Blog

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

Gamble to rumble

One of my frequent YouTube channels is Tyrrell's Classic Workshop. The latest video shows the proprietor going over to Paris, France for a car auction. In that very car auction is a Ferrari 250 LM that sold for 28 million euros. An unfathomably large sum - to spend on a single car - for a broke person with meager means like myself.

A tremendous amount of money for a thing that will largely sit in an air-conditioned garage for many years. Until the next supremely rich car guy pays even more for it. Heck, the buyer might not even have to pay taxes if the car is stored in a free port. Vintage Ferrari race cars: the only time a car is an “investment”. Your paint-to-sample Porsche 911, sadly, is not. That money is better thrown into an S&P 500 fund.

The pain from being a broke car guy is that I don’t have the means to sample the variety of cars out there. I can only do so in the virtual world of Gran Turismo (the only way I can “own” and “drive” a Ferrari). A large garage full of automobiles is not in the cards for me, in this life time. I’d have to first afford a garage.

Then there are cars that’s wholly out of my income range. As a former owner of a 2015 Porsche 911 GT3, I currently cannot afford a 2025 Porsche 911 GT3. The starting MSRP has ballooned from $125,000 to $200,000. My incomes has not kept up with that inflation. And that’s before ticking a single option box, and paying extortion money to the selling dealership.

I can see why people gamble their whole money into specific stock options and/or crypto. There are so many nice things out there (it’s not only cars) that if we can just get a huge sum of money very quickly, we’d be able to buy and enjoy them all. They don’t want to wait the many decades in working hard and accumulating wealth slowly. Because a 911 GT3 won’t be brand new on sale for that much longer.

In lieu of getting extremely lucky in a gamble - not that I would in the first place, I hugely temper my expectations.

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.

10K in the M2

Recently I noticed my BMW M2 Competition’s odometer ticked over 10,000 miles. It’s taken about two years of ownership to get there, which is to say: a rather long period. A non-insignificant chunk of those miles isn’t even of my doing. The three longest drive taken in my M2 was by other drivers who borrowed the car. The longest I’ve done was two trips to West Sacramento IKEA (from San Francisco) because it was the lone store in the region in stock with the pieces of furniture I wanted.

10,000 miles in two years is easily the least amount of mileage of any car I’ve owned. Even my previous Porsche 911 GT3 - a complete leisure vehicle - would have done the equivalent of 12,000 miles. Living within walking distance of everything - work, play, errands - utterly kills any need of driving. The absolutely bonkers gas prices of 2022 - thanks to the war in Ukraine, I guess? - have limited even the joyful cruises in the local mountains and coastal roads.

Despite the relatively limited seat time, I remain utterly in love with the M2 Competition. It’s such a spritely little coupe with some big power to back it up. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the BMW is more fun to drive than the GT3, albeit in my super amateurish hands. The Porsche is the more eventful car, however: each drive is an absolute occasion. I will always miss the GT3.

The M2 does the everyday life stuff better, too. The trunk is comparatively enormous, and any items bigger than it can be stowed by flipping down the rear seats. The aforementioned IKEA run was easily accomplished. Driving friends to the airport? No problems at all. Anything larger than a carry-on suitcase wouldn’t fit in the 911’s trunk. The BMW is an entirely friendlier car, both to me and my friends. There’s no place I wouldn’t take the M2 to and park it, which is not something I dared to do with the GT3.

All that is to say it was the correct decision to sell the Porsche for the M2 - even if I could afford to keep the Porsche. The M2 fits my lifestyle far better. The fact that it’s more fun to drive as well? I’m incredibly pleased with this BMW. Cheers to more many miles to come.

992 GT3

We have a new 911 GT3! The 992 generation of the do-everything track-toy carries over the same 4.0-liter naturally aspirated flat-six from the previous car, along with the beloved six-speed manual. You can of course still option for the automatic PDK gearbox. Straight line performance of the new GT3 isn’t any quicker, though it really doesn’t need to be when the 991 GT3 already reaches 60 miles an hour in the mid three seconds.

GT3 is a car for lap times and track performance. The advancements in the 992 is all down to aerodynamics and kinematics. An increase in downforce is visually evident in the swan-neck rear spoiler and the fancy rear diffuser. Double-wishbone front suspension makes an appearance in a 911 for the very first time, promising better geometry as the suspension loads up in the corners. Mustn’t forget the tires: Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 R tires are a step above the non-R equivalents of the prior generation.

You may lose to a Tesla car at the stoplight sprints, but you’ll be faster than the 918 Spyder hypercar around a racing circuit. That’s what the vaunted GT3 badge is all about: absolute speed at the bendy bits.

The new car looks attractive, too. Especially the front-end, which utterly apes the look of the racing Cup cars. The signature rear light-bar of the 992 generation 911 is still ugly. No amount of aero bits in the GT3 can mask that ugliness.

I would lying if I said the announcement of the 992 GT3 didn’t make me pang for my departed 991.1 GT3. While the M2 Competition is quite the consolation prize, a 911 is still a 911. The BMW inline-six is venerable in its own right, but it cannot match the Porsche flat-six, one that revs to 9,000 RPM, for pure character.

