Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

No Porsche for broke boys

Porsche announced today mid-cycle updates to the 992-generation 911 (992.1). My first reaction was: Jesus Christ, a base poverty-spec Carerra starts at $120,000 now?! That is not a lot of car for a crap ton of money. And that price is before you check any of the hundred of boxes on the options list. You want your 992.2 911 in traditional Guards Red color? That’s will cost $1,800 extra, whereas it was an no cost option in the 992.1. Kind of blasphemous.

Porsche seems to be evolving into a Ferrari-like way of doing business: charging extravagantly for its cars - because it can. The demand for its sports cars remains insatiable, so why not raise pricing across its lineup? Heck, the special edition 911s - the ones enthusiasts ejaculate over - are all at Ferrari level pricing anyways, after the dealership tacks on $150,000 of additional markup.

Can’t hate the player, nor can I hate the game. Dealerships charge markups because someone out there is willing to pay. Us broke boys can’t be mad that we don’t got (or unwilling to spend) the money.

New Porsche sports cars are for the wealthy car enthusiasts now. No car guy making middle-class income should be throwing down $120,000 (at least) for a new 911 (or any six-figure car). That’s not a value judgement, it’s just math. I know auto financing can stretch into seven or eight years these days, but one look at an amortization table should scare anyone off. A $120,000 car, putting a 10% downpayment, for an 84 months loan at 5.99% will equate to over $27,000 of interest alone.

You can buy a brand-new Toyota Corolla with that money.

Money back

So my auto insurance came up for renewal recently, and I received a nice chunk of money back for the previous six-month period. Due to the coronavirus situation and how almost everyone is driving far less miles than before, insurance companies have saw fit to refund 15% of our premiums. While I’ll never complain about getting money returned to me, a measly 15% does seem bit small given that I’ve only driven a quarter of the miles I’d usually put on the car compared to last year. I feel like we deserve more than 15%, especially when these days, my 911 sits parked for 28 days out of a month.

Granted, because it is a 911, the amount of premiums I got in return is actually quite substantial - some two hundred dollars. It’s a testament to just how enormously expensive it is to insure a six-figure sports car in San Francisco, a city that’s notorious for car break-ins. That is indeed paying to play, as the saying goes; I would be a far richer person if I didn’t like cars and otherwise fully okay with driving around in a plain Japanese sedan. Alas it is destiny that I would be spending a significant chunk of disposable income to keep an expensive German sports car around.

One that’s barely done 500 miles since the COVID-19 lockdowns began in March.

I have thought about cancelling insurance on the 911 for the duration of the shelter-in-place, though on second thought that would not be wise because the car is not parked safely in a garage, so if someone were to tamper with it, last thing I want is to not have coverage. Things can get pricey very quickly: the front bumper alone - just the skin - is $6,000 dollars for a genuine replacement piece. That’s definitely not something I’d want to or can pay out of pocket for, should it get bashed in by another car while the 911 is stationary.

Besides, it’s rather therapeutic to take the car out on periodic drives; anything to escape being stuck to our homes. I’ll happily continue to pay the exorbitant insurance premiums.

The ultimate driving

It was the best drive I’ve had in a very long time.

This past Sunday, it was time once again to take the 911 out for a spin. It’s been an entire month since I last moved it - due to the COVID-19 lockdown situation - so it was somewhat overdue for a bit of mechanical warmup and battery charging. Of course, in typical German fashion, the Porsche started right up on the third spin of the starter motor. The exterior that hasn’t been washed since the February is decidedly dusty now, but as they say, you can’t see the outside once you are sat on the inside.

For some reason, this particular drive was extra good. In recent weeks, it feels as if there’s been a weight taken off me, a part of an ongoing practice of being in the present. There’s been a breakthrough of sorts that allowed me to let go of something that’s been subtlety bothering me for the longest time. Freed from those burdens, I was able to concentrate fully on simply driving the 911, rather than having a thousand other thoughts running through my mind. I rediscovered what a joy and privilege it is to be able to own a sports car of this caliber; the scent of the leather, and the tactility of the controls.

