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From the Prints: A Student’s Perspective on Racing History Education

August 22, 2024

As a student of the Automotive Restoration program at McPherson College, a four-year degree that centers the skills needed for the preservation and/or restoration of the vehicle itself and its associated history, a younger generation is given the chance to take the torch. Hands-on skills such as engine rebuilding and general mechanical work are supplemented by a dive into proper research methods, archival building/handling, general history of automobiles and their artistic and technological designs, along with literature courses that help create a unique liberal arts education. Using an example of a current project involving the digitization and creation of an archive of original Duesenberg road car, racing car, and marine engine blueprints that are housed within the school’s library, this presentation will show how the curriculum at McPherson College culminates in a comprehensive educational experience.

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Bio

Jeremy Porter, from Seneca Falls, NY, is a senior studying automotive restoration technology at McPherson College in Kansas. First bitten by the car bug at the age of five after attending the Vintage Festival at Watkins Glen, he is fascinated by the mechanical aspects of vehicles and other machinery. He was a part of the team that restored the school’s 1953 Mercedes Benz 300S Cabriolet that finished second in class at Pebble Beach. His interests include vintage Ferraris, pre-war Bugattis and Alfas, open-wheel race cars, and the development of technologies within the drivetrain.

Notes

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Brake Fix’s History of Motorsports series is brought to you in part by the International Motor Racing Research Center, as well as the Society of Automotive Historians, the Watkins Glen Area Chamber of Commerce, and the Argettsinger family. Teaching Motorsports History at Merfierson College, a three part episode featuring Ken Young, Christy Socia, and Jeremy Porter.

Part 3. From the Prince. A student’s perspective on racing history education by Jeremy Porter. Jeremy Porter is from Seneca Falls, New York, and he is a senior studying automotive restoration technology at McPherson College in Kansas. First bitten by the car bug at the age of five after attending the Vintage Festival at Watkins Glen, he is fascinated by the mechanical aspects of vehicles and other machinery.

He was part of the team that restored the school’s 1953 Mercedes Benz 300S Cabriolet that finished second in class at Pebble Beach. His interests include vintage Ferraris, pre war Bugattis and Alfa Romeos, open wheel [00:01:00] race cars, and the development of technologies within the drivetrain. As a student of the Automotive Restoration Program at McPherson College, a four year degree that centers the skills needed for the preservation and restoration of the vehicle itself and its associated history, a younger generation is given the chance to take the torch.

Hands on skills such as engine rebuilding and general mechanical work are supplemented by a dive into proper research methods, archiving, building, and handling, as well as general history of automobiles and their artistic and technological designs, along with literature courses that help create a unique, liberal arts education.

Using an example of his current project involving the digitization and creation of an archive of original Duesenberg road car racing car and marine engine blueprints that are housed within the school’s library, Jeremy’s presentation will show how the curriculum at McPherson College culminates in a comprehensive educational experience.

This is a student’s perspective of learning at McPherson College. I have a soft spot for a number of institutions. McPherson’s [00:02:00] one of them. Ken and I got to meet a number of times in Allentown. Dealt with his students for a number of years now. It’s great. We’ve got, of course, now Billman Abbey has joined the regime, I guess.

Of course, Alfred State. So we’re starting to develop something here. And what we’re going to get from Jeremy, who is local, is a different perspective than what us older people have about things. Hello all. My name is Jeremy Porter. So I’m a student at McPherson College. I’m here with I am from this area.

I’m from Seneca Falls. I was not born into a Carr family at all, but I did attend the Vintage Races down at Watkins Glen, and that’s sort of how I got started in this area. I love history first. A combination of vintage motorsports and going fast and stuff like that is kinda what I fell in love with.

McPherson College is a small liberal arts school in McPherson, Kansas. [00:03:00] We have roughly 800 students, 160 of which are in our Automotive Restoration Program. Our Automotive Restoration Program is a four year school. Where you learn basic maintenance skills and automotive skills on top of also taking your general liberal arts education.

So you take communication, writing, your maths, your sciences, your history, and with all of that, you get a very unique educational experience. We have a very small campus as you can expect from 800 students. The two major areas for automotive students on campus is number 20, Templeton. That is where all of our mechanical work is performed.

We have our own collection of cars, roughly 85. They range from 1876, 1877. We have a copy of the Mercedes Benz Patent Wagon, the first vehicle that was made. And we focus up until really 1973. Some vehicles that are part of our highlights is we have a Porsche 356, a couple Lincolns, a Mercedes Benz [00:04:00] 300S, Model Ts, Model As, along those likes.

And then the other major building is the Miller Library. That is where our archives and our automotive restoration library is located. Surprisingly, not really unsurprisingly, we have a third space. Within urban planning and whatnot, third spaces are places outside of your work and home, where socializing occurs, where you can meet new people.

The Sheds is a warehouse like building right across from Templeton that is not owned by the college, so it is not under college jurisdiction. Some shenanigans do get up. But, students are able to implement what they learn in class, and they work on their own vehicles. Practically everyone has a project car out there.

My own vehicle is a 1965 Pontiac GTO, but there’s all types of vehicles there. Because we’re all young and we want to go fast, there’s a very strong culture of hot rodding there. Kids will soup up their Model A’s and Model T’s just like they were from the 1950s using vintage speed parts, not using parts that were made new.

There’s a very strong focus on being [00:05:00] period correct, looking up to and using companies and people’s names like Moroso or. Edelbrock, using pure 1970s, 1950s instead of recalculated made new parts. We have a very strong financial backing, which we’re very lucky to have because of our very unique program.

There’s lots of school support within the automobile restoration program. Ken was lucky enough to take a group of students to Europe this past winter on a Cars and Castles trips where we visited collections such as the Schlumpf Museum, the Porsche Collection, the Mercedes Collection, and the Laumann Museum.

With our ties that we have all over the automotive industry, we were able to get back room access to the Porsche factory and Mercedes factories and see their own physical restoration departments where with their road cars. They’re also doing race car work. When we pulled into the Porsche museum right beside us was a Porsche 959 Dakar car.

that was being pulled into their workshop. So, it’s just stuff like that. Last year, I was fortunate enough with three other students and one of our professors, Luke Chenell, who is a part of the American Bugatti Club, [00:06:00] to attend the Bugatti Rally here at Watkins Glen. Every single year, students help create a rally manual, usually focused on the Bugatti Type 13 Bruscia.

This past year, on this trip, you just get to be around race cars and physically learn their technologies. When I am looking at vintage cars like this, I am focusing on the technologies. Within the automotive tract at school, there are five different emphases. Technology, where you are physically working on the cars.

History, communications, business and management, and automotive design. Just because you are in those five different tracts doesn’t mean you can’t do other things. I’m a technology major. I’m doing an independent study centered around Duesenberg blueprints, which I will touch on momentarily. And I just approached members at the school and said, Hey, I’m interested in about this history.

Can I do this project? And they were very supportive of it. But on these sort of school trips, you get to physically see the technologies as parts that you’re learning about in school while also talking to the owners and people who are more knowledgeable about it. So in this bottom photo there, the three students and a professor were looking at the front [00:07:00] axle arrangement on a Type 35 Bugatti.

Bugattis were very unique in their front axle arrangements, that their front suspension runs through the frame rails. And when you’re assembling them, you have to be very, very precise to make sure they’re located where they’re supposed to be. Bill Milliken, with chassis 4906, the first thing he did when he bought Type 35 was to Blanking the wheelbase by four inches and he was having problems locating that front springs where they were supposed to be and then that Top photo on a type 57 this car came out of France.

They went to California in the 1960s the owners the Cleary families The first thing he did was chop 18 inches out of the frame put a type 55 body onto it and go Racing and the family still races it like that way today, but the clutch mechanism went on it And they were not going to race for the rest of the weekend.

The student and I, I’m on the left in the white. Uh, the other student’s name is Matthew Croker. He now works at a shop in Colorado. He does rally work and preps for the Colorado Grand, which features race cars all across. Leading up to 1955, Ritter just said, Hey, we’d like to take a crack at it. We’ve read the manuals and [00:08:00] whatnot.

The guys have a very unique, Clutch mechanism. It acts as a lever from the top. The owner was like, sure, take a crack at it. And we were able to fix it in the hour and a half that we had before his next session. And it’s still running. As he said, I saw him at Pebble Beach this last summer. Speaking of Pebble Beach, I got to go to Pebble Beach this past year.

The school had restored a Mercedes Benz 300S Cabriolet. I was a part of that. There’s a later photo of the car that you will see, but as a part of that, I got to attend Laguna Seca and see, again, race cars in action, owners driving them, pushing them to the limits, see a 312P, which there’s three of in the world, chassis 0872, the only Berlinetta being driven at 100 percent by a professional racing driver.

It’s things like those, seeing the technologies in the cars in person, which I like. But as a part of that, things break, which is not good. And blueprints, specifically older blueprints, are very important to keeping those cars going. With that, I spent my last, my 2022 summer at an internship in [00:09:00] Wisconsin.

Our school is very good with internships. We have a career fair in February. We usually have around 50 people come looking for interns. And then outside of that, there’s always more people looking for interns. You can do mechanical work, museums, collections, auction houses. We had two former students.

Roughly six or seven years ago, who helped finish the Shelby registry, documenting all those cars and the histories of them for the Shelby owners. There’s alums that work in auction houses, writing auction houses descriptions, selling the cars, researching the cars, working with people like Marcel Massini, just documenting everything there is to be documented, finding photos that don’t exist, reaching out to archives like the IMRRC.

Working with them and whatnot, and it’s really, really good. But, I was at a shop in Wisconsin, Motion Products. I am a Ferrari fan, and I was able to be around race cars and learn about them. Some of the cars that I worked on, that top left there is a 121LM chassis 0484. It is a six cylinder Ferrari. It’s a 4.

4 liter straight six. That car was owned [00:10:00] by Tony Paravano out in California, and it’s the only one bodied like that. It has an increased radiator front opening, and a very interesting history. It was raced by Carroll Shelby and Phil Hill, and Tony Paravano disappeared in Mexico after being chased by the IRS.

The bottom left there, that is a 250 GTO, a chassis 4153 GT. It finished fourth at Le Mans in 1963, and then won the Tour de France Auto in 1964, driven by Lucien Bianchi. That is the former most expensive car in the world, recently broken. But here I am as a 20 year old, three weeks into my internship, working on a 250 GTO.

Learning about them, learning about the history of that specific car, learning about the history of the other 35 chassis, what sets them apart and whatnot. That 405 that’s splattered on that hood there, that is a Mille Miglia winning car, chassis 0082, that is a 1951 winner. That car finished second in class at Pebble Beach, not this past Pebble Beach 2023, but 2022.

Some parts I made for that was a steering [00:11:00] column lock to hold the steering wheel in place. I worked off two photos taken at the 1951 Mille Miglia, and that’s all I had, no dimensions, no anything. So I had to make that out on a lathe and follow the correct curvatures and whatnot. And then that bottom car there, probably the most unhappy looking person to ever sit in a Formula 1 car, is me, sitting in a Ferrari 641, which competed in the 1990 season.

Uh, that specific chassis is the chassis that Alain Prost drove in the 1990 Suzuka GP, where famously Senna may or may not have crashed into him on purpose. And it’s up to interpretation and depending on who you ask, but an engine was rebuilt for that. And it’s a 60 valve, five valve per head, 3. 5 liter V12.

And two weeks into my internship, I was shown how to disconnect the drivetrain, the engine and gearbox from the tub and perform a camshaft inspection. And I did that by myself, very much thrown into the depths of it. What I’m here mostly to talk about is an archival project that I’m partaking in. Roughly 20 years ago, Augie Duesenberg’s grandson [00:12:00] donated 106 blueprints to our school, and since then they’ve been sitting in two drawers.

These Duesenberg blueprints were taken by Augie when the Corps had bought Duesenberg from the two brothers. Augie wanted nothing to do with the road cars anymore. Fred stayed on and helped with the development of the Js, but Augie just wanted to do racing, as mostly everyone does. And it’s a mixture of Indianapolis motors, Duesenberg Model J and Model A motors, some rear axle assemblies, and then just over roughly half of them are to a W24, which was actually used in Marine Engine that was built for Horse Dodge.

They’re relevant to our program because you are able to practice and learn archival skills, research. If you want to, you can recreate parts using the blueprints, which is, uh, A little side project that I am doing at school. And they’re just cool. Who doesn’t want to see life size motors that are over 100 years old?

Just some pictures on the left here of that W24 motor. The engine roughly when it was rebuilt. I was lucky enough to see this motor three [00:13:00] weeks ago and hear it run. It sounds like an entire field of Miller Rafi midgets. 625 cubic inches with a supercharger. And it spins to 5, 000 rpm. It’s a lot of noise.

It had a whole development cycle over roughly 10 years with different methods and different construction, things that were added, things that were subtracted from it. What I’m doing is researching and creating a little story, a little book if I want to, of the story of that specific engine. Automotive wise, these are blueprints to a 1926 Duesenberg IndyCar motor, 91.

5 cubic inches, 1. 5 liters. It’s a straight eight, and it used Babbitt bearings, but it is not a four stroke, it is a two stroke. One motor was built, as far as I can tell, I was talking to Randy Ema, who is the premier Duesenberg expert in the country. And it was ran in one car and there’s three articles on the internet about this car and that’s it.

And it just mentions it’s a two stroke motor. It wasn’t allowed to go past 4, 600 RPM. This motor no longer exists anymore, but [00:14:00] we have the crankcase cylinder heads, the camshaft profile charts with flow rates that they were able to trying out to see how much power they could get out of it, they’re all in good condition.

And there’s nothing really written about this. And you can see the technical differences. from a four stroke motor. So like in our engines class, when you’re teaching about four strokes and two strokes, you could go and look at a physical blueprint that shows the different construction methods and help you envision in your brain what your professor is talking about.

And then marine wise, as I mentioned, I was able to see parts and the boat when the engine. And that is a timing cover chain for the motor. It’s all dual overhead cams, six camshafts. It’s a little bit of a pain to time. The owners of the boat still have some original parts, and they were kind enough to show me, so I grabbed some photos of those parts, and it was cool to see, because I have photos on my phone right now, just on my phone, we’ll be properly archiving them and creating a true archive with them, it’ll be scanned at 600 dpi, and we hope to [00:15:00] make them digitally available for people to learn about, but it was just cool for me to see that these physical parts Were made from those blueprints right there, and those blueprints exist in one other place, and that’s out in California in a private collection that isn’t shown.

I’m a firm believer that these things need to be shown and need to be shared for people to learn about. It’s the same thing with racing cars. I think that they should be driven. I don’t think that they should sit in a collection. Although there is discussion about that because when you have original cars, or cars that were extremely important, it gets, A little shady and I’m open to discussion about that with anyone.

It’s a cool project that I wanted to talk about because there is a younger generation that’s interested in this and McPherson is a great way to get into this world and whatnot. We have contacts all over and it’s not just physically working on the cars because it’s the story of the people that designed them, the people who worked on them, the people who drove them, the people who owned them later on in life.

The family that owns that boat now, he bought the engine in the early 90s and wanted to build a land speed car. And [00:16:00] once he found out it was for a boat, he was like, okay, we’re going to recreate that boat and recreate that hull because it’s something that is important to the marine racing world. He had never built a boat before, so him and his son just went and started building a boat using the original hull plans because they found the original family whose the two brothers built the boat in the mid 1930s.

It’s the story of people and them interacting with people, and I think just using those blueprints, using a car, it’s a medium to do that because it’s about the people that makes me love this industry, not the cars themselves, although they are great. Thank you. I’m free to answer any questions about the program, about the projects, about anything.

