Enthusiasts Blogging Our Favorite Classifieds
I suppose someone has to drive it. “It” in this case is a 1996 Porsche 911 Carrera. A classic 911 finished in Polar Silver over a rare Flamenco Red leather interior. It also has 18″ turbo-look wheels, a sunroof, and just 67,000 miles. One minor catch – it’s also got a gearbox that shifts itself.
I think sometimes we need to be reminded that old cars are in fact, old. As much as we romanticize them, at the end of the day they are just a bunch of parts pieced together inside a metal shell. We like to think that the older construction is somehow different, and that is the case for some cars, but a lot of times we experience Paris syndrome when it actually comes to driving them. These old cars often feel slow, sloppy, and can be a pain to live with just for basic creature comforts. Hello, Porsche 912.
The 912 has all the exterior looks of the big brother 911 with its long-hood design before the days of impact bumpers and can surely lure us in with its timelessness. However, you are soon reminded that it is powered by a flat-four that pumped out a little over 100 horsepower when it was new. Inside? Well, it has a radio. Maybe the heat works, if you’re lucky.
Very rarely does Porsche swing and miss. However, the early 718 Boxster GTS and Cayman GTS are probably a miss. When Porsche decided to go with turbocharged four cylinders for the 718 chassis, there were objections from fans. Loud objections. Porsche probably knew this but went with it anyway. There is a reason why they went with a flat-six for the GT4 and recently rethought GTS 4.0. That leaves the flat-four GTS examples in a real no man’s land given it was disappointing enough to be completely replaced mid-cycle. Not ideal.
Thankfully this 2018 Boxster GTS up for sale in California has the saving grace of being finished in paint-to-sample Brewster Green. This is one of my favorite colors in the entire PTS catalog and very rarely does it miss. Even on this orphan of a model.
Sometimes less is more. Just because you can throw everything on the car, doesn’t mean you should. At a point, there are too many designs and too many colors to even take in and it becomes a jumbled mess. Today’s car, a 1999 Porsche 911 Carrera 4 Cabriolet, might be one of those. It starts off great with a wonderful shade of Ocean Jade Metallic and then goes all downhill from there. You’ll see what I mean.
Judging by everything we know and learned over the past 60 or so years, the first-generation Porsche Cayenne should not be a vehicle that is aging well. It is built on the Volkswagen Group E platform shared with the Touareg and Audi Q7, which are vehicles you recommend to your worst enemy because you know they are disasters when used. The Cayenne wasn’t immune either with faults like cracked plastic coolant pipes, driveshaft carrier bearings that like to turn into dust, and if you are really unlucky, cylinder bore scoring. Still, enthusiasts are paying very good money for the Turbo examples along with today’s trim, the Cayenne GTS.
This 2009 Cayenne GTS up for sale in Georgia looks incredible from the photos and you’d think it was a low mileage example that was rarely driven. Nope. 204,000 miles. Wait until you see the amount of work that was needed to keep this one perfect.
