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.

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Mileage birthday candles.

It's not all that precious

It’s expectedly strange to drive around in a car costing six-figures: the price-tag never really leaves the back of your mind. Every peculiar sound the car makes, loud or faint, causes an immediate reaction, questioning whether this will be the hour the car crumbles, costing to the tune of thousands of dollars.

It doesn’t help the GT3 is a manufactured in Germany, and we’re quite familiar with German automobiles’ reputation for reliability, which is to say, not good at all.

Alas this is what happens when you buy a car in that high of a price category, but you yourself am not sufficiently endowed monetarily as the typical owner (I don’t even make the price of the GT3 in salary annually). Surely those people have no issues dropping the occasional hundreds or thousands on an errant bent wheel or coil-pack failure, but I definitely do. I’m somewhat stretching it just to afford the 911 as it comes, so surprise repair bills are not welcomed sights.

Obviously, the prudent option would’ve been to buy not so nice of a car, but as the kids say these days, you only live once, and indeed I can pay for the GT3 and its associated running costs; it’s just that when things go wrong in a Porsche, the fix is usually spectacularly expensive (hello, Porsche tax!). Therefore I end up treating the car as if it’s the most fragile object in the world, like dodging even the smallest of road debris, or thinking it’s irreparably ruined at the first hint of any weird noises.   

Often times I have to remind myself the Porsche 911 is known for its robustness, a supreme legacy of reliably fun motoring for nearly six decades. It features some of the finest German engineering to exist, and ergo I shouldn’t be so apprehensive about driving it as I would any other car (within reason). The components that interacts with the ground are all motorsport focused, so the typical pothole isn’t going to do any damage. The engine is meant for heavy track abuse, so my putting around town and the occasional mountain road isn’t hurting a thing.

I have to train myself to let go of the GT3’s preciousness, and treat it as it’s meant to be: a superbly fast and immensely sporting transpiration device. Unexpected costs should be dealt with as they come unexpectedly, rather than keeping it constantly in mind. I bought the car for a sole reason, and that is to drive, unreservedly.

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Lens flare to make JJ Abrams proud.