Absolutely fantastic. You hit it out of the ballpark. You had a question over here. So you mentioned that you are from up here in Seneca Falls area. How is the move going from up here down to Kansas and the completely different area opposite side of the Mississippi? Not very fun. I grew up on a lake. Not having any [00:17:00] bodies of water near me has been quite a change, no hills or anything like that.

But I’ve grown to appreciate it. It’s its own unique place, the own unique culture. Even though we’re a small school, there’s a very strong sense of commodity, and within the automobile industry, restorations, auctions, and stuff like that. You say you’re from McPherson College, And it opens up doors all over the world.

You can walk into the Mercedes Benz Classic Center in California and say, I’m from McPherson College. Could you show me around? And you’d be let in because the president of that is on our board at our school. And the vice president is an alumni of our college. So it just opens up an entire world. It’s great.

For someone who’s maybe looking into that program, can you expand on the advantages of a four year program, you know, coming from a liberal arts background, versus maybe what we might consider the more traditional sort of trade approach in this country? It’s very much geared more towards restoration [00:18:00] and not maintenance and stuff like that.

If you’re restoring a historically significant car, you want to get the details right. An example of this is, you know, a car that’s, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s 10 years ago, our school set a goal to compete at the d’Elegance with a car entirely restored by 20 year olds against people who have been doing this for 40 years and know every trick in the book.

That car is a 1953 Mercedes Benz 300S Cabriolet. 203 were made in that body style, 560 overall. It uses a triple Solex carb 3 liter straight six. It’s the same motor that’s used in the Gullwings, but it’s just not fuel injected and with a not as hot cam. But this car has 13, 000 individual parts. A Gullwing has 6, 500.

It has a chassis lubrication system. And our car was special order with a different kind of chassis lubrication system. So we had to find the original Bakelite piece from 1953. And roughly 80 of those cars were options, so there’s only 80 made. So they didn’t have ours anymore, by Argoose, and then show a photo documenting that our car had it.

These [00:19:00] cars have silver CAD electrical connectors. We had to go and find press photos from 1951 from the Mercedes factory showing, yes, these are supposed to be silver CAD, they’re not supposed to be like that. And then probably the most, Obvious one we were asked about at the show by the judges is radiator hoses because most people are used to seeing gull wings.

These are a steel braid woven radiator hose and water cooled hose. All the other ones they had seen were just black and they had to double check and ask if this is supposed to be correct and you just open the binder and there’s a photo right there. Being able to know how to find your photos in your research, very, very important.

And then being able to have the skills to implement that. That is very important as well, and that’s what sets us apart from other two year programs around. Because you don’t have to just go physically into the restoration world. For example, I’ve mentioned you can go into auction houses. You can go as just a general historian.

You can go and work in insurance. You can go and manage a shop. You don’t have to physically just work on the cars. And you’re not [00:20:00] just learning about the cars you’re interested in. I had no appreciation for pre war vehicles, or European vehicles before I went to school there. I was a muscle guy through and through, and now I’m into Ferraris, pre war Alfas, and pre war Bugattis, and just GP cars.

If I didn’t go to school, I would not be into those things. Jeremy, have you had any contact with the, uh, Auburn Court Duesenberg Museum? I guess you’ve talked with Brandon, uh, Anderson, I guess, at the, um, director at all? I have not yet, because there’s a story about those two, our Duesenberg blueprints. They were looking to get those, but they were donated to us.

I think that cooperation is needed between the two. Once they’re digitized, they’re going to be available for everyone to see. It’s important to the Duesenberg legacy. They already have an established museum around Auburn Corps Duesenbergs. And even with us still having the original Duesenberg blueprints, You can still print off one to one size copies of them once they’re digitized and they can have them on display, for example, and stuff [00:21:00] like that.

I think that cooperation is needed between people in this industry because there’s historians out there who just want to hoard information and not share it with people when I think that it’s just for everyone to know. Any more questions, please? After the first trial No idea.

Ferrari mechanicals have always come up along with obviously the history side. I’m a chassis number person. I’ve been able to tell I was able to visit a shop out in California, which is renowned, which my best friend now works at actually, she was able to work on a three 12 P when I visited, she was working on a two 46 Dino Daytona’s.

There’s an F50 GT in there, and then their shop owners also run a 750 Manza on the track and actually race it all over the world. So that would be a fun experience if I would get to do that, we’ll see, but I am just trying to figure out what’s going to be best for me. That is the future, ladies and [00:22:00] gentlemen.

We’re in good hands. Thank you.

This episode is brought to you in part by the International Motor Racing Research Center. Its charter is to collect, share, and preserve the history of motorsports spanning continents, eras, and race series. The center’s collection embodies the speed, drama, and camaraderie of amateur and professional motor racing throughout the world.

The Center welcomes serious researchers and casual fans alike to share stories of race drivers, race series, and race cars captured on their shelves and walls and brought to life through a regular calendar of public lectures and special events. To learn more about the Center, visit www. racingarchives.

org. This episode is also brought to you by the Society of Automotive Historians. They encourage research into any aspect of automotive history. The SAH actively supports the compilation and preservation of papers. Organizational records, print ephemera [00:23:00] and images to safeguard, as well as to broaden and deepen the understanding of motorized, wheeled land transportation through the modern age and into the future.

For more information about the SAH, visit www. autohistory. org.

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This episode is sponsored in part by: The International Motor Racing Research Center (IMRRC), The Society of Automotive Historians (SAH), The Watkins Glen Area Chamber of Commerce, and the Argetsinger Family – and was recorded in front of a live studio audience.

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Gran T

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Racing Against the Odds: Doc Bundy’s Journey to Le Mans

Few names evoke the grit, charm, and relentless hustle in motorsports like that of Doc Bundy. Doc’s story begins not with a steering wheel, but with a newspaper route. As a kid, he hustled through town on a moped, delivering seven daily papers and three Sunday editions. That early grind laid the foundation for a work ethic that would later define his racing career.

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Tune in everywhere you stream, download or listen!

After a crash sidelined his Formula C car, Bundy cold-called racing legend Peter Gregg of Brumos Porsche. He landed a trial gig prepping cars, living in the shop, showering at a nearby MG dealership, and outworking everyone. “I could outwork anybody,” he said. That grit earned him a spot on the team and eventually led him to Al Holbert – a pivotal figure in Bundy’s career.

Bundy didn’t just turn wrenches. He turned heads. He built press kits, secured sponsorships, and promoted Holbert Racing with a flair that earned him the nickname “Mr. Sparkle and Glitter.” His goal? “Push Al up, and maybe he’ll drag me along.”

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Despite the chaos, Bundy and Busby ran the entire 24 hours on one set of tires – with a blown head gasket – and won their class. “We were doing two laps at a time, adding water and Bars Leak,” Bundy recalled. “Sunday afternoon was just survival.”

Spotlight

Synopsis

This episode of Evening with the Legend features Doc Bundy, a renowned motorsports figure, recounting his extensive career in racing, particularly at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Hosted by David Spitzer of ACO USA, Bundy’s interview covers his humble beginnings in a small town, his early interest in go-kart racing, and his ascension in the motorsports world. Key highlights include his time working with Al Holbert, navigating the trials of endurance racing, his strategy-driven performances at Le Mans, and notable anecdotes such as dealing with a blown head gasket and racing with broken headlamps. The episode offers an in-depth look at Bundy’s resilience, strategic thinking, and noteworthy achievements in racing, enriched with personal stories and professional insights.

During a recent Evening with a Legend session hosted by ACO USA’s David Spitzer, fans were treated to a whirlwind tour through Bundy’s life—from paperboy in a tiny town to class winner at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Transcript

Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] Evening with the Legend is a series of presentations exclusive to Legends of the Famous 24 Hours of Le Mans, giving us an opportunity to bring a piece of Le Mans to you. By sharing stories and highlights of the big event, you get a chance to become part of the Legend of Le Mans, with guests from different eras of over 100 years of racing.

Crew Chief Eric: Doc Bundy is a renowned figure in motorsports and has left an indelible mark on the iconic 24 Hours of Le Mans throughout his career. His journey at Le Mans also spans multiple years in teams, each marked by displays of exceptional skill, determination, and sportsmanship. Doc’s driving record reflects a remarkable consistency and competitiveness on the legendary circuit, where he has navigated the grueling endurance race with precision and flair.

Whether piloting prototypes or GT [00:01:00] cars, Doc’s performances have often been characterized by a blend of speed, strategy, and resilience, earning him admiration from fans and fellow competitors alike. This Evening with a Legend was hosted by David Spitzer, a member of the ACO USA, and who you might recognize as one of the pit reporters from the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

David Spitzer: Welcome to all of our guests this evening from the ACO club. We’re excited to host another of our theories all about an evening chat with racing legend. And tonight we are very honored and very excited to speak to doc Bundy with a wonderful history and Porsche’s and racing many years spent with Al Holbert and that legendary team and driving for a number of different manufacturers, but without further ado, let me introduce doc.

Hello y’all. So doc, I’m going to kind of get you started and I know because you and I had a great chat recently that once we get you going, the wonderful stories will flow. Do you want to start with a little bit about how you got into racing, but make sure you work us up to [00:02:00] Lamar and a little bit of how you got to Lamar, but go ahead.

Tell us a little bit about getting into racing and the early part of your

Doc Bundy: career. Like most karts as a youngster. I grew up in a very tiny little town. They used to tell me when I was little that it was 2, 000 people, but I think they counted all the farms and all the farm animals in that number, because I think realistically it was maybe 600 people or something like that.

I became a paper boy there, took over from another guy that got older and so he was ready to quit and hand it down. He delivered five different newspapers and two Sunday papers. So I increased it to seven daily papers, seven from different towns and three Sunday papers. So as you can imagine, I start out with a bicycle with baskets and I would have to go back to the drugstore and pick up more papers because I couldn’t carry all that [00:03:00] I needed to deliver to the whole town.

I had a moped for a while. After the moped, I had a bicycle. Bad rep. I ran out of paper about a mile out of town. So I got to go back to the goat store and get it real quick. So I’m flying back 35 40 mile an hour on the moped and the town was in a valley that had two sets of railroad tracks. with a creek between them that you crossed.

As a young boy, I had a friend on the other side of town. Two of us rode our bicycles to meet up with him and he went around the crossing gate and the train hit him.

David Spitzer: Oh goodness.

Doc Bundy: Oh yeah.

David Spitzer: Now you got to help us get back to racing. Come on, how does this get us to racing? Were you making money with your paper route and that got you to get a go kart?

Doc Bundy: What happened was, I was on a Saturday, I was collecting. At this time, I had a yard cart with a Clinton engine on it, and I fiddled around with it a little bit to try to make it a little bit faster. When I was [00:04:00] on one side of town, I heard this noise that sounded like my engine with no muffler. I worked my way down, customer wise, to the ballpark, and here was two go karts running there.

Real go karts. Not yard carts. Proper go carts. Yeah. And so I ride up these two guys and they were just riding down there at the park with ball field from another town. They’d come over trying to get kids or people to show up because they wanted to sell them. I couldn’t wait to get done. So they let me drive it.

I thought, Oh, this is the real thing. And I have grown up. My father taking me to race. Where was that now? What track? Would we know it? They were okay. As soon as I got home, you know, I grabbed my dad and I said, Dad, you got to see these things. These are amazing. He was a race fan. So he got into it. He got along with some other fathers and they, in the end, they built a racetrack.

Oh, wow. We started out down there beyond the [00:05:00] ballpark on a dirt track. Oh, that lasted not too long floods and things kind of ruined it. They ended up making a paved track and I was part of the building process. That’s when I learned to drive a pickup truck. And so we raced go karts till I was probably a senior.

Then I went off to a school in Minneapolis and went to work for an airline in Chicago. The weirdest thing is my ideal race car. Post Vietnam, a Formula B car, which morphed into a Formula Atlantic eventually, that was my dream car. I just had to have one of those. I never had one. I never got to drive one.

David Spitzer: That was the goal to get to that level of pace, that level of power and everything else, right?

Doc Bundy: Yeah. I had a friend that we went together and bought a Lotus 22 Formula C car, 1100 cc engine. That didn’t last very long. Got crashed. Wasn’t my crash. Driven [00:06:00] up to Watkins Glen to do a regional, forgot to charge the battery.

So I was out first practice and a guy spun in front of me and so I had to spin to miss him. Going into turn one, so I went off on the outside and it wouldn’t restart. Battery was dead. They wouldn’t let me move the car. And of course, I got hit. We almost got into a fight. This is not worth your life. It is fine.

It’s everything I have is invested in this thing. There’s a waving yellow. There’s no problem. All the cars have gone by. They’ve seen it. You were in the strike zone. Yep. And I saw this car coming and I could see his eyes and he was staring at my race car and I thought, no, no, no, no, don’t look at it.

Because your hands follow your up. So sure enough, he realized the last second that he was going to hit it, and he blocked up, went into the side of it, bent the chassis. So I had no clue how to fix that.

David Spitzer: So if we go on Wikipedia, this made you chuckle because I shared with you what it says on Wikipedia about you.

It [00:07:00] says you started out, I thought it said mechanic, but it says car prep. Tell us a little bit about the early days with Peter Gregg, the legend from the Brumos organization. Give us a few minutes of what it took to get into your first Porsche race car.

Doc Bundy: From that experience, God knows how I ever convinced him to even take my phone calls, but I started calling John Bishop.

I’m trying to talk him into taking Making formula be part of it was new to talk. And so that was my goal. And I call him all the calls.

David Spitzer: I don’t know. Bless that man. Everybody talks about him being a saint. Now I’ve got more evidence. It

Doc Bundy: was when Peg would answer. Usually Peg would answer, but sometimes he would.

And she would say, Okay, Doc, just a minute. I’ll get John. And he would take the call. So, and eventually what he did is he said, Doc, he says, you’ve got great ideas, very enthusiastic, and you need to Get experience. You need real world experience. You need to [00:08:00] go work for a race team. So after the crash of my car, I didn’t have a choice.

Quit the airline, called Peter Gregg out of the blue. I picked him because I wanted to be in EMSA. To me, it was either or. Roger Penske, but I was afraid of Roger Penske because he looked too military oriented, and I’d come out of the military. I didn’t want to stay in there. Or Roy Woods, because he ran 5, 000 Trans Am in Canada, which was great racing, but I wanted to be in EMSA.

I saw an ad that said that Peter, Greg was looking for people, a gopher. I called Peter, he said, well, if you’ll come down here to Jacksonville, I was up in Ohio at that time. If you’ll come down here to Jacksonville, he says, I’ve got about seven of you guys I’m gonna try out. And he says, whoever works the best, that’s who I’m gonna hire.

Well, that was simple to me. ’cause you know, I’m a returning vet. I could outwork anybody, so I didn’t have anything. I go down there. Get to the [00:09:00] shop. They’re getting ready for Sebring and they’d already won the 24. So I lived in the race shop for a couple of weeks and then we went to Sebring and we won there.

He sold that car and we’ve got another new car. for the next event, which was back then Road Atlanta. We went there, we won there. So we won four races in a row. Now, he hadn’t hired me officially, but after each race, because he won or sat on the pole one or the other, he gave us each a hundred dollars. I had some to live on.

When I came back, I couldn’t keep living in the race shop. One of the other guys that got hired, his dad was the sheriff of Ruvala County, which is the whole city. And his mother was a doctor. Later on, he becomes a FBI agent. So that’s how I started with Peter. I just outworked everybody. And I would stay in the shop.