Even though the San Mateo mountains were teeming with outdoorsy folks enjoying a sunny weekend, and the roads were mired with more traffic than usual, it didn’t dampen the spirit of the drive any less. I was so completely focused on interacting with the car that it didn’t matter I wasn’t able to go the speeds a car enthusiast would prefer. The bliss was purely from being there driving, and going nowhere in particular. With music playing on the stereo in the background to accompany the sweet engine noise, it was calm and meditative experience. I can still feel the euphoric glow as I’m typing this a whole day after.

Being utterly present in the moment and letting go of things that don’t matter is such a powerful practice.

Sneaking out for a drive

Even the homeliest of homebodies need to get out of the house sometimes, and that moment for me was this past weekend. I have the utmost respect for our medical first responders fighting the good fight against the coronavirus, so I’ve been strictly adhering to the shelter-at-home order - it’s been weeks since I’ve put on a proper pair of pants. That said, some essential errands you simply have to leave the house to do, and one such thing for me is to take the Porsche 911 out of a drive.

Mind you it’s not because I desperately need to take the car out for a spin; I’m perfectly okay with letting the 911 sit for the entire duration of however long this lockdown ends up taking. However, for the good of the car, I cannot let it stay stationary for too long, because the battery will die. Where I have it parked, there are no provisions to plug in a tickle charger, so these periodic drives to keep the battery and mechanics in top shape have to done.

The maximum I’ve gone between moving the car is three weeks.

I won’t lie and say it wasn’t nice to be on the road and driving again. In fact, it was absolutely sublime; I’d forgotten what fresh air smelled like. Due to the quarantine conditions, there was far less traffic on my usual mountain routes too, though I kept it at a far slower pace than usual. Last thing I want to do is to bin it off a sharp corner because I was going to fast, and then requiring emergency personnel to mend me - personnel who have way more important things to tend to at the moment.

It was eerie to see the usual parking lots and recreation areas all cordoned off, with signs of no parking and health warnings plastered everywhere. On a good and normal day, the parks in the mountain would be teeming with hikers and outdoorsy people. I guess it’s a testament to how well overall the Bay Area has done to keeping it locked down and at home, patiently waiting out this coronavirus peak.

If the shelter-in-place order is still in effect in three weeks’ time, it’ll be the next opportunity the 911 gets its required exercise.

No Porsche until the weekend

The problem with having your weekend car stored many miles from where you live is that you can’t do anything to it during the work week. Even as parts arrive and you’re eager to slap them on or make repairs, you’re prevented from doing so because getting to the car itself is supremely time-consuming (could easily become a two-hour round trip, in my case). So you have to be patient and wait for the weekend to arrive, which is easier said than done no matter how much you love your job.

It’s just another part of the car enthusiast disease.

I don’t really pine for much these days - trying to be anti-materialistic and all, but a place to live with proper garage space to park the 911 is low-key at the very top of the goals list. Indeed there are days I feel frustrated I can’t even lay eyes my car because it’s stored so far away, especially one I paid so much money for. What it must be like for people to take their morning coffee in the garage while starring at their beloved machine and studying the lines. That’s a feeling I rather like to find out for myself in this lifetime.

However, to bring up housing in San Francisco is to invite despair; buying property anywhere near the city would mean I’d have to sell the 911 - I can’t have both. There may come a time I will have to make that decision, but as of right now I’m keen to hold onto the car for as long as possible. Because selling it means I’d be forsaking amortizing the value of the taxes paid when I bought the car - you don’t recoup that on a sale. I can stomach regular depreciation that any vehicle has, but a five-figure tax bill? I’d like to draw quite a bit more utility out of that than a mere few years of ownership.

I’ve bought my dream car, though it seems I did it backwards because usually you’d want an appropriate living situation first. That said, following the typical is so boring; that’s the story I’m telling myself, anyways.

