Because I am incorrigible and like to bore people with tall tales and true about my sparkling automotive history, and having read Max’s tale of “Ones That Got Away” or “If I Could Turn Back Time” (oh that film-clip – a young man’s fancy and an old man’s dream!) I decided to risk my mental health by reflecting on opportunities lost.
This is the first installment…I can’t promise that the tales of woe will be sequential, but then again, they don’t need to be.
First off… 911 Race car – I believe my first foray into the concept of Porsche ownership was when I was alerted to an imported, skinny bumper, BRIGHT ORANGE (sound familiar?) 911 with cage and Bilsteins and seats and stuff, going for a song. Given that I had recently sold my DOHC, 4-wheel disked, LSD’d, caged but untamed rally car I was hankering for something different. I therefore wandered out on a Saturday afternoon to a near deserted factory complex in Bayswater to have a look at this thing … and got all slack-jawed. I wanted it….Until it injured me…. then tried to kill me.
You see some months earlier I had fractured a couple of ribs (long story…) but was now mended, or so I believed. Whereas I was quite used to clambering into a roll-caged rally car I was not used to clambering over side intrusion bars in low-slung Porkers. In an attempt to contort myself appropriately, I twisted awkwardly only to hear a muted snap followed a split-second later by a shooting pain in my side… which was a rib breaking! This caused me to straighten reflexively, which in turn made be bang my scone of the top of the roll cage, very nearly concussing myself. The bloke selling the car laughed so hard he needed a change of socks.
Notwithstanding the pain in my side and the fog in my head, I was determined to redeem my dignity and resolved to somehow get in and drive the thing. Finally working out how to seat myself without passing out from the pain, we set off around a “race track’ that was the quiet industrial-complex streets. The thing seemed quick. Really quick. And twitchy! After a couple of “laps”, with confidence growing, I became ambitious. Coming around a blind-ish corner I was confronted by a stray neighborhood dog standing in the middle of the road. He wasn’t fazed by the sight of a howling, orange beast coming at him (I suspect he was inured to it all judging by the collection of tyre marks left by the local V8 boys) so he didn’t move. I’d never driven a Porsche. I didn’t know about the pendulum effect so I slammed on the brakes. And the bloody car tried to kill me!! It swapped ends faster than I could say $&^#@$%!
From that point, for a long time, I swore off rear engine cars of all descriptions.
Until…. The 930 3.3 – James, first born son and principal heir to the title of “Boofhead”, feigned illness one day when he was about 10. Having received the call from the school, with my wife away at the time and being the dutiful parent, I left work at lunchtime to collect the ailing young-un. Sick? Rubbish. I couldn’t take him back to school but he didn’t need tending so to keep myself entertained I got on the computer and started feeding my fancy (for Porsches, not Cher). Calling out to me was a nice silver 930 3.3 for sale at about $60,000. Really? So I grabbed the Boofhead and headed out to have look. The abiding memory for both of us is taking off from the Grange Road roundabout up St Georges Road with a Heavy Wellie and realizing I needed this car. A phone call to my wife at her parent’s farm soon quashed any ambitions. She reminded me that funds would be better used in the new business rather than to feed my addiction….(sigh).
But wait…there’s more…
To be continued.
By Robbo (Ian Roberts)