There was a little [00:10:00] MG dealership in front of

the

Doc Bundy: warehouse where the race shop was. I would go over there because they had a shower and I could shower and that

David Spitzer: story though is everybody in racing. I mean, everybody’s got to make a sacrifice. You’ve got to have that journey to really value it. So you spend some time taking care of the motor home for them and kind of working your way into things.

How many years of hard work was it before you started driving? And then how many years of driving before you were graced with the opportunity to run at Le Mans?

Doc Bundy: I was two years with Peter and realized there was no future for what I wanted. About the early fall of the second year, I went to Peter and I said, look, I’m going to leave at the end of the season.

He said, where are you going to go? And I, Oh, I’m looking for, Someplace where I might have an opportunity to drive at some point and he goes, it’s never going to happen. He says, I’ve met your family. They have no money. Who’s going to give you a 50, [00:11:00] 000 race car to learn to drive? And I go, I know how to race like that.

But his telling me no, no, no, just motivated me. That much more, I was determined and along that period, I had met Al Holberg, he had an engine, a three liter that Peter bought from him. So I got sent to get the engine. I already had met Al and had talked with him and that sort of thing. So I went up there to get the engine and he just kept delaying, delaying, delaying, delaying, giving it to me.

And so finally I sat down with Al and he said, What’s your big hurry to go back? It was on a weekend. I’d driven up Friday, and then I had the weekend off, and then back to work on Monday. He wanted me to stay and chat with him, because we talk racing, much to the chagrin of his wife. So Al said, why don’t you come to work for me?

And I go, well, no, I’m committed to Peter for the balance of this year. I said, [00:12:00] besides Al, what I want to do is drive eventually. You know, I made it clear up front, and he said, okay. I said, we’re about the same age, and you have all this experience, and you are really good. I could never drive with you because I have to go through the learning phases.

He eventually convinced me, because I finished with Peter at the Christmas party, actually got a handwritten letter of recommendation. Anytime you ever want to come back, we’ll welcome you. And I said, well, I hope I won’t be back, unless you’re hiring me as a driver. And he laughed, and we parted on friendly terms.

I didn’t want to go to work for Al because I just didn’t think I would have a future there. Didn’t feel like I had a lot to offer, but he kept calling, how would you view this happening? How do you view that you could get to drive? And I said, well, I have some ideas about sponsorship and I’ll search out sponsorship.

I can help on [00:13:00] the race car, but I’m not going to be a mechanic. Brumos tried to make me a mechanic. I didn’t want to be one. I learned to do things. I disassembled a 917 engine cannon with the real mechanic. He made me take everything apart. And I said, how are we ever going to get it back together? He just laughed.

He says, I’ll put it together. Don’t worry. I just knew enough and could do enough to understand mechanics. You know, I knew the cars because I would turn just enough wrenches To learn the cars. Eventually, Al convinced me to come to work for him. That next year, still living in Jacksonville, he had me come down to Daytona and he says, we’ll move you to Pennsylvania after the race.

We did pretty good in the race. I don’t remember where we finished that first year, but we were in contention through a lot of the race. And I think it had some kind of a problem that we lost time. And then we get up to Pennsylvania. He moves me in the house with him, his wife and two children. I was there for probably about [00:14:00] two months, finally got a place of my own.

In the meantime I started learning how to promote Al. He didn’t have much of a reputation then, other than he was Bob Holbrook’s son. His father was a banker. pretty successful racer. Father was a wonderful guy, but Al, you know, like most sons and dads, the two of them didn’t always get along. So he would always put me in the middle.

And I didn’t want to be in the middle. And he treated me like a brother and he felt like a brother to me. So we got really close. So I started making sponsorship deals. They were small deals, but. Nevertheless, brought money to the team and then I developed a press kit. I went to Penske because his connection to them over and over.

So I went over and they kind of taught me how to do a press kit and give me one of theirs to use as a example. From that, I started a newsletter that I would send out to sponsors and fans. And I started getting [00:15:00] him to do clothing, t shirts and hats and things like that, jackets, apparel, that started going really well on its own.

And then I would find him rides and things that he would never have thought about, like super Vs. I got to ride in a super V a couple of times, an Atlantic car. And he would say, why are you doing this? He says, I know why you’re doing it. These are cars you want to drive. And I said, no, Al, I’m trying to expand your portfolio.

So it actually included IMSA races. So I was well known in the paddock, Mr. Friendly to everybody.

David Spitzer: And Mr. Make it happen. No excuses, not afraid of hard work. You’re going to make it happen.

Doc Bundy: Yeah, I did some crazy things, I recommended him for rides, I’d write to people and they would know him and I knew he had a connection and they call him and they say, uh, who’s Doc Bundy?

And he goes, Oh, he works for me. He’s in charge of sparkle and glitter.

David Spitzer: Sparkle and [00:16:00] glitter.

Doc Bundy: Yeah, you know, trying to promote out. I figured if I pushed him hard enough up, he might drag me along. I truly was invested in helping to build Holbrook racing, a real entity, and he had a great work ethic, how he approached racing, the cars, everything was just wonderful and super good driver, most sensitive driver I’ve ever met in my life.

He never told me how to drive, would ask questions. And then make me give him the answers to him. And we did a lot of testing and I learned to love that he never owned a 935. So I made deals that would include me. And so I get one or two races a year in other people’s cars. Gary Belcher out of Florida, he invented the bang stick.

Anyway, his 935, I was friends with his crew chief. And when I would talk to him about maybe using Al. And he goes, Al would drive our car. And I said, [00:17:00] yeah, I know how you prepare a car. You do a good car. And Al has a good year contract. So for a 24 hour race, can you imagine a better situation? You have to pay Al something, but he’ll bring tires to the deal.

And you got to let me drive. So my friend says, okay. We’ll do it. And then later on it was Preston. His old crew

David Spitzer: chief is a good friend of mine, a guy named Gary Cummings. Yeah. Gary’s a very good friend, but keep on going. So you got with Preston. You’re starting to get a little

Doc Bundy: bit of driving. I would get to do these one offs here and there.

I drove Moby Dick, you know, Preston had bought that was not part of the plan at all. It was at the Daytona Finale. Back then, you know, they would run around Thanksgiving. Yep. And I was driving with Bonnie in a 935. He had like two 935s in the special car. He and Al were driving it while I was leading the race and Preston doesn’t want to get in the car.

The car that I was driving with Bonnie blew a rear tire going into [00:18:00] three. And of course, put it up almost on its nose and came back down and I, I kept it from crashing tire tore up the right side and took out an oil cooler. So we were out of the race, tow it back to the pits and I’m in the pits and Preston comes up and he says, get your helmet.

And I said, get my helmet for what? I thought maybe he wanted me to help fuel or something. And he says, you’re going to get in the car. I’ve already talked to Al, Al’s okay with it. And I said, what? I’ve never even sat in that car. And he goes, you’ll be okay. You’ll be okay. Well, the seat was like way wide.

So I had to have him put pills in. And even then I go into the infield and come into the corners and I have to slide up on this side of the seat, go through this one back to this side and see for this one, but I’m running first and second, I’m racing Wallach and I raced him in the wrong place because I could pass him anytime I [00:19:00] wanted on the bank.

It was inexperienced. And he short braked me going into the kink in the infield. He short braked me all at once. He was smart. He knew I wouldn’t hit him. So I spun off and I fell back. But I ended up finishing second in the race in the end. I was catching back up and then the race was over.

David Spitzer: What was your first year at Le Mans?

What was your first Le Mans experience?

Doc Bundy: 82. 82. Okay. I had won the runoffs in 80 with the deep production, the deep production 924. That was my first full time ride. Became an instructor at Road Atlanta. I separated from Hobart racing. And that was because I believed that if I was there, Al would always count on me to straighten things out with his race cars and his crew.

And I wanted to be separate. I want concentration on what I was going to drive. And he was pretty good about that. At one point, he was questioning, why doesn’t Doc drive with you in the Michelob [00:20:00] portion? And I helped him get that sponsorship. And he goes, Doc’s very demanding.

David Spitzer: Doc knows what he wants, gosh darn

Doc Bundy: it.

Anyway, racing the 924, we win the runoffs. And of course, Hoppin promised me the world if I won the race and nothing happened and afterwards I kind of went through withdrawals because through the balance of November and through December into January, I didn’t know if I was ever going to get to driving because there was no plan.

So I’m working at Road Atlanta. Just hustling rides wherever I can find them. Usually not getting paid anything. Usually do good with whatever car I drove. I’d get the max out of it and put it in places where it had never been before. So things weren’t terribly bleak. I drew upon my experiences from Vietnam where, you know, if you were super aggressive, you got a lot of praise.

You go out and shot people or created good situations for the [00:21:00] army. Then they praise you a lot and put you on a pedestal and all that silly stuff. So I realized, okay, I’m going through that here in peacetime in racing. Then it was decided, okay, the 924 turbos coming out. So we got one of those. Al was playing with stock cars at that time.

I still said, well, we have to do sports car racing. You know, that’s your roots. And I said, I hate stock car racing, the rules and all the crap that you can go through. I would threaten to leave so many times. You know, we were a Northern team, so we got a lot of crap.

David Spitzer: We don’t cotton to your kind around here, Yankees, right?

Doc Bundy: Yeah, they liked Al, but I was not as personal and I would tell Al, I say, you know, when I pull into the NASCAR track, I know it’s going to be a battle that it’s not fun. So I didn’t want to continue doing it. After that, Porsche offered him a deal to run the 924 turbo and it was going to be him and [00:22:00] I, because now I’m at a level that I don’t hold him back, not necessarily quite as fast, but Far off.

And he picks Rick Mears as the third driver. Wow. Yeah. And I’m going, Oh my God, what are you doing to me, Al? I got to drive Rick Mears. I go there and Porsche is running Porsche Motorsports and he’s the, Making a big deal about the 924 and this team. And so we have to do a press conference. So we go over to the tower, do a media thing.

On the way there, Al goes and says, okay, you’re going to be team leader in this. And I said, what? He said, you’re going to be the team leader. Rick and I’ve already talked about it. Rick agrees. And I said, okay, whatever. So we do the news conference and they ask Al questions. Then they ask Rick questions and they started asking Rick about IndyCars because the car season hadn’t started yet.

He says, I’m not here to talk about IndyCars. [00:23:00] I’m here to drive a Porsche, and the team leader is Doc Bundy. He says, that’s who you need to direct your questions at. And I was floored. To get any kind of respect from somebody at that level blew me away. We didn’t do so well in the race. We had problems with the car, but we did finish.

I don’t know where, but we did finish. But that led on to me running Trans Am races with the 924 Turbo. Transcribed And because I did that, obviously got experience running the 924 turbo, and that was the BF Goodrich car was a 924 turbo that Buzz put together with BF Goodrich. And I knew all the BF Goodrich people from IMSA racing.

Yep. So I knew them all. So when they asked me if I would drive, you know, I said, sure. A little different schedule. It was Daytona and Sebring and Le Mans.

David Spitzer: So I was going to say the first time you went to Le Mans, was it in that 924 turbo?

Doc Bundy: Yes.

David Spitzer: And the [00:24:00] livery on that car was BFG?

Doc Bundy: Yes. So we had run Daytona, I think we finished, and then we went to Sebring.

And I was given a new teammate, James Brolin. Oh, wow. The movie star. And he may have been at Daytona. I don’t remember that if he was, he was in this, the other car, he and I were together at Sebring and during night practice, he hit a pig. Oh, that’s a bummer. And it wasn’t his fault. Somebody had brought it there as a pet.

And a dog chased it. And

David Spitzer: you know, being around racing, we had a lot of what we called agriculturals. You know, when you’re driving a race car, you’re committed. And if an animal gets in the way, it’s an ugly scene. You know, it’s just, there’s nothing you can do. You know, it’s horrible for that pig. And it’s a pretty dense thing to hit.

I’m sure it tore up the race car real good.

Doc Bundy: You know, I’m on the radio. I’m out of the car. Obviously, James is out there. And it happened right after the hairpin, then the high speed S’s. It was in the ICS is where it broke. I can picture it. [00:25:00] Yep. You know, you’re faster. You’re flat out. It freaked him out pretty much.

I figured it totaled the car. First, when he called in, he said, I’ve been in a wreck. I just hit a pig. And you’re like, what? James, where are you? Cause I figured he ran off somewhere in the back straight of missed that corner back there. He says, I’m just outside the SS. And I said, after the hairpin, and he said, yes, I said, are you okay?

He says, yeah, but the car really messed up. I can’t drive it back. Obviously they had to stop the session and load it on a flatbed and bring it back. The crew repaired the car. They pulled the frame out and finished the race. And after the race, You know how the paddocks open? People from over there can get into the paddock.

And these people showed up and they said, can we talk to James Brolin? James was in the motorhome. And I said, nah, I don’t think he wants to talk to anybody. He’s pretty shy. And they said, well, we brought him a plate. pig. I said, no, I [00:26:00] really don’t think you want that. Was it cooked

David Spitzer: or was it raw?

Doc Bundy: So, I go in the motorhome.

I was trying to be nice to them. So, I go in the motorhome. I said, James, I think I know what you’re gonna say but would you be interested in eating some pork? And he goes, what? What are you talking about? And I said, the people butchered the pig and And they brought a plate over, they want to give to you.

And he says, I don’t want to meet him. And I said, I understand. I said, I’ll take care of it. So I went back out and I made apologies and everything. And I said, but I think the crew might. Oh,

David Spitzer: heck yes. That crew was going to relish every bite and tell that story. That’s as good as it gets. That’s Sebring through and through, isn’t it?

Doc Bundy: So from there, then I ended up at Lamar and Lamar was unique was my first visit. So I had so much to learn. There’s so much going on. You’re there very early. Go through the tech [00:27:00] stuff and all that goes on. We have Jim Busby, me, and Mignot was our French driver because they wanted a local driver. Always a

David Spitzer: good idea to grease the skids when you go to Le Mans to put a French guy in.

We had Christophe Tanso and the four of that guys had Franck Friant. Always the same thing. You pick a good French driver and put him in and it just makes everything a lot easier at Le Mans.

Doc Bundy: Well, Mignot, he’d run many times. in the race itself, everything. Mostly Porsches, but every model of Porsches. And he was the head instructor at their school there.

So he knew everybody by first name. So he thought it was kind of a shoot. Well, guess what? The engine let go in night practice and he had only had two laps when it let go. We didn’t really think anything of it. We weren’t surprised the engine let go, a little disappointed. I got my laps in, Jim had gotten his laps in, but then Jim got in the second car.

Back then you, if it [00:28:00] was a team car, you could move over and do laps in another car. So he did that just to experience in the other car, the Herman Miller car. Make a long story short, the ACO decided there was only one driver, me, because we had turned a lap time fast enough to be in the field, not very far out because of the car, but we were right up with all the other 924 turbos in the race.

on race tracks and all. And we qualified on the street tires, though BF Goodrich had brought us a set of, they removed the sidewall, but I think they were Dunlop’s slicks in case we needed them, but we never needed them. We were fast enough.

David Spitzer: Wow.

Doc Bundy: They interpreted by who told them, you know, it was one of the officials at the pit said, well, he got in the other car.

So he’s driving the other car. Yeah. So there was a big thing and Porsche was involved, we have Goodrich was involved all day Friday and finally we got reinstated, but they didn’t tell us. They said, well, be ready to do [00:29:00] warmup in the morning, just in case, change your mind. They said, well, there’s only one driver and he can’t do that.

