Everyone has a dream car. Our love affair with automobiles and the freedom they afford us never ceases to amaze me. Car enthusiasts like myself see the connection as more than just a love affair but a passion, which, among car nuts, can lead to hours of car talk. I also see it as a way to express my creativity. picture this scenario; you are driving home one day and by the side of the road of some unrecalled street you see a car with a "FOR SALE" sign taped haphazardly on the windshield. It can be any car,for that matter,as long as it has been in your "I-want-it-so-bad" list and just like any misdirected priority in our life, we go about to seeing we take that car home. This is, in fact, a daily happenstance in everyday America and it still happens even this very second.
Well, let me indulge you for a minute on a great story, one, which, in all intensive purposes seems like just another love affair with a car and an enthusiast wrenching away to help him or her relive the glory days of youth. However, this story has a twist. You see, for a long time now, I have great passion of for classic american iron of the muscle car era, to be exact. The deep rumble of big V8's has always been music to my ears. Combine that sweet sound with the perfect stance and a set of "slapper bars" tucked behind steamroller wide drag radials and you've concocted a formula for a perfect street bruiser. Never mind the fact that driving these cars enable gas attendants around a 2 block radius from your house to get to know you better, even on a first name basis. Of course, never mind also the fact that these cars had very poor handling and tend to squeak and rattle over time. All you ever cared about is you looked good driving in one of these behemoths and that no one dared challenge you when the light turns green. Can this be a car you can live with on a day to day basis? Probably not. But you don't care, right? Then you turn 40 and the next thing you know you start paying attention to the Viagra ads by the time 50 rolls around your corner. Then you come to the conclusion that you don't really want to drive around in your old sled anymore. Sounds familiar? Of course it is.
This is why I love Porsches. What, you say? Well, my perfect car is a 1970 911T without a sunroof, converted to Carrera RS specs but with modern engine, close ratio transmission, and brakes. Going back to what I just typed; why I love Porsches? Well, they are light, nimble, you can set them up for the track or slalom and still have an infinite number of combinations to fit whatever driving you plan to undertake in. Besides that, that enduring design has been around for as long as anyone remembers and still takes in rants and raves from just about any car nut out there. Ever see a 911 with a Venetian Blue paint reflecting the setting sun? Sinister and mysterious, that one. But looks and performance alone doesn't quite complete a car into the "perfect car" category. There has to be something more. With a 911, there is.
One hot summer day back in the day ( 1987 to be exact) I was picked up by a good friend of mine who had just purchased a Porsche 911 Carrera. Blacked out with that signature whale tail that car rode like its on rails. After a leisurely afternoon of just cruising around hoping to run into someone we knew (so that they can tell the girl we had crushes in we were in a Porsche), he decided to go to the freeway and stretch the Carrera's legs a bit. The sound of that flat six wailing away near redline as you row through the gears is music to any car lover's ear. We thought we had the coolest ride until another Porsche came abreast. A 911S probably circa 1969 or 1970 in Signal Orange and wearing 15 inch Fuchs didn't really pose a threat to a much newer sibling. Or so we thought. That car revved so effortlessly and just danced around our black Carrera as if we were just parked and standing still. Until this day I still couldn't figure out why we couldn't catch that little orange 911. Nor can I forget that sweaty summer afternoon back in '87.
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