Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

Yes.

I will admit that I almost cancelled the viewing of the cab - I was after all looking for a coupe, real men only have coupe's, etc etc.

But I went, met the seller, went to the car which was parked next to his Maserati and two down from his bosses 456 and after looking round the car he drove us over to Regents park.

On the way (roof up) the car felt pretty much identical to the coupe I'd driven the weekend before, no twisting etc, nice noise from the (sports) exhaust but nothing intrusive.

We got to Regents (the car is perfectly happy in London traffic), parked, and at a press of a button the roof folded itself into the boot. This was, no other way of putting it, fun.

I drove us round Regents for 4/5 laps and it was genuinely enjoyable having no roof, you could hear the engine note, feel the sun etc, it was nice.

I then got the PPI done at the garage that looks after the sellers bosses Ferrari, and it came up with 4k's worth of work. This was something of a shock as the car had had £3,000 worth of work in 2015.

However, we negotiated on the price, I got a quote from a (Sussex based) Porsche Specialist, and I should be able to get all the work done for the same value as the discount.

Whilst this was going on I was continuing to look at other cars, at this position in the market ALL of them need (it would appear) 2k's worth of work, sometimes what appeared to be a lot more.

In almost all cases the owner would not entertain a negotiation as they "knew the price of the car and it's not moving", I'd be very interested to see if some of the cars I looked at are still for sale in 2017.

Anyway, the cab had become a known quantity, it fit within my budget and the seller is a nice guy with whom I could negotiate so we were both happy that we had a deal.

On the cab's are for hairdressers side, yes - it's not what you'd pick for a track car. But, and this is important, its a car I want to drive in the countryside and track during summer to be able to explore areas of the handling that I can't on the road.

I have no illusions of being a driving God - I'd be the absolute epitome of "all the gear and no idea" if I turned up at Brands in a track-prepped, caged, howling and spitting GT3-alike.

I quite like the idea of learning to drive on the track in the cab - no expectations, and once I do work out how to get it to go round corners I suspect that I might enjoy the element of surprise, just as I do when the Volvo plays it's "I'm rather faster than you think I am" card today on other drivers.

We'll see, what I am fairly confident of is that I have negotiated a price that means I won't lose a great deal of money if I hate it and want to sell it, and if I do love track driving and learn how to do it properly then a stripped and caged coupe could be a feature of the next couple of years.

Good question - tell you what, if you can keep up with me variously in, on or without any form of transport - then you can hand them over.

My old boss was a hairdresser in the 80s. Drove a Bentley Mulsanne.

Steam rally action today.

Mk2 Lotus Cortina cop car with interesting history was my fave.

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Question for Hefty really, I need to replace both front shocks, and get the rear ARB blasted and painted - occurs to me I could just get the 996.1 cab M030 kit, good idea/bad idea?

Well done Dammit. Although it's not entirely what you set out to buy it certainly seems like a good example and should ease you into the world of Porsche ownership. Whats the worst that can happen? Even if you punt it on after 6 months, you're unlikely to loose any where near as much as if you bought a more modern hot hatch or more run of the mill sports car (350z, RX8, etc etc). Enjoy it!

Sign needs comic sans

Well done anyway Dammit. This thread needs more semi-impulse unnecessary car buying, preferably preceded by pages of humming, hawing and man-maths. I'm jelly.

Ennit. I wonder if he makes air quotation marks when he's talking as often as he abuses inverted commas in his prose.

Left half buffed, right half not - no wax, this is bare paint:

This shows the oxidisation better:

I've never driven a cab on M030, I don't suppose many were specced, but general advice is to look at H&R instead. Search pistonheads, it's been discussed plenty there I expect.

I fitted new M030 to a 993 I had because my local dealer had a mega deal on the kits, it ruined it. Much too bumpy.

Ok, stock it is. Thanks!

(I'm guessing not many cabs were specced with an LSD from the factory either?)

Not many 996s were. I think it's some fancy electric system rather than plates or torque-biasing.

Can't find a lot of info apart from one post on Pistonheads saying that the plates wear in ~40k miles so unless they've been changed it may be an open diff. Which suggests it's plate type.

I'll ask Precision Porsche.

Same. I'm in LA at the moment and pass several notchback 60s mustangs every day and it hurts.

Spotted another

Dammit in convertible = fun shocker!

Good work, dude.

Yes @Dammit!!

If you want to borrow a hardtop to see what difference it makes, I'm sure I can sweet talk my dad into you borrowing it for a while?

And to the naysayers, I've tracked his 996 vert and had a rip snorting blast doing so.

Yes @Dammit!!

If you want to borrow a hardtop to see what difference it makes, I'm sure I can sweet talk my dad into you borrowing it for a while?

It'll be wearing this when I collect it this evening:

Being the 550 Anniversary my Boxster has the MO30 suspension kit and unlike a lot of people who fit it I think the ride is quite impressive for a sports car, and I don't think I have ever found a corner that I needed to slow down for. I've never driven an S with standard suspension though.
However the lowered ride height makes the car bloody awful over speed bumps in London. You have to take them at walking speed and sometimes even that doesn't stop the nose scraping.

Get a 2000/2004 v70 with an na 2.4 manual. Can be had for nothing. Consider anything mileage wise. Must have leather, the cloth seats look and feel like a mechanics loin cloth after only a few years from new. The 2.4 170 and 140 use fuel much the same, the 170 can just about move out of its own way, the 140 is juat too slow for anything. Lots of low pressure turbos around for not much money, but like the diesels unless your friend is happy to do all their own fault finding and repair I wouldn't bother if serious budget is the aim of the game.

However the lowered ride height makes the car bloody awful over speed bumps in London. You have to take them at walking speed and sometimes even that doesn't stop the nose scraping.

In fairness, I have to do that in Mrs Hammers Honda Civic too.