So they argued, no, we didn’t take Jim out of that car. And they said, well, you know, didn’t do his required night. In the end, they let us start last, and it was Jim and I. In morning warm up, it had rained some, a little bit, so the grass was wet. I went off in the Porsche curves, and the back end hit the guardrail, and it broke the taillight.

We didn’t have a spare taillight. So, Porsche goes, We know where there’s one. In the parking lot. It was Derek Bell’s car. They didn’t tell him. They just took it. Of course not. He was gonna say no.

David Spitzer: Screw that. They just took it. I think he was driving without. They’ll give it back at the end of the race.

It’ll be fine. He’ll never notice. Right. Fast forward one year. The following year you went back to Le Mans and I think you did real well. Is that correct?

Doc Bundy: No, I never did.

David Spitzer: We won our

Doc Bundy: class with a blown head [00:30:00] gasket, one tire, one tire for 24 hours. Argued with the BF Goodrich guys. I said, no, no, we can’t change it.

It had a very slight cut in the sidewall on the right front tire. And I said, oh no, we can’t change it. It’s. Sunday, you know, it’ll make it. It’s as good as the other tires, other than that little cut. And they go, we cannot risk it. So they changed one tire.

David Spitzer: So it was you and Busby. With a blown head

Doc Bundy: gasket.

David Spitzer: And Mignot didn’t get in the car. Never got

Doc Bundy: in

David Spitzer: the car. And the two of you guys with the same set of tires ran the whole 24 hours and won your class.

Doc Bundy: Yes, and it came down to a race at the end with Billy Hagan. We were in the same class with Billy Hagan’s Camaro. I was

David Spitzer: going to

Doc Bundy: say I had to be a Camaro if it’s Billy Hagan.

They kept breaking gearboxes. Bless their hearts. We’d be ahead and they’d run us down passes, passes, passes with no boost. We’re doing two laps at a time. Sunday afternoon, coming in, putting bars, leak in, putting water back in, going back out for two more laps. That’s how we spend [00:31:00] Sunday afternoon.

David Spitzer: So you’re not just a little bit of blown head gasket.

Your head gasket is junk. You are pumping water out of that thing. Yes. That’s crazy.

Doc Bundy: We held her breath. There was a little bit of a showdown thing that happened because I was supposed to finish and I got yanked out of the car by a then team leader owner. I was really, really upset. I bet. I went back to the trailer and was packing up.

I’m going home. The heck with him. Gary Pace, BF Goodrich, the guy at the races that ran the thing. And Gary came in the trailer where I was. He says, Doc, you got to put your gear back on. I said, I won’t drive for that blankety blank ever again. He says, no, you don’t understand. If Jim finishes the race, he goes illegal.

We lose. Oh, we had to follow

David Spitzer: the rules. Yeah. Right.

Doc Bundy: Yes. He was going to go over the time limit. I bitched for a little while and finally I realized, you know, I can’t throw them under the bus.

David Spitzer: [00:32:00] No, and all the crew guys and everything. There’s so much that’s gone into this at that point.

Doc Bundy: And I said, if you remove her from the pit, I’ll come back out and I’ll finish the race.

So he said, get your gear on and he left. So when I come out, I didn’t even look over there. I just got my helmet on and they says, we’ll bring Jim in now. He’ll be right in, got in the car and finished the race, which was an experience in itself because Al was in that race. And I can’t remember if that’s the one they won.

Or he was second, but you know, it was Porsche one, two, I think maybe one, two, three. And so i’m trying to go fast enough because they were catching me right at the end of the lap. So I wanted to cross the finish line right behind them if I could but I couldn’t keep up with them, you know On the last lap nobody’s really racing as we come on to this Start, finish straight.

There’s like a sea of people, flagmen in front of them, running with the checkered flag. The cars are all coming to a stop and turning right. And I said to the crew, I’m [00:33:00] not even going to get the checkered flag. The race is over. It’s okay.

David Spitzer: Back it

Doc Bundy: up. And he goes, no, it’s okay. The race is over. We won our category.

So it’s stop and go, stop and go, stop and go, stop and go. We get up, and it’s the impound area, and there’s joint arms all around it, people everywhere. They open the gate and let you in, they close the gate, open the gate, let you in. So we get in there, and there’s people everywhere, and they’re pounding on the car.

So I’m afraid to get out of the car, and I’m talking to the crew, and they said, you got to come over here, because we got to go up on the stand. And I go, I’m afraid to get out and I’m not taking anything off and it’s hot as hell. Come and get me. Come and get me. I don’t know where I am. So they finally get over there, get all my gear up and they said, the car is going to be okay.

The John Arms are here and all. And I said, but there’s people everywhere. They said, yeah, well, they’re watching. They won’t steal anything off the car. I said, yeah, right. So they start walking towards tower. Well, the gate was the left. And I said, we got to go [00:34:00] out the gate. They said, what are you talking about?

And we walk over and the fence around the impound was like a foot and a half. So it’s no wonder it was full of people. Cause they didn’t step over it. So we step across and we go over to the tower to do the, Victory thing. That’s crazy. And I love the story. So during the race coming out of Arash, kind of a slow corner, you come back towards the Porsche curves.

Yep. But when you come out of that corner, it was the second gear corner for us, and you’d shift to third and there was a little road right there where you shifted the third cut. Something outta the corner of my eye. I haven’t looked over. And here’s a guy in a bikini and he is shooting me the bird. Then I’m shift third and I’m gone.

And I’m thinking, did I really see that? Is that real? I think about it the whole lab. I come around again. When I come off the corner, I look over there and there he is. And he gives me the thing. Well, now I’m perplexed. Does he hate Americans? [00:35:00] Hate BFGoodrich horses? Why is he eating fingers? So I never really tell anybody about this.

I just kind of forget about it after the race and all. But he was there every lap. So we get back to the States. We’re at a race somewhere. I’m in the Trans Am car and Al’s in the Can Am car. We’re talking, we usually broom together when we race together. I remembered that guy, Lamar, and I said, I gotta tell you something.

So I told him the story and he goes, Oh yeah, he did the same thing to me. We both laughed about it and wondered, you know, what was his motivation? Maybe he just hated all racers and he lived in that village back there. Right.

David Spitzer: It

Doc Bundy: was

David Spitzer: crazy. That’s hilarious. That same part of the racetrack, as you come off of Arnage and head up towards Porsche Curves.

On the right side, there’s about three or four people that live there, and I’ve had the opportunity to go around the racetrack with a guy that puts up all the fences, and they block those people in. Those people are landlocked. They gotta, they gotta have groceries for [00:36:00] a week because, or whatever, for a couple days.

They put the racetrack up, and those people can’t go anywhere. There’s a bloody racetrack going across the end of their driveway.

Doc Bundy: Now see, that confirms why he was that way. He gave

David Spitzer: everybody the fence. You know what the best part about this evening with a legend tradition is that we’re building is that we get wonderful people on here with great experiences but we never know where it’s going to go.

I guarantee you I did not think we were talking about that

Doc Bundy: today. You know, I went back with Jaguar a couple years later. With Bob Tullius and the group 44 Jag, right? Right. My big suggestion to him was we needed to take our own toilet paper. Because what you get at Le Mans is not what you’re going to be used to.

It’s

David Spitzer: not very

Doc Bundy: comfortable and it runs out quickly. So our whole rig went. The truck driver made sure that we had two big bundles of toilet paper when we went over there. We were the only ones comfortable.

David Spitzer: That’s great. You had a ton of success over [00:37:00] many, many years, and we’re certainly honored to have this time with you.

What a great pleasure. What a treat for us all to get to know you a little bit this evening and to hear these stories. I mean, it’s just priceless. I admire you for the hard work. You’re an inspiration. As I explained to you, I’m an amateur, but all of us Have our own goals, whether it’s in racing or whatever, and your perseverance, your attitude of whatever it takes is certainly inspiring.

So thank you so much for being with us.

Crew Chief Eric: This episode has been brought to you by the Automobile Club of the West and the ACO USA. From the awe inspiring speed demons that have graced the track to the courageous drivers who have pushed the limits of endurance, the 24 Hours of Le Mans is an automotive spectacle like no other. For over a century, the 24 Hours of Le Mans has urged manufacturers to innovate for the benefit of future motorists, and it’s a celebration of the [00:38:00] relentless pursuit of speed and excellence in the world of motorsports.

To learn more about, or to become a member of the ACO USA, look no further than www. lemans. org, click on English in the upper right corner, and then click on the ACO Members tab for club offers. Once you’ve become a member, you can follow all the action on the Facebook group, ACO USA Members Club, and become part of the legend with future Evening with the Legend meetups.

This episode has been brought to you by Grand Touring Motorsports as part of our Motoring Podcast Network. For more episodes like this, tune in each week for more exciting and educational content from organizations like The Exotic Car Marketplace, The Motoring Historian, Brake Fix, and many others. If you’d like to support Grand Touring Motorsports and the Motoring Podcast Network, sign up for one of our many sponsorship tiers at [00:39:00] www.

patreon. com forward slash GT Motorsports. Please note that the content, opinions, and materials presented and expressed in this episode are those of its creator, and this episode has been published with their consent. If you have any inquiries about this program, please contact the creators of this episode via email or social media as mentioned in the episode.

Highlights

Skip ahead if you must… Here’s the highlights from this episode you might be most interested in and their corresponding time stamps.

00:00 Introduction to the Legend of Le Mans
01:45 Doc Bundy’s Early Life and Introduction to Racing
05:24 First Steps in Professional Racing
07:09 Joining Peter Gregg and Brumos Racing
10:33 Transition to Al Holbert Racing
13:32 Building a Career and Seeking Opportunities
16:49 Racing Highlights and Challenges
19:19 First Le Mans Experience
22:18 Unexpected Team Leader
23:12 Racing Challenges and Pig Incident
26:47 Le Mans Adventures
32:18 Victory and Post-Race Chaos
36:13 Reflecting on Racing Experiences
36:58 Conclusion and Acknowledgements

Bonus Content

There's more to this story!

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All of our BEHIND THE SCENES (BTS) Break/Fix episodes are raw and unedited, and expressly shared with the permission and consent of our guests.

Learn More

Evening With A Legend (EWAL)

We hope you enjoyed this presentation and look forward to more Evening With A Legend throughout this season. Sign up for the next EWAL TODAY!

Evening With A Legend is a series of presentations exclusive to Legends of the famous 24 Hours of Le Mans giving us an opportunity to bring a piece of Le Mans to you. By sharing stories and highlights of the big event, you get a chance to become part of the Legend of Le Mans with guests from different eras of over 100 years of racing.

Doc Bundy’s career is a testament to perseverance. He didn’t come from money. He didn’t have a clear path. But he had hustle, heart, and a knack for making things happen. Whether driving Moby Dick, racing with Jaguar, or dodging bikini-clad hecklers at Arnage, Bundy’s stories are as rich as the history of Le Mans itself.

As Spitzer put it, “Your attitude of ‘whatever it takes’ is inspiring.” And for anyone chasing a dream – on track or off – that’s the real takeaway.

ACO USA

To learn more about or to become a member of the ACO USA, look no further than www.lemans.org, Click on English in the upper right corner and then click on the ACO members tab for Club Offers. Once you become a Member you can follow all the action on the Facebook group ACOUSAMembersClub; and become part of the Legend with future Evening With A Legend meet ups.

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Porsche vs Corvette: The Everyman Sports Car Showdown (Part 2)

Eric M

August 13, 2024

Porsche vs Corvette: The Everyman Sports Car Showdown (Part 2)

Sixty years of Porsche 911. Eight generations. One iconic silhouette. And a whole lot of opinions.

In this episode of Break/Fix’s What Should I Buy? series, our panel of petrol heads takes on a new challenge: help a first-time collector find a Porsche 911 that’ll turn heads at Cars & Coffee – whether it’s admiration or confusion. The criteria? Something that makes friends say, “Where’d you get that Porsche?”

We’ve done Corvette. Now it’s time for Porsche. The 911 is often seen as the everyman’s sports car – just like the Corvette – but with a distinctly German twist. While the Ferrari F40 and Porsche 959 might dominate poster walls, our panel is focused on attainable classics. The real question: which 911 is the right one for a new collector?

Tune in everywhere you stream, download or listen!

Mark Shank – Resident 90s car guy and Bring a Trailer data whisperer
Crew Chief Eric – Our East Coast moderator with a penchant for stirring the pot
Don Weberg – Garage Style Magazine
William “Big Money” Ross – Exotic Car Marketplace
Ryan Bahrke – Road Show Pod, formerly of The Steering Committee
David Middleton – Former Nürburgring race engineer and president of M.I.E. Racing

The conversation kicks off with the earliest 911s – the 901s. Are they truly collectible, or just rounding out someone’s already deep Porsche collection?

William and Don agree: the short-wheelbase 901s (1965–1968) are more about purity than practicality. Restoration costs, parts scarcity, and drivability issues make them a tough sell for anyone but the most committed enthusiast. And let’s not forget the Singer effect – replicas of early 911s are often more desirable than the originals.

Porsche 901
Porsche 911
Porsche 911 S
1973 Porsche 911 Carrera RS 2.7
1974-1989 Porsche 911
The Infamous 930 Turbo "Whale Tail"
Porsche 964 Turbo
Porsche 996 GT3
Porsche 993 Turbo w/ Safari 911s
Porsche 997 Turbo
Porsche 991
Porsche 992 Targa
Porsche 992 GT3

Ryan adds that early 911s, like the 356s before them, struggle in real-world driving scenarios like the Colorado Grand rally. Altitude saps power, and comfort is minimal. Still, the 911S from 1972 remains a standout – lightweight, sporty, and rare.

Shopping Criteria

Our panel of car enthusiasts and experts, including representatives from Garage Style Magazine, The Exotic Car Marketplace, Roadshow Podcast, and MIE Racing, convene to debate the ultimate Porsche for a first-time collector under the theme ‘What Should I Buy?’ They delve into the nuances of different Porsche models, focusing primarily on the 911, and its various generations. The discussion spans from air-cooled classics like the 901, 964, and 993, to water-cooled counterparts such as the 996, 997, and the latest 992 generation. They explore factors like tech advancements, collectibility, driving experience, and market value. Comparisons are drawn with the Corvette, touching upon reliability, serviceability, and performance. Throughout, the panel provides insights on the unique appeal of each Porsche generation while teasing their favorite picks under a hypothetical $100,000 budget.

We have 8 generations of the 911 to talk about. However, they can be grouped: 901, 911, 930, 964, 993, 996, 997, 991, 992. So hang in there, it’s worth it!

Back when we had things like the E(conomy), T(ouring) and S(port) models (and L, R and RS too!)
First 911 (930) Turbo, 1978, 4-speed, massive lag, BUT later came the slantnose
964 – Lowest production numbers of 911s out of all the generations, ~4000/yr. Apparently Porsche was on the verge of bankruptcy
Quick quiz, anyone know who bought the last Air-cooled 911?
Is 996 the best deal? With its intermediate shaft issues! (just like the Boxster) And the eggdrop headlights?
991/992 – What’s up with this DOT-1, DOT-2 stuff? I even hear people using this nomenclature for the 944s now. 944.1, .2 … why?
Special Models… Carrera, C4, C4S, Turbo, Turbo S, GT3, GT3 RS…
Fact/Fiction: More 911s are now GT3s than anything else, why?
How has Singer Vehicle Design messed up the Market?
Knowing what we know now, before turning the tables… Would you buy a Porsche? (or settle for a Corvette).
You’ve got $100K to spend on a “DAILY” 911, What do you buy?

