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POORSCHE
Get lucky in this journalism caper and you can easily enjoy a millionaire lifestyle - without the needless complication of massive personal wealth! For example, this week Daily Telegraph exec Drew Gibson dropped by my place to (briefly) hand over a Porsche Turbo Cabriolet he’d liberated from our paper’s road-test fleet:
These things retail here for around $350,000. Property values went up in my street just because it was parked there. Cost to insure? Probably more than the accumulated purchase price of all the cars I’ve ever owned.
A brief tasering and the keys were mine. First impression: seats are hard. Snug and supportive, but way solid. Also, when you aim your right foot at where the brake pedal should be, you hit the accelerator. The pedals - possibly because of an intrusive front differential (the Cabrio is all-wheel-drive) or possibly by design - are offset towards the driveline. Curious.
Doesn’t stop this complex device being absurdly simple to drive in slow traffic. Controls are as light as any you’d find in a sissy hatchback. The only hint of potential awesomeness is in the engine’s growly tone, menacing even at low revs. Hearing it, anyone who spent time at race tracks in the late 70s/early 80s would recall the vomp-vomp-vomp pitlane note of Porsche’s raw and violent 934 - a production-based racer that generated around 485 horsepower and treated timid or inexpert drivers cruelly.
A few decades on, the easy-rolling Cabrio pumps out 480 horses - and beats the 934 for torque and top speed. Plus it has electric/computerised everything (seats, windows, roof, traction) where the 934 required forceful manual control by people capable of biting through steel billets.
Drew is a terrific driver and very familiar with race-level cars, but is an anxious passenger, a condition I may not have improved. For the driver, though, this car is so overwhelmingly able that what should be scary-fast just ... isn’t. I’ve never driven anything that accelerates so rapidly. Scary? It was positively soothing.
Beyond certain speeds, those little quirks - rigid seats, weird pedal placement - begin to make sense. You need a serious bunch of lateral and fore-aft bracing, and the offset pedals are positioned perfectly for heel-toe downchanges (only logical; the angle of your right foot is reduced). Steering weights up beautifully. Gearshifts are practically subconscious. Brakes will dislodge eyeballs.
Only a couple of decades ago you needed a huge amount of money and sublime driving skills to get around quickly in a fast Porsche. Now all you need is the money. Or just get yourself on the gold-level Gibson friend list ...
Tim, you owe me a new keyboard.
Posted by flying pigs over mecca on 2008 01 12 at 12:12 PM • permalinkOtherwise known as “my next car.” Though not in that hideous yellow shade. I’m thinking silver…
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2008 01 12 at 12:47 PM • permalinkThough not in that hideous yellow shade.
Well, different strokes for different folks. That’d be my first choice!!
Posted by Tex Lovera on 2008 01 12 at 01:31 PM • permalinkYeah, but… does it come in a hybrid yet? How about one that runs on biodiesel or propane? The battery-powered Tesla looks pretty nifty, gets 135 mph and accelerates to 60mph in under four seconds. It should be a great commute car.
Posted by Mystery Meat on 2008 01 12 at 03:09 PM • permalinkI agree with Andrea about the color scheme. Otherwise, all that car lacks is a hot chick in skimpy clothing.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2008 01 12 at 04:14 PM • permalinkBLAIR YOU POSEUR!
Call yourself an evil right wing neofascist deathbeast?
You had a 400-hp Gaia-raping, hypermasculine piece of compensation under you AND YOU DIDN’T EVEN TAKE THE PIPES OFF FOR MAXIMUM CARBON OUTPUT?!
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2008 01 12 at 04:43 PM • permalinkDrew is a terrific driver and very familiar with race-level cars, but is an anxious passenger, a condition I may not have improved. For the driver, though, this car is so overwhelmingly able that what should be scary-fast just ... isn’t. I’ve never driven anything that accelerates so rapidly. Scary? It was positively soothing.
Though rather gauche Tim, you should have said…OK,OUT!
Then you could have driven to Perth and back, revelling in ecstasy.
BTW…terrifically funny.
Hope you took special care of
thosethat remaining point on your license!I can see you now, flying down the highway south of Sydney… Sea Cliff Bridge (scroll down the photos)*
(*yay, I found it!!)
Welcome to the Porsche experience, Tim.
I’m on my fourth (although, none as muscular as that one) - however, I completely recognize your description of the sensation of driving (in) one. They are wonderous machines.
The scary speed sensation - it’s almost as if a reletavistic force takes hold, and via time dilation - everything seems to be at a much more moderate pace - despite the numbers indicated on the instrumentation.
Everything about them is beautiful - except the care and feeding costs….
Posted by Wind Rider on 2008 01 12 at 05:14 PM • permalinkOh, one other thing. There is only one proper color.
Guards Red.
Posted by Wind Rider on 2008 01 12 at 05:14 PM • permalinkAnd wouldn’t you know. We just obtained three - just three - for the Transport & Logistics Department.
(wronwright picks up clipboard, thumbs through papers and finds waiting list of RWDB’s requesting new wheels. Notes Andrea’s name at top. Reaches for phone.)
** Flashback **
The year, 2006. wronwright writes the perfect Monty Python joke, which inexplainably breaks the view page. Suddenly he’s spanked by some dark, comely, yet menacing doministrix.
“Ooooow.”
“That’s for breaking the page wronwright.
(wronwright looks out the window at the sparkling new cherry red Porsche. And assigns Andrea the 1977 Ford Pinto)
Posted by wronwright on 2008 01 12 at 05:49 PM • permalinkOne can acquire one of these desirable conveyances in the UK for about 108000 GBP(237000 AUD),and that’s the drive away price including 17.5% VAT,rego.,dealer charges etc.That makes the UK price without VAT 202000 AUD.Even allowing for import duty,luxury car tax and GST how can that price be inflated to 350000 by the time the thing gets to Australia?
Tim,
just where did you drive a baby like that in Sydney?
You turn into Oxford St to give it a burn as you pass Centennial Park. Nope, a 60 zone that everyone religiously observes. OK,down into Moore Park Rd, time to give this sucker a workout you say to yourself, but it’s a 50 zone.
Some of the speed limits in Sydney are beyond belief and what’s worse, people observe them. Seriously, I wonder if there are more accidents during the ‘double demerits’ period than normal because drivers are watching if they are doing 50 km/h rather than each other.
#14 Redd;
Exactly what is that stuff that car is parked on?
I would say that’s the stuff that Poms sit on wearing socks and sandals, with their trousers rolled up.
#11 MM: The need to recharge the Tesla at least 3 times between Jersey and Chicago might slow him down a bit.
135 mpg? How much do they charge for a gallon of electricity these days? [/me smartarse off]I’m rather thinking that it looks quite fetching in that bright yellow.
When I bought my black model the dealer said he couldn’t get a yellow paintjob for about nine months.
That’ll teach me. Impatient bastard.
Now I guess that Mr. Dealer will well and truly screw me when I backtrade on the yellow number.Being stupid has it’s drawbacks but if you’re rich too, hell, who cares?
just where did you drive a baby like that in Sydney?
In the days of the first mobile phones, those car battery powered phones in suitcases, Porsches were driven up and down George and Pitt streets at lunchtime so that young stockbrokers could show off both their major assets. Most of these young men were not aware that a Porsche had a second gear. Such a waste.
SteveH—Last I saw the keys were in the Pinto’s glove compartment…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2008 01 13 at 01:55 AM • permalink
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So would this little beauty improve your NJ-Chicago commute time?