I don’t often go downtown, but when I do…

Life comes at you fast

San Francisco has been experiencing some heavy wind conditions lately, and an unfortunate victim to the numerous debris being blown around is my brother. A few rocks that my mother have been collecting over the years flew off the balcony ledge due to the strong winds, and a particular one landed on my brother’s parked car, right on the trailing edge of the trunk lid. Obviously, as a fellow car enthusiast who is deeply passionate about cars, this incident pained my brother a lot, having to deal with a fresh imperfection that’s through no fault of his.

As someone who has a few years on my brother, and used to be just as obsessive compulsive about keeping his car as perfect as possible, I cautioned him that stuff like this is just the nature of the beast, and it happens to everybody. The only way to keep a car absolutely pristine is to parked it indoors under climate-control and never drive it. Our brand of car enthusiasm is actually driving and using our cars, so we simply have to take the lumps as they come. Damage can be fixed, and worse comes to worse, entire cars can be replaced. Merely objects, after all.

Of course, it’s easy to preach calm and stoicism when it isn’t you who is suffering the anguish, and as life would have it, I quickly got my own dose of minor car damage to deal with. I was out driving the 911 as usual this past weekend, and on an especially narrow mountain road, I dipped the right-front wheel off the tarmac while trying to avoid an oncoming car that wasn’t keen on keeping lane discipline - it was either that or crash. With the GT3 being super low to the ground, the lack of suspension travel meant the car briefly bottom-out on the section immediately next to the wheel. The scrape of plastic and metallic was the stuff of car enthusiast nightmares.

Luckily, the damage to the 911 is only a small road-rash to the underside of the front pan, and one broken bumper retainer, which costs $50 dollars to replace (For a simple piece of plastic! The Porsche-tax is real). The damage to my psyche however was a constant battle between dwelling on the mistake and taking the same advice I gave to my brother. Old OCD habits die really difficultly, and I had to keep reminding myself that one, shit like this happens when you put miles on the car, and two, the damage is superficial and completely out of sight once the broken retainer is replaced.

The moment you think you’ve matured enough to handle things properly that used to bother you mentally, life will throw you a test to find out for sure. As I always say, with anything in relations to mental health, it’s a work in progress.

I don’t always drink Coca Cola, but when I do, it’s got to be Mexican Coke.

Safety recall on the 911

A few days ago, I received a safety recall notice mailer from Porsche Cars North America. My initial reaction was one of mild annoyance, because my favored dealership is some 40 miles away, and having to take my 911 there out of schedule would be a pain in the butt. That’s right, I was more concerned about logistics, rather than what the recall was about. Because I knew that whatever it was, I would not be out of pocket for any costs, and honestly I had some curiosity on exactly what Porsche - the vaunted German automaker - can actually screw up on.

Turns out, it was much to do with nothing: the safety recall was about insufficient documentation in the owner’s manual, particularly the section pertaining to the child safety restraint system - think car seats for kids. Inside the same envelope was the remedy/fix: a new supplement to the manual, printed on solid paper stock, with the freshly printed smell you’d expect. I’m sure to Porsche all of this is but a drop in the bucket cost-wise, but from my decidedly plebeian perspective, spending hundreds of thousands just to print and send out a supplement seems a bit excessive.

Especially considering, and I’m confident in saying this, no GT car owner has ever used the child restraint system in their specialized 911. These are thoroughbred sports cars of the highest order, not a vehicle to ferry the babies around (that would be a Porsche Macan, naturally). Not to say we shouldn’t: I would wholeheartedly salute the GT 911 owner who actually uses a child car-seat regularly. People who uses their cars rather than letting them sit in a heated garage are the true heroes of car enthusiasm, like this guy who takes his GT 911 to the snow.

Now that I think about it, when it’s time for me to have progeny and god-willing I still have my GT3, I’d totally put a child-seat in the front passenger space to shuttle the baby around. It’s never too early to get a kid started on the path to passion for Porsche and cars in general.