Highlights

Skip ahead if you must… Here’s the highlights from this episode you might be most interested in and their corresponding time stamps.

00:00 Introduction and Panel Setup
00:19 Porsche vs. Ferrari: The Everyday Enthusiast’s Dilemma
00:51 Exploring the 60 Years of the Porsche 911
02:05 Collector’s Insight: Air-Cooled Porsches
06:00 The Evolution of the Porsche 911
24:11 The Turbo Era: Porsche 930
29:14 Porsche’s Diversification and Survival
34:41 Porsche’s Front-Engine Models: 944 and 928
37:01 Corvette’s Dark Period and Porsche’s Evolution
38:13 The 964: A Turning Point for Porsche
38:50 Porsche’s Production Challenges and Market Performance
39:31 The Impact of Singer on the 964 Market
43:13 964 Turbo vs. 930 Turbo: A Debate
46:15 The 993: The Ultimate Air-Cooled 911?
51:46 The 996: A Bargain or a Missed Opportunity?
54:47 The 997: A Modern Classic
01:07:57 The GT3 Legacy and Porsche’s Motorsport Evolution
01:11:50 Breaking Down Porsche Production Numbers
01:13:05 Navigating the GT Car Market
01:14:30 The GT Car Experience
01:16:59 Porsche vs. Corvette: Track Day Realities
01:23:25 The Future of Porsche 911
01:35:02 Porsche vs. Corvette: The Final Verdict
01:40:05 What Porsche to Buy with $100K
01:46:22 Closing Thoughts and Farewell

Transcript

Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] Our panel of break fix petrolheads are back for another rousing what should I buy debate. Using unique shopping criteria, they are challenged to find our first time collector the best vehicle that will make their friends go, Where’d you get that? or What the hell is wrong with you? at the next Cars and Coffee.

Crew Chief Eric: When we talk about Porsche rivalries, there’s always one that jumps immediately to the surface. Do you choose the technologically savvy space age Porsche 959 or the raw and exhilarating passion of the Ferrari F40? But for those of us that are everyday enthusiasts with more modest budgets, those aren’t the kinds of cars we’re interested in collecting.

Right, Mark?

Mark Shank: Absolutely right, Eric. So picking up from our previous What Should I Buy episode, we looked at the Corvette as the natural rival. So the nine 11 has the every man’s sports car. And in this episode, we’re going to focus on the 60 years of the nine 11. We’re joined by Don Wieberg from garage style magazine, along with William big money Ross [00:01:00] from the exotic car marketplace and Ryan Barkie, formerly of the steering committee podcast.

Now part of the road show pod, along with David Milton, former race engineer at the Nuremberg. and president of M. I. E. Racing. Then there’s me. Who am I? I’m Mark Schenck, our resident 90s car guy and de facto bring a trailer data analyst.

Crew Chief Eric: Thanks, Mark. And like all What Should I Buy episodes, we have some shopping criteria.

So get ready, folks. It’s time to slick back your hair. Press your Paisley button down, lace up those Oxfords, and loosen up your checkbooks, because we’re shopping for 9 11s. And in this episode, our panel of extraordinary Petroheads are challenged to find our first time collector something that will make their friends go, ja, das ist gut, at the next Cars Coffee.

So welcome back to the show, guys. Thanks for being back.

Mark Shank: Thank you.

Don Weberg: Thank you very much. Isn’t that dunker? Yeah. Dunker. But I patched now. Don, I’m wearing my eye patch. Why

Mark Shank: are I patches? German pirates? They’re like, they don’t even have [00:02:00] much of an ocean going history. Really?

Don Weberg: No, they don’t. They don’t.

Ryan Bahrke: It’s a very small coastline.

That was the

Don Weberg: Irish and the

Ryan Bahrke: Swedes.

Crew Chief Eric: Last time we got together, we talked about Corvette. We really did a stellar job at condensing eight generations, 70 years of Corvette into that episode. And so we look to do this again with Porsche with a slightly shorter history, right? The 911 celebrating its 60th birthday.

The 901 came out in 1964 and it too has gone through Eight different iterations not to be outdone by Corvette, even though it had basically a 10 year head start on Porsche. We’re going to talk about the other side of the equation, because as we alluded to the last time, the natural rivalry here in the States, if you’re looking for that, every man’s sports car, something that you can take to the office, you can run around with up in the mountains.

You can have fun with, you can take to the track race on Sunday, go to work on Monday. It’s Porsche and Corvette at the end of the day.

Don Weberg: I gotta tell you I heard I heard Eric’s accent from the east coast over there kick up And man, I gotta tell you he [00:03:00] never says it right every time he says it He says, you know, it’s Porsche versus Corvette And I gotta tell you my little German friend over here is having a fit because he says the versus Corvette is silent It’s just say Porsche you’re done

Ryan Bahrke: I don’t think there’s a lot of cross shopping.

Is that what Heinrich says

Don Weberg: you can ask anybody The 911 is the finest motor vehicle in the world. Just ask me. I will tell you. If I do not tell you, you can ask Porsche themselves and they will tell you. They are wonderful cars.

Crew Chief Eric: Wunderbar. Kicking off 901s go all the way back to the long nose cars, kind of like the C1 Corvette.

Are people collecting these cars?

Don Weberg: Oh, you mean you want to talk about the Porsche Beetle? Is that what you’re talking about? Because that’s where we really leave off. It’s

William Ross: a Porsche Beetle. Well, someone’s always collecting something. It doesn’t matter. So I mean, someone’s going to collect them. I guess it just depends the reasoning behind collecting it.

Is it something that had to do with their childhood? [00:04:00] Something to do with just something they saw? Seeing a poster? One of those things. I mean, someone’s always going to collect something. But to what extent is it key? And what are they doing with them? Are they collecting them or storing them? They collected to drive them.

They just collected them to hoard them in their backyard.

Crew Chief Eric: And I don’t want to go down the singer rabbit hole right away. And the reason I’m like, are people actually collecting legitimate air cooled early 901s and 9 11s? It’s because singers producing replica early nine 11s, what are people buying? And we’ll probably diverge into singer conversation more than once on this episode, but the question is, are there really a lot of nine Oh ones?

I mean, William, this is really your area air cooled Porsches out there in circulation or people asking for those, or are they looking for something else?

William Ross: The person is looking for a nine Oh one. Someone’s going to have a lot of other Porsches. And again, it kind of goes back to what we said before in regards to Fats last episode, you know, it’s like completing a collection of what they have currently.

No, I don’t think anyone wants one car, one car. All they’re going, Oh, I’m going to get a 901. No, because it’s one [00:05:00] just cost restoration. Just me. I mean, everything. Finding Park. I mean, it’s just all that goes with it.

Mark Shank: I’m with William on that. I think, you know, the short wheelbase 65 to 68, those are rounding out a collection, I think, but you know, I don’t know, that’s just me.

William Ross: There’s a lot of personal preference in those. As we all know, 911s have a tendency throughout the years from the sixties all the way till now, all look the same in essence, that same shape and everything. So it’s not really like you’re going these big styling cues, like say on a vet, where you’re going from a 63 split window to, you know, a 64, you know, that kind of stuff going from a C2 to a C3 or C3 to C4, that kind of stuff where it completely changed, totally different car.

Now let’s see the same shape and style throughout the year, especially all the way up till the ugly ass nine, nine, six with those eggplant headlight.

Ryan Bahrke: I’ve never heard them call the eggplant.

Mark Shank: All right. We’re like three minutes into this. We’ve already talked about singer and like fried egg headlights and like, Jesus, this went off

Crew Chief Eric: right away.

Took a left turn. [00:06:00] When you get away from the real, real early cars, 64 to 68, and you start to move into 69, 70, 71, all the way to 72, especially free government bumpers and seat belts and all those kinds of regulations that came about in 73 and 74, you had variants of the 9 11, right? You had the E, the T and the S.

And especially the S the 72 S was one of those cars. That was like the halo car, even in the eighties, like, Oh my God, you have a 72 S, you know, lightweight, the sport model versus the touring or the economy. That’s what the T and the E stood for. It’s really difficult because a lot of people will consider 64 to 89, just 911.

But in reality, you have to look at the actual part numbers. So 901, 64 to basically 73 ish, then it changes over to 911 and 930 and so on.

Don Weberg: I got to tell you, I think it has to do with a purity thing. You look at people with 356s, there’s no other car in the world. If you’re a 356 guy, that’s it. What is 911?

We don’t know. 356 [00:07:00] is it. But it’s such a pure car to drive, and when you get in a 9 0 1 or an early nine 11, you experience that. But just like Corvette with all these iterations, yeah, Porsche always kinda looked the same and always had that sort of teardrop look, but there were so much evolution under the skin that made each nine 11 a little better, a little better, a little better.

Very similar to Corvette. What 9 0 1 might be faced with is a little bit of what C one and even C two to a degree are faced with, which is drivability. 9 11 has evolved so much over the years, you’re going to go on a rally. You’re going to cruise the mountains of Malibu. You’re going to have fun. You got your other little Porsche friends out there with you.

You’re going to hit a few little beer stops on the way. You want the 901 with the crappy radio and no air conditioning and the rough ride of that short wheelbase suspension, or would you rather have, even God forbid, I should bring it up, the 996. infinitely better car, infinitely better engineered, infinitely better driving experience, [00:08:00]

Mark Shank: infinitely worse interior.

I don’t know. Oh,

Don Weberg: yeah. The interiors are pretty. Yeah.

Ryan Bahrke: Hey, it’s coming into its own now all these years later. I truly believe it.

Mark Shank: It is coming into its own as it should. It was undervalued, but the interior was pretty bad. Yeah,

Ryan Bahrke: it was.

Mark Shank: We’ll

Ryan Bahrke: get

Crew Chief Eric: to the nine, nine soon.

Ryan Bahrke: Yeah. For

Crew Chief Eric: sure.

Ryan Bahrke: Don makes an interesting point.

I’m involved with the Colorado Grand, which is a thousand mile pre 1960 or 1960 and earlier, I guess, road rally, a thousand miles in five days in Colorado. And you talk about the 356s, 356 is not enough car for the Grand. No. So most of the 356s you see anymore are Emory cars. And I kind of feel like that’s the same deal with the early 911s.

It’s horses for courses. What are you looking to do with the thing? The valuable Porsches are the rare cars or the cars that are exceptionally good to drive. Then you get sort of where the Venn diagram connects and those are the really special cars.

Don Weberg: You said that the 356s and the 901s by relation have.

Hubble on the Colorado grand, is it just, they have a power deficit

Ryan Bahrke: and that’s it. And just for the record. So the grand is 60 and earlier. So, you know, we’re talking three 56s.

Don Weberg: Yeah. Okay. But

Ryan Bahrke: yeah, you know, it’s [00:09:00] just elevation. Altitude is your enemy and it’s a real thing. You’re a pass at 12, 000 feet, 14, 000 feet.

That car’s got half the power that says it has. That’s a real issue. You know, some of those old Ferraris don’t have that problem, but the Porsches do. The goal wings, no problem. Perfect grand car. Wouldn’t stop me from wanting one or owning one. Yeah. You know, again, what are you going to use it for?

Probably not the rally car for you. Around town, whatever. Nice Sunday drive. Great car. You get everything else. It’s like the whole 9 11 versus 9 12 argument later. So much of the inherent goodness is in the 9 12, but it’ll never be a 9 11.

Crew Chief Eric: He might’ve just lost his Porsche card with everybody that’s listening.

Talking about 9 12s.

Ryan Bahrke: Hey, I can’t afford one of those either anymores. So I guess it’s, what are you looking for?

Crew Chief Eric: Well, we’re all looking for a 73 Carrera RS 2. 7 liter.

Ryan Bahrke: Absolutely. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: I think those early cars have a little bit of room for investment, but. I haven’t seen too many 72, nine 11 S’s up for sale.

Well, the production volumes were so low back then.

Mark Shank: Right. So you have to take [00:10:00] that into perspective, but your nine 11 S, which was produced 69 to 73, they’ve had. Maybe 30 odd go up for auction on bring a trailer. In the last 12 months, half of those transacted and half of them didn’t, and the price ranges on the ones that transacted were from 70 K to 240 k.

I’ve got a good buddy with the 72 s Euro spec. He’s in the uk. I rode with him around in that. To me, for the older cars, I think the S is like the driver’s car and the other cars are the collector’s cars, but maybe that’s a bias on my part.

Don Weberg: I really like them. I think they’re spectacular looking cars. I’ve had the joy of riding in one.

It was a little small for me. But it really, really was a cool experience. And growing up, my best friend, we were in baseball together. His father had a 356. I don’t know what year it was. And so I kind of grew up around that 356. And I really, really liked that car too. But I [00:11:00] noticed in that early nine 11, I thought, man, this is just a nice car.

This is much, much better, more power. The sound is there. It’s just a different car.

Crew Chief Eric: I’m like a C1. I think, you know, the right color and, you know, with the right leather and this and that, we’re like, yes, C1 is doable, but 901,

Don Weberg: I think the C1 I think the C1 edges it out a little bit. So I

Crew Chief Eric: grew up with the early 9 11.

However, like a lot of early 9 11s. It was heavily modified. It was made to look like a 78, nine 30. So we’ll get into that. That’s actually kind of the next generation of nine 11s.

Don Weberg: You ride in the later ones and you start to realize, okay, that evolution is really showing itself here. And do I really want to be, forgive the term, but do I want to be stuck with that early, early car?

And I mean, let me ask you, is it going to get harder and harder to sell those early cars? Did it come back to William’s point of, yeah, you’ll be able to sell it someday, but it’s really just going to go into a collection. The guy is not going to drive it. He’s not going to be a real enthusiast. He just wants it to round out a certain aura of a [00:12:00] collection or something like that, which I guess what I’m wondering is will 901 start losing value or will it take the Ferrari road and start to become much more valuable because there are so few of them.

Because so many of them were converted into later model cars, et cetera. I think that’s going to be interesting to see come the future.

Crew Chief Eric: And if you think about it until 72 and 73, when the bigger motors started to come in bigger. Yeah. Yeah. And air quotes, right. 2. 4, 2. 5, and then 2. 7 liters. Those early cars.

2. 0, 2. 2, although everybody was mixed matching parts. Oh, you got an S, but you put E cams in it because of the lobing and, you know, all this kind of crazy performance stuff. It’s a step above a three 56. You know, you’re making a hundred, 120 horsepower instead of 65. Yeah. Okay. But the car’s heavier, it’s bigger, but it’s the same principle.

William Ross: That was a cool thing about that is the similarities production wise on all those cars is you could interchange. And make that car yours. Now you personalize that car to such an extent. It was yours. That was the one thing, [00:13:00] you know, you go out and use car market even now, but some years ago is when you found one is like, okay, well, you knew you’re going to have to do something to it to get it to where you wanted it because that person personalized it so much because.

You could, that was the thing. It wasn’t like, you know, you kept it stock or it was like some things that everyone did. You could personalize the heck out of those things so much. Parts in abundance.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s not just personalization so much as a lot of that stemmed from grassroots motorsports, where you’re looking for the advantage against the other guy with the nine 11 and somebody went, you know, the E cams.

And the heads out of the T and if you make this weird Frankenstein combination, you’ll get 10 more horsepower with these jets from the Webers, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Grassroots motorsport fueled a lot of those combinations, but they weren’t factory sanctioned. I think the factory took a while to kind of catch up later.

They were designing to a budget. Well, if you bought the E, it was the base model 911. If you bought the touring, the T. Then you’ve got these [00:14:00] extra things like factory air or whatever it was, right? Which was an option in the S was the sport model. So there’s a lot of that going on from a sales perspective, but I don’t think they were quite yet thinking about the amateur drivers.

