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