A Lifetime of Watching Porsches (Part 1)
A Lifetime of Watching Porsches (Part 1)
I have been admiring sports cars for over sixty years. It took me a while to warm up to Porsches, but when I did it was game over.
I am guilty of being one of those old guys who is buying up new 911s and annoying many You Tube content creators and boy racers out there. That’s right, I am a sixty-nine-year-old retiree who has had Porsches on his mind for decades without ever walking into a dealership until very recently. We senior first-time buyers are accused of softening the brand by driving cautiously and demanding our old-person creature comforts.
In my defense, I respond by saying there are two types of Porsche enthusiasts. Members of the first group are enamored with the brand, not the car, the idea of being seen in a Porsche, the status it confers and its luxury bits. The second group are enthusiasts. They know every technical detail of every 992 variant, recognize every generation of the 911 going back to 1963, can talk endlessly about the life and times of Dr. Ferry Porsche, are excited about driving in general and come alive when taking their 911 or Cayman out for a spin, be it on a track day, a road trip, or picking up milk at the grocery store. I have found that both type of Porsche owner reveals their tendencies regardless of age. I would like to think I am a member of that second group who demand sports cars be sports cars even though the reflexes of some of us may be a little slower than when we were younger. Our devotion to Porsche runs deep and, in my case, started a long time ago. Let me explain the history of that devotion and how the German manufacturer earned it.
Long before wanting to own a Porsche I was aware of the brand. The first Porsche I saw was as an eleven or twelve-year-old in the summer of 1965 or 1966. It was a well worn 356 that was parked across the street from my house in East End Montreal. It looked like nothing on the road yet exuded a strange VW Beetle vibe. I had no idea what it was. It had an extremely short wheel base, was shaped like an inverted claw-foot bathtub missing the clawfoots and appeared as wide as it was long. Accustomed to admiring motorsport-inspired American cars and British-made two seaters, the 356 interior was shocking. No chrome, no fake or real wood, no centre console, no rows of toggle switches. What I saw inside were two bucket seats, a dashboard painted in exterior body color, a purposeful looking body-colored Pyrex steering wheel and a long stick shift poking out of the carpet of a very flat floor. And there was plenty of carpet. It covered all of the expansive foot-well and completely wrapped that seatless area behind the front seats. I was not impressed. Except for the bucket seats, to me that was no sports car.
Back to the outside. The car was low to the ground, very low in the eyes of a young 1960’s car watcher. The front end looked racy and received my approval. The Porsche emblem was displayed on its frunk-lid handle and that’s when I realized I was in the presence a 356, which I had read about in Road & Track magazine. It was fitted with pretty fat tires for a car that size but the plain steel wheels they were attached to failed the cool-car test miserably. Where were the chromed up five-spoke Crager mag-wheels, the necessary accessory that was beginning to dominate mid-1960s performance cars in North America?
The rear of the car looked otherworldly. There was nothing on the road that looked like this. A strange rectangular grill on a bulbous engine lid (or two, I honestly can’t remember) and that stubby fast-back were a source of confusion, not admiration. Topping it off was the addition of a gold-colored model identifier somewhere back there that spelled out Carrera in cursive script. That was the tipping point for me. Gold colored emblems presented to us during the era of chrome-by-the-acre was too esoteric for me. Not only that, the word Carrera was presented like it had been written by a fountain pen. I recoiled in horror thinking we are not in the 1930s, walked away without a second look and concluded this car was just plain weird. I could not understand why Road & Track thought it was such a big deal.
One thing my extraterrestrial 356 sighting did, however, was prompt me to pay attention to Porsche. I started noticing 911s when they drove by on the road but they were not much of an improvement in my mind. But being a car enthusiast who read all the car magazines I felt I had a responsibility to follow the brand. A few years later on De Maisonneuve Street I saw a white 911 speed by, it had a black Carrera sticker on its side and a duck tail on the back lid. Although it was stylized, that sticker was still in that dreaded cursive script. And what’s with the duck tail? Porsche back ends are distinctive enough, why the protrusion? Other than that, though, the car was low, fitted with serious looking alloy wheels, sounded menacing and gave the impression it was right off the race track. That sighting wasn’t enough to change my view on Porsche but intrigued, my interest in the brand continued to grow.
The 1970s saw me add Italian cars to my favorites with their delicate styling and unlike many Porsche watchers, I thought the mid-engine Porsche 914 was a really nice car and loved all of them regardless of the bubble-gum colors they came in. After graduating from university, marrying my wonderful wife Lydia and securing employment, all this in 1976, it was time to learn to drive. That happened in 1978 when I was 25 years old. It is odd that a car enthusiast learned to drive so late. My parents never owned a car, as a matter of fact neither one had ever driven one. So, I am not one to have had that father and son first-drive experience that most boys remember so fondly.
I took lessons from a driving school and chose to learn on a stick shift. That was a good decision. Shortly after obtaining my driver’s license, we purchased a second-hand Volkswagen Rabbit in bright yellow. It was a very good car to develop my driving skills in real world situations. It was light, had four speeds and being very boxy, excellent visibility on all four sides. We even took a trip to New York City in that car and its color blended well with the sea of yellow Checker Cabs of the era.
During the winter of 1980 a new employee joined the company I was working for. He and his wife were relocating from Switzerland and I spent time with him wanting to ensure he was settling in to his new environment. I learned that he was having his car shipped and it was a 911. In Part 2 of this story, I will describe how that car dramatically changed my perception of 911s.