Yes, they were competing that Lamar. They had been doing that with the three 56s and other cars before that point. They hadn’t tuned in the same way that let’s say Corvette did going. We’re going to build a car for people to go have fun with. They were just building 911s to fuel the engineering program, the racing program.

David L. Middleton: That’s also a very German philosophy, right? And you got to think at that time where Americans were more, we’re going to tune, we’re going to change, we’re going to modify and German culture, especially back then, I don’t think it was natural for the average German person who bought a Porsche to say, I’m going to go out and change parts, right?

It was probably looked down upon as like, Oh, you’re taking away from the OEM, right? I’m sure there were a few people doing it here or there. But that tends to be more of an American thing, you know, and I think America has pushed that into the mainstream now where of course everybody does it [00:15:00] globally.

But I think, especially back then, if you were a German and you started modifying your Porsche, you know, your neighbor in Stuttgart would have looked and said, like, what are you doing?

Ryan Bahrke: You bring up a good point too. It’s a little tougher to get 10 horsepower out of a, an air cooled Porsche than it is like a Chevy small.

You don’t

Crew Chief Eric: say

Ryan Bahrke: look at the

William Ross: Chevy

Ryan Bahrke: sideways.

William Ross: I mean, it’s tough to stick another hamster in there.

Crew Chief Eric: I think Ryan’s right. Early long nose, nine 11 might still be a stretch and a struggle on something like the Colorado grand. And that’s when you want to move into a 74 later, nine 11.

Ryan Bahrke: How many 901s actually are there?

These aren’t the numbers pretty small

Crew Chief Eric: or of them. Then there are nine 64. So I’m going to say that.

Ryan Bahrke: Well, anymore, right? Thanks singer. We’ll get to those. Do your point

Crew Chief Eric: quick quiz for David and Ryan. Do you guys know why Portia had to stop using the nine Oh one moniker and switched to nine 11?

David L. Middleton: Yes, I do. I do.

Crew Chief Eric: David, go ahead. Tell us.

David L. Middleton: Of course, it’s because of Peugeot and Peugeot had this [00:16:00] 901 was inside factory number or as they say, like a internal number and they did like a cease and desist. Basically, they changed it from 901 to 911 and it actually worked out better. I think for a Porsche.

Ryan Bahrke: Can you imagine if they had kept that name?

Would it have the same panache? I don’t know that it would.

David L. Middleton: Oh, Portia being Portia, I’m sure they would have turned it to like a cold following. But yeah, I mean, it was probably a blessing in disguise. I didn’t feel it at the time.

Don Weberg: It gives you an idea too, of how Portia has come along through the years.

Back in the day, Peugeot was able to stand up and say, stop. You will not do that to us. We keep this zero. You do not, you go away. You stupid little German people. You. And now look at it, I don’t think Peugeot could really, I mean, I don’t know, maybe they could, but Porsche has become this huge corporation.

Crew Chief Eric: And I’ll add to that, that wasn’t the first time that Porsche had tangled with Peugeot either, because rumors have it that they’re the ones that put the old man in jail after the war. So hey, you know what? It’s all good, right? Twice bitten.

Don Weberg: You remember the Continental name, I mean, [00:17:00] going back to 356 and then they had to tango with Ford.

And it was just one of those things where cease and desist and stop doing that. And again, now they’re to a point, it’s just like, if you want to go to court, let’s go to court.

Crew Chief Eric: So moving to the second half of that original 901, 911 generation, 1964. Tonight, 1889, we get the first body change, and as you guys said, you can always see the lines of the nine 11 through every generation that’s come since the very first one in 1964.

So if you think about it, it’s very German, it’s very iterative, just like you’re developing software version one and version two in version three. But when you switch over in 74, because of the new regulations and the bigger bumpers and the safety stuff. It was sort of like C1 to C2. Yeah, it’s still 911, but suddenly we got big bumpers and those butt cheeks in the back and those lights in the bumper and the headlights got bigger.

And the car just physically got larger, although it kept the same silhouette. I think a lot of us, like we talked about C2 is the car we imprinted on or C4 [00:18:00] is the car we imprinted on. Those 74 to 89, nine 11s there on everybody’s wall. As a kid, you’re

William Ross: like,

Crew Chief Eric: God, it’s a nine 11. You just know what it is, but sort of like Sano, does it still hold that same greatness compared to other nine 11?

So the second gen nine 11, let’s call it that. Is it still as good as, as it ever was?

Mark Shank: Like, I love it. There’s such a great aftermarket for it. You can make it a genuinely light car. It’s not that hard to get a 2, 500. Pound car out of it. There’s a lot of different things you can do from a power perspective.

I believe they flared the fenders out with the SC a little bit in the back. For me as a kid, that my little kid brain, when they flared the fenders, they were cool. It was like the older ones were not cool without those hips. You know, maybe I learned something about myself later in life, but those hips work for me.

I’m a little biased. I owned one for a long time. It’s one of my biggest regrets is not still having that car. It was so much fun to drive. It’s very different driving experience [00:19:00] than like even in a modern, very fast car. But it is, it’s very analog, the brakes and in the steering and everything. I don’t know.

I, I think it’s awesome.

Don Weberg: I think too, when it comes to that, if you’ll forgive it, that second generation, if you can call it that 9 11, you started to become a lot more mainstream. Let’s face it, even those late seventies, mid seventies S’s, SC, and then certainly by the time the Carreras were out in the 1980s, you had a very strong evolution of, we’re going to go after our customer base.

Well, who is our customer base? Oh, that’s doctors and lawyers, people with big money. They want their comfort. They want their panache. They want to be able to enjoy all the qualities of a German car, all the comforts of a luxury car. This one just so happens to be able to move very, very well. I think they started pulling away from their racing roots a little bit, especially during the 1980s, even though they had the 930, which was very capable car, you still had a lot of the luxuries and you can’t say it was unique.

Corvette did the [00:20:00] same thing to a degree. Yeah. You had the 350 and the 327 and all that, which we could modify until kingdom come. But I mean, you look at Datsun with the 280Z versus the 280ZX, and that happened right around that same time, that late seventies, early eighties. But the ZX was a big departure from what the Z enthusiasts were really, really wanting.

Well, what Nissan or Datsun was trying to point out to them was, yeah, you guys, you enthusiasts are great. We love you. I guess who’s writing the checks these days. It’s the yuppies. It’s not you guys, Porsche and Corvette. I think both recognize the same thing. And they started having to pull away and they started having to develop really what became the yuppie mobiles of the eighties.

Crew Chief Eric: We talk a lot on the American side about the malaise period, adding the luxury. We talked about that quite a bit with the C3 Corvette, where it was like all show and no go, Horses have always been pretty Spartan. They’re very utilitarian. If you sit in a nine 64 outside of, you know, more modern video cockpit design gauges, it’s still the same interior going back all the way to 1964, [00:21:00] more or less the seats got better, but it’s all the same basic recipe.

But the thing is you hit the nail on the head in the eighties, much like the C2 Corvette, the second generation nine 11 was suddenly on TV. You saw nine 11s on heart to heart. Linda Carter drove a nine, a wonder woman. I mean, celebrities are driving nine 11s, right? But the thing is, if you look at it chronologically, Porsche is always behind.

I feel like they’re playing catch up to Corvette a little bit. Like, look at what they’re doing over there because they are 10 years behind. C2 was already at C3 was already on its way in by the time the second gen 911 was coming around, but you also mentioned something in the second generation, you had the regular 911, then the S and the SC, and then the Carrera and this and that, and they kept piling what I noticed, especially growing up in the Porsche club, it was like, Oh, you own an S.

I have an SC and then the guy next to him goes, Oh, you only have an SC. Well, I have a turbo, you know? And it became this like almost bidding war in their own community. [00:22:00] Like you had to have the latest, greatest, biggest, baddest one there was. And it sort of set the whole thing into motion.

Don Weberg: I’m listening to you and I hear you and I get it.

And I’m going to step into that realm. And I know you and I cannot engage in that realm, not because we fight, but because you and I will just keep that damn thing going forever, but I’m going to go into the C3 real quick. And we’ve already discussed this, but the C3 was really kind of a neat car. You saw the shift.

It was obvious when the C3 was born. Yeah. You had another performance Corvette. You had fun. You had higher squealing performance, et cetera. It was fantastic. And then the mid seventies set in and we started losing our chrome bumpers in favor of those elasto form plastic bumpers that bend with five mile per hour impact.

Well, okay. I guess it’s more aerodynamic. Yeah, but it’s also better on fuel because of this, this and this. Oh, and the emissions are a lot cleaner because of this, that, and the other. Uh huh. So does it still move? Yeah, man. 190 horsepower. Wait, what? You know, all of a sudden it was a gutless [00:23:00] wonder, but you got real leather seats now, huh?

And how about that fake wood dashboard, man? You don’t get that in no Porsche, no sir. By the way, two tone leather seats for you, buddy. It’s gonna be special. We’re gonna put you a CB radio in there, too, man. You’re gonna have some fun playing Smokey and the Bandit all day long. You actually got to see the evolution from performance to, I guess, malaise is what we’ll stick to.

Cars got more comfortable. They got more luxurious. They had two tone paint jobs, et cetera. I’m not saying the 911 went that crazy. Certainly it never did. But, exactly what you’re saying. If you follow along, yeah, yeah, yeah. The gauges were all the same. The layout’s all the same. Why? Germans aren’t really that creative.

Oh Lord. Okay. So. They keep doing the same thing over and over and over and over and over. So they’re just not all that creative. So the Porsche just kept going and going and going. And yes, they were playing catch up, but by the mid seventies, you could barely see the light of malaise coming through on nine 11 if for no other [00:24:00] reason.

They really started catering to their customer base that they were actually genius at how they evolved 9 11 so subtly, so subtly Corvette, man, it’s in your face, you’re getting crap. And that’s the end of the day,

Crew Chief Eric: but there is a caveat to that, which is the 930, the third gen 9 11 with the turbo. The very first ones came out as early as 1975.

Most of us know here in the States 1978, all the way through 1989 with the four speed and the 3.3 liter and all that kinda stuff. The thing about the nine 30 though, much like the C3 Corvette, it wasn’t luxury. It was insanity. We’re talking a big snail under the hood and all sorts of crazy noises, but what it was was a derivative.

Of what was happening on the big stage and racing which they were ushering in the turbo era Look at all the turbo renault’s all the other turbo porsches that were racing all this other kind of stuff that was happening at le mans At endurance racing can am turbo turbo turbo turbo So it made sense [00:25:00] for porsche to introduce the 911 turbo when they did and corvette’s like Hey man, Rochester carburetor, the 930 had fuel injection.

They were way ahead of the curve. So what they lacked in luxury, they dumped it all in technology. Not wrong, not wrong.

Don Weberg: You know, David, if you keep giving us those long winded descriptions, I’m going to write you up. Remember he lived in Germany

Crew Chief Eric: for a long time, very to the point.

Ryan Bahrke: Let me ask. So I’m 48 years old, so I don’t remember that far back.

I mean, I guess it’s pretty far back, but back in the seventies though, were people cross shopping nine 11s and Corvettes more so than they are say in 2024?

Crew Chief Eric: No, I don’t think so. And that’s why we’re having this conversation. Yeah.

Don Weberg: Yeah. I mean, you know, Eric, to your point though, I mean, to your direct question, those forces, that particular generation is.

Especially the SC and the Carrera of the eighties, that to me is still the reigning king 9 11. I think that was a real summit in 9 11 development. And I don’t know [00:26:00] why. I don’t know if it’s because those were the ones that I was raised with. I don’t know if it’s because of what you just said, Eric, about all the technology and all the engineering that went into ensuring that little six cylinder could still hold onto a Corvette could still even outclass a Corvette because yeah, it’s fuel injected.

Now it’s got turbochargers. And I mean that, come on, it was a six cylinder. That was cleaning Ferrari clocks. I mean, that’s something to be said.

Ryan Bahrke: The reason I mentioned the demographics is one car was the doctor killer that wasn’t the Corvette, right?

Crew Chief Eric: The nine 30 was a widow maker for sure. Have any of you guys driven one?

Cause I have, and my uncle owned one and it was just vicious.

Ryan Bahrke: It was the car that put Porsche on the radar for me personally growing up. I, and to this day, I’ve never driven one, but that was the car that put it on my radar. There was a single guy who lived next to us who seemed to have all the ladies and all the cash, whatever.

I don’t know what he did professionally, but he had two cars. He had an old five 60 SL and he had a nine 30 turbo with silver BBS wheels. And I just thought that guy was just the Alpha and the Omega. I thought he was the [00:27:00] coolest, you know? And so that for me will always forever be the, the Porsche, the 911.

But to this day, I’ve never driven one. I’ve ridden in them, never driven one. The one to have is the 89, right? With the five speed or whatever.

Crew Chief Eric: And there’s a reason you make the statement. If you have any other turbocharged German cars, it’s got 930 like turbo lag.

Mark Shank: 930 is this Derox machine of turbo lag. Oh, it is insane.

Crew Chief Eric: When it comes on, it comes on like a shot out of a cannon.

Ryan Bahrke: Bonkers. So all the stories are true.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes, a hundred percent. You can’t actually enjoy a nine 30 because you have to manage a nine 30 and you have to be very careful, respectful of it. And when it’s not on boost Yeah, it can’t get out of its own way.

And when it is on boost, yeah. Hold on.

Don Weberg: Yeah. It’s a Jekyll and Hyde

Ryan Bahrke: and it’s all of 260 horsepower, right?

Don Weberg: Yeah. It ain’t a lot. But it’s not the horsepower, it’s the torque. Yeah. But I think that thing had 310 foot pounds of torque.

Ryan Bahrke: Not nothing.

Don Weberg: No, it’s not bad. That was huge. There’s

Crew Chief Eric: a reason why it’s so wide too.

They double the size of the rear tires to try to make traction.

Don Weberg: In the Corvette community, they used to call them steam rollers.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, [00:28:00] like you, Ryan, I had a black on black 930 turbo on my wall. It even had black BBS basket weaves, but it was the slant nose. The slant nose was the one everybody was talking about.

Oh, it’s so cool. It’s like a nine 35, you know, no headlights.

Ryan Bahrke: You didn’t see them. That was it. They only existed on posters and in magazines, at least where I lived in Indiana. I mean, that was just a next level exotic.

Crew Chief Eric: I mentioned my uncle had one. His was a replica all steel slammer.

Ryan Bahrke: Okay.

Mark Shank: You can find them.

Ryan Bahrke: Yeah. Where’d they all go?

Crew Chief Eric: Gone. Like magic.

Mark Shank: There was something said earlier. I want to, I maybe want to challenge a little bit, cause I feel like an understatement. the significance of the 959, which you mentioned in the intro outside of the turbo technology, which we’ve talked about being not amazingly well implemented in the 930.

The 911 didn’t change for a long time. It was a pretty low volume car. They’re selling a thousand units. They’re selling 2, 000 units while the Corvette’s selling 25, 30. You know, in the late seventies, the Corvette was crushing it. [00:29:00] Absolutely destroying. Stayed this low volume. You know, they stuck with this 915 transmission, which I absolutely loved.

My 915, I put some Wevo aftermarket parts in it and it was just absolutely amazing, but it was an anachronism for its time. I feel like the 959 and the investment that Porsche put around that and where they went from there. Was a real turning point for the brand and it really started trying to win on technology and taking the risk on the investment and in a large way betting the company on this idea that they were going to increase sales volume and they were going to drive higher margin, higher value.

