BOOJIE ALERT Last tuesday night I had a tickle in my throat. Didn't feel good. Wednesday I took it easy and flew down to LA. Thursday I picked up Frau Grau, then put a $500 iPhone/Android-compatible stereo in. Friday we cheated north to Santa Barbara, then the coast to Pismo, then the 101 to San Fran, then the coast clear to Jenner before being forced to cut in clear to Guerneville in order to find somewhere to stay. The Porsche 996 is such a sublime little car that it will let you do LA at rush hour, then 400 miles of spirited twisty-turny driving, then San Fran at rush hour, then 400 miles of spirited twisty-turny driving before you collapse with a cold in Guerneville. Saturday we headed back to the coast and took it clear to Crescent City before cutting inland to the 5 at Grant's Pass, then blitzed up the 5 until we got home at 3:30am. The Porsche 996 is such a sublime little car it will let you do 500 miles of spirited twisty-turny driving, then 300 miles of freeway bombing before you collapse with a worse cold at home. I have no voice yet I must scream. I owe all of Stuttgart an apology for 30 years of badmouthing. That car is a revelation. There's no way in hell I would have spent $90k on it new but it is a true privilege to pay Prius prices for such an uncompromisingly minimalist little driving machine. And it has been driven so little that the two days I spent driving it up here is more mileage than it has accrued since 2009. I bought it with a pair of P-zero Asymmetricos on it with less than a hundred miles since new... in 2012. The oil was changed 3000 miles ago... in 2009. We ran into some fog and turned on the wipers in Norcal... for the first time in the vehicle's life. To no one's surprise the wipers were a lot like balsa wood. And the front tires are dry-rotted. Every time we stopped it smelled like I'd done a burn-out. They got us here without drama but in taking my buddy to the airport and back they were telegraphing "we're done" signals like the Benelli does when it's deciding whether to kill you or not. Fortunately Porsches won't fall over in a turn but the front is skippier than I'd like (which is a lot less skippy than a Dodge Stealth with good tires). The previous owner had a Lexus SUV with 300k miles on it. He drove the Porsche when he "needed to think." Apparently he didn't need to think a whole lot. He mentioned he was thinking of buying a Turbo S. I told him I was going to be sending him christmas cards every year because when he decides he's done with his Turbo S at 10k miles 15 years from now, I wanna be first in line. For the money, I could have bought a V6 Mustang Fastback. LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL
Yes. yes I do. That said, the friends who desperately wanted me to buy an AMG ("one of us, one of us, one of us") have a commercial shop with lifts up in Lynden and they are itching to demonstrate its mechanical inferiority through maintenance. I also purchased the vehicle in no small part because it has experienced over $17k in maintenance in the past 18 months, during which time it has driven less than 100 miles (not including the 900 miles the dealership put on the dyno so they could fill its ECM with history for emissions testing). Said dealership actually charged the guy an hour labor to put on the tires, then billed him per tire weight. I also accidentally downloaded the shop manual to my phone while looking to see if it was available on the Internet. Finally, I don't drive much. I really don't. For work I ride a bike and when I'm not working, I basically drive to pick up my daughter or run errands. The 1500 miles I put on it last week will likely not be exceeded again through 2019. The car basically exists because I can't pick up my kid on a motorcycle. I'm exactly the guy to take on the care and feeding of a 15-year-old Porsche.
I would make one practical argument and one impractical one: 1) They weigh a fuckton. Which means that yeah - you can make them go just as fast and handle just as well but you have to try twice as hard. A p/w ratio in a 6000lb car comparable to a 3000lb car requires twice as much power. That means twice as much engine. Horsing it around a corner requires twice as much tire. These are solved problems, obviously - there's many a Bentley with no difficulty and an f'n Maserati Granturismo tips the scales at an astonishing 4300lbs - but a CLS55 at 4300 lbs is simply 1.5x the car of a Porsche convertible at 3000. The AMG has the advantage of spiriting you and your three buddies around in total comfort but really - fuck my three buddies. I need room for a companion and a toddler. 2) While neither of my two friends are members of the Armenian mafia, their cars most assuredly are. Anyone who has spent any time in Los Angeles has formed an indelible association between AMG and Brand Blvd. in Glendale. Which is not AMG's fault, which is wholly irrational, but there it is.