Well, I certainly didn’t think I would be writing the concluding chapter on my 911 GT3 quite so soon. 2020 is definitely a year in the record books for craziness, and apparently that includes me selling what was supposed to my “forever car”. Indeed, I would be happy to keep the GT3 until it can no longer mechanically function, but real life intervened, and sadly I have to part ways with an absolute dream car.
A long story short, I am moving; much closer to work, to be precise. Transplanting myself to the western side of San Francisco means I will now have extra rental expense each month. Anytime the budget gets impacted this dramatically, you have to do the math to ensure you are not over-stretching on fixed costs. After recalculating with the additional increase in rental cost, it turns out I can still afford to keep the 911 GT3 around! Good news.
So why did I sell it?
There’s a massive difference between “can” and “should”. Car enthusiasts aren’t known for making the wisest financial decisions, spending significant amount of our income on what is largely depreciating assets. But what is a hard life of work for if not to spend money on things that we are passionate about, things that make us happy? I obviously have zero qualms about putting lots of money into cars: I wouldn’t have bought a six-figure sports car on a middle-class income if I did. However, factoring in the new rent price, the cost to keep the GT3 would have dominated my entire financial situation.
I can’t have that.
I love cars, and will continue to love them, but I can’t sacrifice other aspects of life in service of that singular passion. I don’t want to be so “car poor” that I have to hesitate when friends ask me to join them on foreign travels, or there’s a fancy new camera that I really would like to get (photography, the other passion of mine). This is not a slight toward people who would rather eat cup noodles for every meal just to have enough money to make payments on an awesome car. How a person use their cash is not for me to criticize. Keeping the 911 would mean less freedom to do other things, which for me is not an option.
Therefore it is time to bid a bon farewell to my 911 GT3. It’s been the privilege of a lifetime to have owned the iconic Porsche for just under two years. 7,000 miles may seem like plenty for a car that’s only used on the weekends for fun, but had COVID-19 not derail all of our 2020 plans, that mileage total would have easily been in the five-figures. The one regret I have for this period of ownership is that I never took the GT3 out on a properly long road trip. Extended multi-day drives with a car engineered for that track would have been a hilariously fun time, even if my back wouldn’t have agreed.
Buying the GT3 allowed me to tick off some significant boxes on the car enthusiast bucket list. Not only did I own a Porsche 911, but in GT3 trim I got to experience a naturally-aspirated motor that revs to 9,000 RPM. It’s the first car I’ve ever owned with the engine situated behind me, and the trunk is actually at the front. Armed with the supreme PDK gearbox, the GT3 was also the first automatic car after a string of manuals. Granted, automatic transmissions don’t come much sweeter than the dual-clutch unit in a 911.
I’d be lying if I wasn’t sad to sell the GT3, but the overwhelming emotion after leaving the car behind at the dealership I traded it into is one of immense gratitude. A kid like me from a working-class background got drive one of the pinnacle modern sports cars for nearly two years. What’s there to be sad about, really?
Good things, bad things: none of this is ever permanent. We can only move onwards and up. To that end, of course I’ve purchased another car to replace the effervescent GT3. Half the price of a six-figure sports car can still buy you plenty of interesting metal to satisfy those enthusiast cravings. So don’t worry: it’s another sports car (no sports utility vehicles here), one I will tell you about in its own diary series very soon.
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Date acquired: January 2019
Total mileage: 30,706
Mileage since purchase: 6,931
Total running cost: $11,953.86
MPG this month: 15.9 mpg