-speed transmission, but in the US, and driving legal speed limits, you really only need 1st and 2nd. Almost stupid fast. It is a Boxster so it is a convertible, it is a Spyder because the top is not the normal two-layer motorized stowing top, it has some cloth and poles and straps so that it goes up like erecting a 1950s era pup tent².

All these cars are standard transmission with three pedals on the floor. The first two cars were six-speed and the shift pattern was the same as the Mini. The last two cars had 5-speed transmissions with a shift pattern identical to the Miata. These next two in the middle are 5-speed as well, but gave me the most difficulty because the shift pattern was weird. Reverse is where 1st is traditionally in the upper left and 1st gear is in the lower left, where 2nd gear normally is.

3. 1973 914 2.0 – This car is more my style. It is roughly Miata sized all the way around. It has a slightly reduced HP number, but is a couple hundred pounds lighter making it maybe feel marginally faster. It drove nothing like a Miata though, along with the odd, to me, shift pattern it has no power steering and surprise, no power brakes³. Halfway through the loop the no power items turned into features, not bugs, and made the drive quite engaging. By the time I was finished even the shift pattern made sense and became second nature.

4. 1971 914/6 GT – While not a GT from the factory, it has nearly all the bits on it from the factory kit to make it pretty darn close to one. So, you take the previous car and bump the HP to more than double, add on some tidy upgraded suspension pieces and, from the sound of the thing, throw the muffler in the dust bin. It is a race car, thinly disguised as a street car and one hell of a hoot to drive. There were a couple of cars ahead of me when it came time to take the left turn which led to the usual loop, they went that way, so I went straight. I spent the next couple of miles stomping the go pedal for awhile and letting off to just to hear the car snarl and snap like a rabid mountain lion before turning back to the garage. It was the shortest drive of the day, but definitely the loudest.

5. 1970 911T – This is the car I think of when I dream of 911s, the Holy Grail of Porschedom. I was 15 in 1970 and I had a poster on my wall of this car⁴. This is the “hot rod” version of the car from that year because it has a bigger motor, has been lightened in several ways and has an upgraded suspension that lowers the car a bit. After the 914/6 GT this seemed almost too sedate, but it felt nimble and quick like I expected it to. And as a bonus, I felt like the coolest teenager on block for those 40 minutes of driving it.

6. 1987 911 Carrera – The car that started this event to begin with and it turned out it was the least satisfying of the bunch. Possibly because it was the end of day and we’d been driving around chatting for 3-1/2 hours already, but I didn’t push the car at all, I just drove like the ‘old man in a hat’ I am. Don’t get me wrong, if I won this car in a raffle or if an unknown uncle left me one in his will, I would drive the snot out of it. I would wash it monthly whether I had driven it or not. I would go to Coffee in Cars, I would take kids for rides, I would, well, you get the idea, but for this day, it was, “Meh.”

It’s nice to have friends who have cool cars. And they let you drive them!