I'm wide awake at 2:45 in the morning... Can't sleep for anything in the hopes that tomorrow my lifelong dream will come true! My pretty cool (and ridiculously sentimental) Porsche story follows.
Anyone that knows me knows that I'm a Porsche fanatic. There's something about these cars that just make me go insane. More than guns, more than photography, more than anything else, Porsche's just make me lose it. I love them! And like all Porsche fanatics, there is a special place in my heart for the old air-cooled cars. The air cooled flat six just has a presence about it that will make you fall in love with the car in spite of the rear engine's shortcomings... and the 1995-98 993 series cars are the air cooled daddies of them all.
So lets roll back to March-May of 2008. One of our family friends has always had cool cars lying around, but he's the kind of guy that goes through cars like shoes. He buys one, neglects the hell out of it until its worthless, then sells it for pennies and repeats the cycle. Anyways, three years previously, this friend had got a pristine 1995 Aventurine Green Porsche 911 C2 (rear wheel drive model). He then proceeded to use it as a daily driver and put 30,000 miles on it. When he finally got around to changing the oil he let one of his tractor mechanics do the job. Well, this guy who was totally unfamiliar with Porsches, proceeded to totally wreck both oil filter flanges (the engine oil filter flange, and the oil tank flange) by using the wrong oil filters. In addition, both the interior and exterior were completely trashed. Cigar butts all over the inside, coffee stains down the sides (and somehow the backs) of the seats, the list goes on and on... It was horrendous. As apposed to fixing it, my friend just let the car sit in his backyard for three years. Totally untouched.
In April of 08, my junior prom was coming up and I just had to take that Porsche to prom. I told the friend that I would pay for all of the necessary parts, and fix the car, in exchange for him letting me take the car to prom, incidentally I was taking the girl who is now my fiance to the prom. He agreed, and after the first week of repairs and maintenance, I had a Porsche 993 for three whole months. They were some of the very best months of my life. (I actually mentioned this car and my repairs of it to Todd in the April AFHF course when we discussing his Porsche Driving School experience on the way to dinner) Below are some pictures of the car, and a high school era jstyer, when I was taking it to prom. You can see the discoloration on the bumper due to its years it spent outside.
2008 Front by jstyer, on Flickr
2008 Profile by jstyer, on Flickr
Needless to say, giving up the car was incredibly hard. After all the time and affection I'd put into this car, it was going right back to its life of abuse.
Fast forward to present day...
This car, and the memories surrounding it, have always held a very special place in my heart. There's not a month that goes by that I don't remember the old Porsche and wish that I had it. Especially knowing that my friend had either chopped up and parted the car out, crashed it, or let it rust into a useless hulk. However, the question was always nagging me as to whether this car was still around, maybe even still in one piece!!!
So this last weekend, before school started back up, I decided to make a two hour drive back to where the friend used to keep the car to see if it was still around... Just to put that little nagging bug to rest. I set out on the drive fully expecting the friend to have moved, and the car to be crashed, sold, or worse.
I arrived at his house way out in the middle of nowhere, literally 30 miles from the nearest paved road, and low and behold there was an open barn door I could see from the road. Through the door sat the old Porsche! My heart was in my throat! There was a minivan in the driveway, so I knocked on the door and while my friend wasn't home, his house sitter/cleaning lady was. After explaining while I was there, she let me walk over and take a look at the car. Believe it or not, the car has been sitting right where I left it for the last four years. The odometer shows that it was only driven for 26 miles since I parked it there many years ago. And by the looks of it, those 26 miles occurred shortly after I dropped it off. Below you can see the car in its 2012 state.
2012 Front by jstyer, on Flickr
2012 Front 1/4 by jstyer, on Flickr
2012 Engine by jstyer, on Flickr
2012 Rear Quarter by jstyer, on Flickr
The funny thing is, that the passenger side floorboard still shows the vacuum marks (the little lines in the carpet that happen when you vacuum) from when I cleaned the interior back in 2008!
My friend arrived home yesterday, and today I drive back out to make him an offer on the car. I have no idea if he'll even entertain the idea of selling the car... But hopefully if I can appeal to both his heart and his wallet, I can make a deal.
Wish me luck!!! Later this afternoon I'll either be the saddest boy in Texas, or I'll have some great news to share... as well as having totally exhausted my new gun finances for a long, long, time!
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