I vow to get back into a GT3 in due time. In fact, I’m rather happy to see another generation of the lineage. Porsche sold relatively many 991 GT3s, so combined with the 992 production run, there’s going to be plenty on the used market for me to choose from. It’s not going to become some appreciated unobtanium like early air-cooled 911s.

Soon.

Heavy sunk cost

I am happy to report: I defeated the sunk-cost fallacy.

Sunk-cost fallacy is when you’ve invested so much time and resources (read: money) into a thing, that you are reluctant to pull the plug because of the perceived waste of said time and resources. So desperate for maximum utility that it blinds and binds you from the potential benefits of letting something go. In my case, the sunk-cost was the enormous sum towards buying and owning the 911 GT3. I was so financially invested into that car that selling it right now would mean a hugely negative return on that money - it hasn’t yet amortize over a long enough period of time.

So I was effectively locked into the expensive sports car, all the while hampering the progress of other life changes. The GT3 was not a financial albatross, but it was enough of a burden on my monthly budget that any large expenditure would require some heavy consultation and thought.

Recent circumstances have made it clear that I need to move to the west side of San Francisco, for many reasons, primarily to be closer to campus. The additional monthly rental cost means keeping the GT3 would have been quite difficult. I could have made it work, but ultimately, having the freedom to do other things triumphs over my absolute love for the GT3. So, I sold the 911, and along with it the many tens of thousands of dollars I’ve already put into the car, so naively thinking I would keep the GT3 forever, and therefore be able to amortize that expense over decades.

2020 had different plans - for all of us, I suppose. It was a tough decision to let the GT3 go, but I have only gratitude for the opportunity of a lifetime to own such an amazing car.

This is a special car

I wonder: how much this would have cost me if the car didn’t have its certified preowned warranty?

Yesterday I took the GT3 in for an unscheduled visit to the dealership because the HVAC system was not doing anything at all: no air would come out of the vents, no matter the setting. This issue was confirmed on Tuesday, and I was surprised I was able to get an appointment only two days later - provided that I select the option for waiting while the work is being done (Appointments where a loaner car would be provided are many weeks out). This would prove to be an error on my part.

Because apparently you cannot treat Porsche GT cars as normal; only a special group of mechanics are allowed to work on them, and depending on their schedule, your car might not be looked at right away. In essence, every time a GT car comes in for service, expect to leave it there for a at least a few days. Being new to the Porsche GT car world, I didn’t not know about this until yesterday when my service advisor informed me to the fact: diagnostics will take more than a few hours, and that I should find transportation home instead of waiting potentially the whole day at the dealership and still might not get to take the GT3 home at the end.

The proper way to do it - should I desire a loaner car - would be to either call the service advisor directly to schedule, or to select the appointment times with that option on the online scheduler. A 911 GT3 is definitely not the typical Toyota Corolla, though the Corolla probably wouldn’t need any unscheduled service visits because being a Toyota product, nothing will break ever. Honestly though, I rather get this fixed quickly than to wait a few weeks just so my service experience would be a bit more comfortable. Driving a car without any ventilation during Summer is far from ideal.

So what is actually wrong with my GT3’s HVAC system? Apparently the main blower has failed, and the entire unit is being replaced. Thanks to the car still having its CPO warranty, this will cost me exactly zero dollars out of pocket. This episode is a good reminder to purchase an aftermarket extended warranty once the CPO one expires; I simply cannot trust a German-made car to not have extraneous problems throughout its life. Insurance for the peace of mind is well worth it.

Not even air cooled

I always knew it’s was a reliability risk in buying a German car rather than one made in Japan, even one as beautifully engineered as a 911, from a brand - Porsche - that’s got a great contrarian record of reliability. My one plus year with the GT3 was going quite well free of any hiccups. but the curse of the German car gremlins struck this past weekend while I was taking the car out for a drive to charge the battery, after having sat unmoved for over three weeks (COVID conditioning, I’d call it).

It was a typical cool day in San Francisco, so I didn’t notice it initially; after 15 minutes or so on the drive, I started to feel a bit stuffy and hot, which is abnormal because the car’s automatic climate control is set to 70 degrees fahrenheit at all times. I checked the air vents with my hands and felt a slight breeze coming out, so I dismissed the thought of anything being amiss; perhaps I just happened to catch the sun at a bad angle or something.

It wasn’t until I got further south - and the outside temperature climbed into the upper 80s - did I realize that something was wrong: the cabin was indeed getting hotter and hotter. As a test, I pressed the button for maximum air conditioning, but absolutely no air came out of the vents: the usual loud cyclone of whooshing noises were nowhere to be found. I then turned off the AC, and manually bumped up the fan speed; again, nothing, not a breath of air can be felt from the ventilation system.

I found a highway rest stop to momentarily park the car to see if turning it off and back on (it’s a cliche in the tech support world because it works an amazing amount of time) would do the trick to resolve the problem. Sadly it did not. Faced with rising temperatures with no way to cool down the interior, I resorted to head home and make an appointment at the dealership for the earliest possible date. Hilarious that I was just writing last week about the the negative aspects of owning a car - the time and money you have to spend when things go awry, like a tire puncture, or in my case, a malfunctioning HVAC system.

At least I get to tick this off my list: a German-made car with an unscheduled visit to the dealer service department.