My wife and I play a lot of backgammon. We used to record our backgammon scores in a book. Over time, those yearly books became a bit like an old family bible. The book for any given year would record events, aspirations, goals, achievements. At the start of 2005, one of my listed goals in the backgammon book for that year was to “Buy an old Porsche”.
I’m still waiting, though this week I came mighty close.
Porsche is one of those marques with a truly iconic vehicle in it’s history, a vehicle that’s surrounded by the rest of the cars that wear a Porsche badge. If you aspire to owning a Porsche, you usually aspire to owning a 911. The problem with that is that buying a 911 can be prohibitively expensive. Here in Australia, you won’t get much change out of $30,000 for an older 911 and that’s not even one of the more desirable ones. A 1980’s Carrera with the 3.2 engine and G50 gearbox will set you back at least $35,000 for a cheapie and even more for a good one.
I aspire to owning a Porsche. I’m a car guy and they make some truly outstanding sports cars. I’ve always enjoyed their commitment to excellence in what they do and I freely admit that I’d like to have one, one day. Like most people, however, I can’t afford a new Porsche so I’m going to have to fill my perceived P-car needs via some entry-level, second hand cars.
A lot of people who share my dilemma find 1980’s Porsches that aren’t 911s to be an affordable entry point. These were the first water-cooled Porsches. They saved the company, had wonderful handling and their styling still stands up to scrutiny today, but they’re still part of “the rest” of Porsche’s range and I’m fine with that.
One of my favourite Porsches from this era is the 928 (the other is the 944 Turbo). In a recent update on my search for a new car, I asked about whether or not it was possible to have fun with an automatic transmission. I also mentioned that I was considering a big V8 cruise-mobile for my next car and a few people in comments guessed that it might be the 928 I was considering.
Well, this week, I took one for a test drive.
Continue reading Things I learned from not buying a Porsche 928