And they did all those things. If you add the 911 variants up across, they sell similar or better volume relative to Corvette. And they do it at much higher margins and much higher MSRP. And you can see that kind of start to happen in the 90s. It’s an important, significant evolution of the brand. And I loved my 1985 911 3.

2 that had no power steering, [00:30:00] no anti lock brakes. The suspension setup was You know, you could argue at the time that it was well dated and how it was set up. I mean, I loved it. And the 9 11 was relatively static for a long time. I think that was indicative of where Porsche was putting their money, putting it into different programs.

9 28, they thought that was going to take over and kill the 9 11. We haven’t told that story that everybody knows if they know anything about 9 11, but then also they were doing the Volkswagen project that they ended up having to take over for themselves to sell. The 9 44 and they’re putting all this money in.

other places and not in the 9 11 and then that changed significantly and it became the future of the brand. It’s important I think to kind of talk about from that perspective.

Crew Chief Eric: And I’m glad you brought that up. It was at the back of my mind. There was a moment there where 9 11 might not have made it past the 80s because if you go back to some of those magazines that I know Ryan’s got memorized, but if you look at some of the spec of like the 944 turbos, they were more aerodynamic than the 9 11.

They were quicker. The 928 is faster. [00:31:00] Especially when you get up to GTS, you’re talking near 200 mile an hour cars. The 911 wasn’t putting down those kinds of speeds yet. The 959 was the 911 that could do 200 miles an hour air quotes on that one too. To your point, yeah, they were sort of not lost, but they were definitely diversifying their product portfolio.

Mark Shank: They were a small company, and I think that’s hard to appreciate in the modern context. They were a small company. Great point. They were investing in these other lines that they were going to go on a more luxurious higher end point with the nine 28, but they’re going to go more economical, the nine 44, the nine 24.

They were putting investment in those spaces and they weren’t hamstringing those in the way the Americans did, where it was like, no, your 9 44 can’t impune the nine 11. Which is funny ’cause they do that today, right? Like your complaint about your payment or something today is it feels like it was built to be the best thing that wouldn’t beat to nine 11.

It’s like, eh, you know, obviously they’ve gotten better with that, a lot more [00:32:00] with the GD fours and the RSS and the spiders, and I feel like they’ve really improved that in the last five, seven years. But up until then they had a real problem, but they didn’t do that in the eighties. Right. And then I think they didn’t do that because they didn’t think that 9 11 was the future of the brand.

So they didn’t care.

Don Weberg: But that changed. The 928, I guess, even the 944, 924, et cetera, in the seventies as they came out. If I’m not mistaken, 928 was supposed to take the baton from 9 11 because they didn’t expect it to get out of the seventies. They thought 9 11 was going to be out to put to sleep because they didn’t think the air cooled would meet the American emissions regulations.

And so 9 28 was developed and it became kind of an oops car because 9 28 just didn’t resonate with 9 11 customers. That was not. Porsche, but what it did do, it dragged some traditional Mercedes and BMW people into the Porsche showroom for a slightly larger, more luxurious Porsche

Crew Chief Eric: experience. And it was the way Porsche embraced the malaise period too.

Yeah.

Ryan Bahrke: It was also very expensive. Yes. Relative to [00:33:00] other Porsches.

Crew Chief Eric: It was

Mark Shank: very expensive.

Crew Chief Eric: But they are amazing to drive. And we could probably go down a whole rabbit hole on 928. I adore 928s, they’re a lot of fun. Seen in movies like Scarface and Risky Business and Weird Science and things like that. And you

Don Weberg: do know where 928 came from, don’t you?

Don’t even

Crew Chief Eric: start.

Don Weberg: I mean, let’s face it, the 9 11 is nothing more than a squashed beetle. And the 9 28 is nothing more than a squashed American pacer.

Crew Chief Eric: Legend has it its inspiration comes from the pacer.

Don Weberg: But I will tell you where Jeremy Clarkson, where he hates 9 11, he loves 9 28. Yeah. He absolutely loves 9 28.

So for him, you know, kudos.

William Ross: I

Ryan Bahrke: was going to say, a little more room for that giant head,

Don Weberg: huh?

Mark Shank: Can you imagine the cost of developing the automatic transmission and the new manual transmission and a 32 valve V8 for a car as low volume as this? 928 don’t only to walk away from it, they sold what? Five in 1994.[00:34:00]

I mean, that was such a boondoggle for the brand. I guess they should get credit for surviving it.

Crew Chief Eric: It was like a 20 plus year boondoggle. The 928 was around forever. It’s like, it was never going to die. You know,

Mark Shank: someone was trying to amortize the cost of all that R and D. It just kept going.

Crew Chief Eric: Porsche has always been like on the edge of bankruptcy.

Every so many years, it was like, holy cow, you know, we got to bet the farm. And the 944 was a saving grace. Like it kept the service bays full. And I’m not saying because 944 was plagued with issues, but it was just so different to maintain than a 9

David L. Middleton: 11. Yeah, it is a company for many, many years was on the edge of bankruptcy and had to be creative and innovative to keep going.

You know, it’s funny, we talked about the 944 and then the 928. Well, those were the first Porsches for me that I fell in love with because I grew up in New York city and there weren’t a lot of 911s going around in my neighborhood. Like I knew of it, but what I first saw, and I remember this vividly, the first thing I saw, and I think it mentions other podcasts, it was a red 944.

That somebody in [00:35:00] my neighborhood had, and then fell in love kind of with the 928. But that changed very quickly. Once I really discovered the 911s cause you know, the 930 turbo and the, just the 930 in general, the history of its racing and, and the history of what it became was what I started to fall in love with.

So, yeah, to me, it’s a very important car. Would I ever own one? Probably not right now. Like I probably wouldn’t get a 944 just cause there’s so much other stuff in the Porsche range that I love. I mean, I love seeing them at car shows and I still go to a lot of car shows. So I love seeing the 944, the 944 S.

And in fact, when we were in Detroit, there was that one sitting, I was like, Hey, so yeah, I definitely love seeing them. And I love seeing the 928. And when my kids see them, they think it’s cool. Cause the lights, right. They’re like, you know, those are the only portions with pop up lights. And then. I tell him, yeah, but it’s front engine.

And then my, my little daughter says, well, that’s not a real Porsche. The nine, six, eight doesn’t count. I love

Ryan Bahrke: the nine, six,

David L. Middleton: eight counts. But in my family, I kept telling them because they, you know, as my girls are learning about cars and the difference between Corvettes, Mustangs, Porsches. Even Audi’s like, I’ve always said one thing [00:36:00] that makes Porsche special was, you know, at least the engine used to sit behind the rear axle.

And we started this thing of like, that’s not a real Porsche. You know, we’d see things out in the wild and, and my girls were like, Oh, that’s not a real Porsche because where the engine sits, but the bad thing now is that they say it to a lot of people they go to school with whose parents own McCann’s and Cayenne’s.

And you know, the kid’s like, Oh, my father has a McCann and my daughter’s like, well, that’s a fake Porsche. And they called this big Porsche to like some parents. And so the parents are looking at me like, obviously influenced by your dad. And my daughter’s like, no, we just learned what’s proper. So

Ryan Bahrke: the Porsche Tiguan.

Yeah,

David L. Middleton: yeah,

Mark Shank: exactly. I taught my children gatekeeping and elitism in the Porsche

Ryan Bahrke: community tradition going

Mark Shank: well.

Crew Chief Eric: So, Mark, are these second gen and even third gen 930s, are they even attainable? Are they completely out of the range of possibility anymore?

Mark Shank: No, no, no. I mean, I think the SE continues in my mind.

It’s been the [00:37:00] value purchase. For the last 15, 20 years, it’s now gone from being something you could get for 15 K for being something you can get for 40 K, which is not cheap by any means for something that’s 180 horsepower or something like that.

Crew Chief Eric: We talked about the last time. There was a dark period for Corvette and that happened with C3 was the longest running Corvette.

It kind of weathered the storm for Corvette as well. As Mark alluded to, so many were produced in like a 25 year run is insane, but we turned the corner in 1989 at Porsche and you’re starting to see the 928s getting wrapped up, the 944s on its way out with the 16 valve and then the S and the S2. And you know, all the special editions that they did, but all limited number stuff and the 911s.

Still sort of the 9 11 through 1989 and then the 964 comes along and everybody gets excited again. There’s a new 9 11! Wait, it looks just like the rest of them except rounded and what’s the difference? You guys have heard [00:38:00] me say this a million times if I’ve said it once. The 90s is full of these just bulbous, porpoise, marshmallow looking cars.

And the 911 was right there lockstep with everybody else. They smoothed it out. But what I’ve come to appreciate about the 964 is that it’s smooth and that it’s round, that it’s sleek and slippery. What a lot of our listeners might not know is lowest production numbers of nine 11. Full stop. The 9 64 has the least produced.

Again, the company is on the verge of bankruptcy and it has a very short run, 1989 through 1994, and they’re just trying to get their act together, right? 9 68 didn’t come until 1992. The 9 93 didn’t come until 93, 94. There was all these spinning plates. And here we are with 9 11 and rounded bumpers.

Mark Shank: Yeah, I mean, let’s finesse that point a little bit, right?

Because it’s lowest production numbers because it’s the shortest. From an actual sales per annum perspective, it did very well. It’s like your last year’s odd [00:39:00] because the 993s out. Porsche does the lovely thing where they sell two different cars with the same model year designation. So you got a 94 93, you got a 94 964, you got 89s.

But if you look at like the more pure years or 90, 91, 92, 93, they sold really well, particularly when in comparison to their trajectory at the time, right? So if you’re selling 20, 000 Porsche 911s in 1991, almost 22, 000, actually, that’s really great for them. I mean, you mentioned singer earlier. Now we’re on the nine, six, four.

We can say singer now. Those bastards ruin the 9 6 4, because not everybody wants a 9 6 4 to modify it, so it can be a poor man’s singer, and it used to be the least loved version of the nine 11 that you could most easily get. I can remember when I was looking for a car, I ended up buying that 3.2. I bought that 3.2 for like 20 grand.

It was. Amazingly restored and really well done. And I remember looking at nine, six, four, not the 3. 6, but the [00:40:00] 3. 3 turbos, they were just like 50 grand all day long. And so in Southern California, those days are long gone.

Crew Chief Eric: And I’m glad you brought that up. The 3. 3 liter turbo, it went all the way up to 3. 8 in the 964 at one point, depending on, you know, who is building it at the

Mark Shank: RS and RSR, yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. And then the RS America, you know, there were so few of those and all that, but the thing about the 964 that I always appreciated, and I had sort of firsthand involvement in this because we purchased a 964 twin spark engine to put in our 914. And at that point, nobody was doing three sixes. And anything, let alone nine fourteens to deal with that motor, to look at what they had done.

It was a huge step away from the 3. 2, all the changes that they made, the Motronic fuel injection, you know, all this other stuff that they added to it. It was a much more modern car under sort of an ancient skin. And it was sort of the test mule what set the trajectory for every other 3. 6 liter base nine 11 going forward.

So to your point, Mark. It’s [00:41:00] underappreciated, but I also think it’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Mark Shank: Yeah, for sure. And again, you know, going back to that narrative, it’s post nine, five, nine. It’s I think when really Porsche started trying to win on technology and advancing, and that’s evidence of that. They started there rather than somewhere else.

William Ross: When they came out in 1964, they also came out with the Carrera 4. I mean, I don’t know if that brought anyone to the force of fold because living in cold or weather climates where it’s snow, someone can buy an all wheel drive one and drive it year round. I mean, does that open the door up for wanting to go look at it or not?

Crew Chief Eric: Yes. I’ll give you all of that. The only problem was a lot of us went to the nine 64 C4 with the fantasy that, Oh my God, I can buy nine 59 technology.

William Ross: Yeah, let’s

Crew Chief Eric: pause and clarify for a second. Cause the nine 59 was an Audi Quattro underneath the nine 64 C4 is a VW synchro system underneath, and they are not the same thing.

It tends to still be very rear wheel bias until it gets into trouble. And then at that point it’s [00:42:00] too late. They didn’t fix that problem until late in the nine 93, when you had the C4 S and some of the other models that come out where they really, you know, Spent the time to develop the all wheel drive system.

So for me, if I’m buying a nine 64 C2, because you’re just carrying around ballast with a C4, so you’re

William Ross: telling me the salesman back in the nineties and a Porsche dealership was going to explain that to someone coming in,

Crew Chief Eric: it was all lies.

William Ross: No, it’s the same exact as a 9 5

Crew Chief Eric: 9. Yeah. Uh huh. Yeah.

Don Weberg: Well, and again, this goes to your point, Eric, that we were talking about Porsche is always playing catch up to Corvette.

It feels like they’re always evolving. They’re always developing. But it’s almost like they do it in a fist punch fashion in the mid seventies. They were evolving a little bit and then the nine 30 was evolved. And that, Holy cow, that put Porsche on the map. And then the SC came out a little bit more, a little bit more every, every time.

And then the next thing, you know, yeah, the nine 64 comes out. And just like Mark is saying, that was a [00:43:00] huge step forward for the company. So it’s almost like they take these huge steps where Corvette constantly is just little by little by little. Porsche just rides the wave for a long time. And then boom, surprise.

We’re here now. Very interesting the way they’ve done that.

Crew Chief Eric: So I got to ask 960 Ford turbo or 930 turbo. What do you choose?

William Ross: Which 964 turbo though? There’s some variants in there.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, you’re right. William. The worst one.

William Ross: 930? It’s still better. Come on. I mean, let’s be

Mark Shank: honest. If it’s stock for stock, it’s still a lot better.

I mean, you’re comparing like stone age to iron age between those two things. Like you just skipped bronze age. Like you just jumped that.

Crew Chief Eric: Granted stock normally aspirated three, six is faster than the old turbo, but that’s not the point. Let’s just look at it from an aesthetics perspective. Would you rather have sitting in your garage?

Late nine 30 turbo or a 9 64 turbo,

William Ross: well without a flack bow.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh man, why you gotta do that to me?

William Ross: Then you got say, you start, right. They

Crew Chief Eric: gotta have the same kind of [00:44:00] headlights, right? Where that’s, that’s my rule.

William Ross: It’s a hard choice. All right. They did make a couple where it was a flack bow, but it was to delete and it was just, you know, made no sense in regards to how they did it.

But I mean, I’d go old school, I’d do the nine 30. I just think because it’s so raw, but it doesn’t matter what it is. I’d go after the three six. I’d do a flack valve in a heartbeat. As much as I love

Ryan Bahrke: the 930, the 964 is just that much better to me, and it’s a much rarer car, is it not?

Don Weberg: Very much so, yeah. You throw a 930 in the garage, any kid right now comes over, whoa, they know what that is.

For some reason, it’s almost like DNA, they just know that is God’s car right there. But you throw a 964 turbo? Oh, that’s cool. They don’t know what it is. They don’t know how to respond to it. You know, the nine 30 is just legend. It is absolutely legend.

David L. Middleton: I’m going nine 30 turbo. If I had all the money in the world, I’m getting like a nine 30 RSR tribute type body, because I just love them.

And, and something about that history of that time of motorsports stuff they were doing, especially in America. [00:45:00] That’s what I like. And that’s when I think of being a kid, I think that’s the car. Like I would have loved that my dad had or something like that. And, and. Or somebody in the family and we never had it.

So I was always like, it’s that car you want it to play with to me. The nine six four. I also love it, of course, but it’s something about the nine 30. And it makes me think of maybe when my dad was a younger man, things he would have aspired for, because he said he wanted to be a doctor and it never happened.

But. You just kind of playing around

William Ross: in the Martini livery.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. Right. So I’m going to pull the pin. I’m going to throw the grenade on this one. The reason it’s nine 64 turbo bad boys, you know,

Ryan Bahrke: that didn’t even factor into my decision, but you’re not wrong. That kind of made it an icon. Didn’t it?

Mark Shank: If you’re a nineties kid, you know,

Ryan Bahrke: That’s funny.

Don Weberg: Yeah. Bad boys put it on the map and I’ll tell you, working for Mecham, I got to write the description for that Porsche because we sold it. And that description writing, it’s the one that made me take notice of 964 a little bit closer because other than that, it was overlooked, you know, in my little brain, which [00:46:00] admittedly is not exactly wired to Porsche, but I never had anything against Porsche.

I just never spent a hell of a lot of time with them. But the 964 was always that. Well, the tweener, right, that one between the real Porsche and the other Porsche, right. Got it. Got it.

Crew Chief Eric: So the dark period of 9 11, it’s also sort of the beginning of the air cooled 9 11 swan song. And so again, I look at the 9 64 going wolf in sheep’s clothing, a lot of hidden things inside that car that people would say, it’s just another 9 11, who cares?

But it ushered in the 993, which like in the Corvette world, when we went from C4 to C5, it suddenly got bigger and it got hippier and it got more aerodynamic and it got more technologically friendly. 993 to me is the C5 of 911s.

Don Weberg: 993 is the C5 of 9 11? You’re obviously wrong. I don’t know what you mean there, Eric.

A lot of plastic, a lot of rounded edges. Is it the C5? Yeah, I tend to agree.

Mark Shank: You know, you really [00:47:00] impugned upon the 993. It hurt my feelings. When you said that it’s the C5 of the Porsche. So one right off the bat, I think the fact that there is no 993 that has not, oh, all right, I won’t make such a ridiculous statement.

But basically all 993s have appreciated over their purchase price from when they were made in the 90s. Any variant. So I think right off the bat, it shows how loved it has been by the community. I think it’s considered to be the ultimate air cooled version of that car. The turbo version of it did uniquely well.

Crew Chief Eric: Is the appreciation of the 993 a result of the fact that number one, you mentioned one of the two cars, the 993 twin turbo, which I’ve had the luxury of riding in is an amazing vehicle. I mean, ballistically fast. But also the 911 GT2, which was running at Le Mans, other places and the successes that it was having that everybody went, well, I can’t afford either one of those because 993 twin turbos were already six figure cars in the mid nineties.

They were [00:48:00] very hard to get ahold of. So they went, you know what? I’m going to buy a 993 and kind of live the fantasy, even though that’s not what you were getting.

Mark Shank: It still had a very competitive power to weight ratio for its time. And it was definitely a sports car. Yeah, sure. It wasn’t the turbo sure. So it wasn’t the GT too.

I think people driving it now are enjoying that kind of 300 ish horsepower type driving experience with it’s odd basket of anachronisms, which I think are, you know, To certain people that it comes across as particularly charming, right? It still has that old interior, that old dash. It feels like it’s a direct predecessor of that 1960s, nine 11.

And it feels like it sounds like when you shut the door, that like kind of. Ting noise when you shut the door. I think that through line carries a lot for the people in the brand.

Crew Chief Eric: And the reason I equate it to the C5, not because it shares the same timeline as the C5, is that, like we spoke about, C5 was a turning point for [00:49:00] Corvette.

The introduction of Jake and Team Corvette and the C5R and all the things they were doing at ALMS. And I feel like the 993 is right there with it because we introduced super cup racing and the Porsche Carrera Challenge, those organized spec racing and what they were doing on the big stage and at Le Mans, this and that.

Porsche was winning races in other Porsches for a long time, 962s 917s. But the 911 suddenly came onto the stage and the rivalry between Porsche and Corvette Even though Corvette was also fighting with Viper, which we talked about at the same time. So they’re fighting kind of a two front war in motorsport.

Everything started to heat up at this point. They fought in the trenches together and they share that the C5 It’s a page turn away from all the other cars. Even if it is the successor to the 901, it still follows that lineage. The 993 for me is a step in the right direction.

Ryan Bahrke: But I would argue that a large percentage of Porsche guys would call the 993 their favorite Porsche.

I don’t know if a [00:50:00] similar percentage of Corvette guys would call the C5

Crew Chief Eric: their favorite

Ryan Bahrke: Corvette.

Crew Chief Eric: So we talked about that on the previous episode. C5 is like the de facto go to Corvette, especially if you kind of want that Swiss army knife that can do everything. The C5 is that starter track car. It’s the show car.

There’s all the different versions of it. The Z06. Z06.

Ryan Bahrke: Yeah, true, true, true. So

Crew Chief Eric: there’s a cult following for the C5, I think in a similar way that there is for the 993.

Ryan Bahrke: See, in my mind, it’s more of the 996 of Corvettes, but it shows how much I know, I guess. It’s interesting. There’s a point in that not a lot of people are going out and buying 964s and 993s and turning them into track cars, like they are C5s or, you know.

C4s or whatever, for that matter,

Mark Shank: you’re both right. I think if your buyer is coming from, you know, how do I kick butt at an autocross or at a track event, I’m going to start doing this. The C5 is absolutely your value proposition for entering into that type of event and being competitive and doing really well.

And in that way, It is uniquely loved by [00:51:00] people who are interested in getting into that. When you look across the breadth of the people buying these cars, as opposed to the more track oriented, you know, you get into what Ryan’s talking about. So you’re both right. It’s a good point. Yeah. You’re talking about different kinds of buyers.

Crew Chief Eric: 996 would be my choice. For a starter Porsche track car, for sure. Not a nine 93,

David L. Middleton: but is that just based on price or availability or what?

Crew Chief Eric: Having coached in a lot of nine 11s over the years, the nine 96 is a very forgiving chassis. It kind of checks the legacy at the door. And that’s why I say nine 93 kind of opened the door for these newer nine 11s, you know, the wide bodies and all this.

And you can see that it’s a new lineage. It’s kind of a reboot for nine 11. But the nine 96 is where it all really leaps off from. And that chassis is much more refined. It’s much more forgiving. And then you start getting into things like GT three, and we’ll talk about that too, but I think nine 96, you can still get into them for very, very cheap money.

Don Weberg: For now, yeah, I think 996, you can still catch a bargain out there. Everyone [00:52:00] knows I like 996 and a lot of the guys on Facebook that I know who are all into sports cars are always telling me, go get it, go get it. You’re going to lose your window. Go get it because yeah, we’re losing our window. If you’ve been paying attention, 996 market, it suddenly did boom.

It just suddenly finally started climbing up. Correct me if I’m wrong, the 996. Three, the one behind Mark on that picture. What years did those come out?

Crew Chief Eric: 95 to 98. It

Don Weberg: has some 94s as well. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: A couple of them.

Don Weberg: Okay. So they, they were more of a C4 car when it comes to Corvette, they were coming out when the C4 was just wrapping up its production, C5 was beginning.

It’s good what I was going to get at the 993. I always remember it as being acclaimed by the media as it was a much more refined car than the previous 911. It was smoother. It didn’t deliver the punch that a lot of the older 911 did. There was a refinement to it. There was a usefulness to it. There was a relaxation to it.

And that was something we spoke about with C5 is it’s kind of the coupe de ville of the Corvette world. It’s much more refined than the C4, [00:53:00] much more comfortable, much more relaxed. You know, Eric, you said it yourself, the C4 and the C6 both had a sort of nervous twitchiness to them that the C5 does not have, I’m kind of interested in how the 993 with all of its refinement.

Is compared to that C5 in that regard. And if I’m not mistaken, wasn’t C5 the shortest production run, much like 993? Yep, it was. So they’ve got that in common too, which is really interesting. If you look at it again, if you start looking at the two companies in their development phase, they’re trying to figure out what’s going to sell, what’s going to perform, what’s going to do what.

And as you say, the 996 was born and what a car that was. Yeah. And the C6 was born and what a car that was. One thing I take exception with though, the 993s values are absolutely insane compared to a C5. And if you’re just looking at it from performance to performance,

Crew Chief Eric: I’d rather have the Vette.

Don Weberg: Yeah. I mean, I don’t not understand, but at the same token, it’s interesting to me how much [00:54:00] more valuable.

The Porsche is,

Crew Chief Eric: you can blame Singer for part of that too.

Mark Shank: Yeah, that’s true. That’s rich from somebody who owns a DeLorean. I mean, come on, there are some intangible things to car ownership that impairs you to the car. Yes.

Ryan Bahrke: You had a great point, Mark. It’s that emotional component. There’s that whole 30 year cycle, right?

We buy what we couldn’t afford when they came out new. To your point, Don, I mean, that 996 is just ripe to explode.

Don Weberg: I would love to get my hands on one. I really, really would. I really liked those Porsche’s when they first came out. I laughed. I couldn’t stand them. I thought they were hideously ugly with those droopy eyes.

You know, if it’s coming up in your review, Mary, like, Ooh, there’s the new box. Oh no. Oh, that’s a nine 11. Sorry, buddy.

Ryan Bahrke: And I’m a sucker for this 0. 1 headlights because the GT one had them.

Don Weberg: Yeah.

Ryan Bahrke: Right. If you look at it through that lens, they’re not so bad.

Don Weberg: Oh, well, what’s funny is for me, when the nine nine seven came out, it went back to the classic round headlight.

Yeah. Okay. Sharp. Very cool. And Mark, you’re absolutely right. 996 had the worst interior that was [00:55:00] ever developed for a 911. It looks like Silly Putty got in there and designed it for Porsche. But seeing the 997’s lights, seeing the 997’s interior, which is razor sharp, it made me like the 996 better because it was so different.

It was something that stood out from the crowd. It was something that when it came into an event, you’re seeing roundhead light, roundhead, light, roundhead, light, fried egg, roundhead, light, roundhead. You know who the weirdo is in the group.

Ryan Bahrke: Yeah. It wasn’t derivative in the same way that every other nine 11 was

Don Weberg: right.

It was the rebel. It was the outcast. And if I can bring cartoons into it, Sally from cars. Was a 996

Crew Chief Eric: before we get deep into the water cooled world. I want to ask William as an air cooled aficionado, where are you seeing people spending their money? And they, on the air cooled side of the house,

William Ross: I mean, I was going after a nine, six, four, the problem with your nine, nine, three, the only reason I say the only reason is because that’s the last air cooled.

So, I mean, that’s where it’s just got as value as that. Not a huge leap from that nine, six, four to nine, nine, three. I’m not a fan of the 993. I think they’re ugly. I just don’t like [00:56:00] the nose. You would think I would because I like the black problem, but something about the 993, I just, it doesn’t, I don’t know.

Crew Chief Eric: I always thought the front was disproportionately narrow compared to the back, but that was by design. That’s how they eliminated some of the trailing throttle oversteer problems and kind of gave it that turbo look without being a turbo.

William Ross: Yeah. But then, you know, you go into the 996 4s because of the singer effect, but you know, Singer’s not the only one out there taking those and redo them.

There’s a dime a dozen now, a company doing the restomods, everything like that.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, I mean, you had roof doing the BTR twos, which were nine 93 base way back when. So none of that stuff is new. It’s just, everybody goes, Ooh, ah, cause it’s singer vehicle design, right?

William Ross: The roof that won the yellowbird recreation, that CTR two era is make their own bodies.

They’re going to have to just go full bore and just start making it. They’re not going to have enough cars. I know there’s stock. I don’t know. And that’s why all of a sudden they kind of got away from their model. They started getting a little too greedy and just were building as many as they could sell.

But the problem was that all of a sudden it was like the guy that boss him, wait a minute, guy down the streets got a singer. I thought this was supposed to be unique. So it’s like, they started like with the turbo now they’re coming out with and that [00:57:00] DLS, whatever, you know, their cabinet at 80 cars, whatever.

If I realize, Hey, we got to cut down what we’re doing, but the nine, six, four, then he got you growled. Well, you know, it’s extreme wide body. There’s a lot with the nine, six, four. And I think the people of our generation in regards to those cars, because that’s when we were in our late teens, early twenties, what have you, when that was the car kind of sticks with you.

And that’s kind of, obviously I have that soft place. You want to go after, but. People go out to 993 for collectibilities, that was the last air cooled. And they just look at it as an investment. So

Crew Chief Eric: I’m glad you brought that up. Quick quiz. Do you know who bought the very last air cooled 9 11 off the assembly line?

William Ross: Some guy that’s not very funny, very crappy TV show. Make no money on it. Jerry Seinfeld.

Crew Chief Eric: We should have had him on this panel. I don’t know if he remembers where he parked that thing. He’s got so many warehouses full of cars. Let’s move into water cooled a little bit more. Obviously, we kind of fell backwards into 996.

I’m with you guys. I agree. I think that’s the sweet spot in terms of buying potential right now is buying a 996. The question is which [00:58:00] one do you buy and why and those kinds of things.

Mark Shank: I

Crew Chief Eric: Man, I try to ignore all these 996s, I guess.

Mark Shank: All right. So the bias from our host has come out.

Crew Chief Eric: Would I own one? I’m more of a fan of the normally aspirated GT3. 996 was the beginning of GT3 production cars that now has become the thing to have if you have a 911. Like a Boxster, if you take care of the intermediate shaft bearing issues, the water pump problem, and some of this stuff that, let’s say they borrowed off the shelf from Volkswagen or whatever, when they first put together the water cooled 3.

6, if you take care of those problems, those 996s, Pretty damn bulletproof.

Ryan Bahrke: They are in the nine and six turbos are especially bulletproof because they have the muscular engines. And that’s really where my money would be, would be a turbo. Because with a few mods, I mean, that’ll keep up with any modern car.

Those things are incredible for the money. And that was what the X 50 engine, right? Oh God. Yeah. They’re yeah. Yeah.

Don Weberg: What is it? The X

Mark Shank: 58

Don Weberg: option, [00:59:00] the turbos compared to what? They’re the normal,

Ryan Bahrke: the power pack versus like the non,

Don Weberg: yeah. So there

Mark Shank: was an option on the turbo called the X 58, which everybody hunts for in the secondary market.

They want to find that nine, nine, six turbo with the X 58 package.

David L. Middleton: The turbos had some of the best body style out of the nine, nine, six generation.

Mark Shank: So what is in the X 58? Is it like a GT two parts they put in the regular turbo or something?

Ryan Bahrke: I thought it was mostly air box and different power peak. Seem to remember at the time that they had more power and paper, but they weren’t really that much faster numbers wise.

Was it 50 horsepower? What was it actually? Do you know? 58 probably.

Mark Shank: Now I’m going to have to look it up. I mean, I think from a value perspective, I mean, just last week, a 996 turbo transacted on that with 29, 000 miles. Very clean guards, red coupe for 55 grand a console.

Don Weberg: That’s it.

Mark Shank: Incredible.

Don Weberg: 55

Mark Shank: grand.

Don Weberg: That low amount of money for a [01:00:00] 911 Turbo, I kind of often wonder if these are going to end up becoming rare if for no other reason they simply got beat up, chewed up, and spit out because nobody loves them.

Mark Shank: The thing that buyers have a hard time getting over with this generation is the 5 speed automatic because most of them 5 speed Tiptronic. Yeah.

Ryan Bahrke: That’s a good point. Mark, what would that car have gone for with a manual, twice that price? Number, right? Or close to it.

Mark Shank: Oh, yeah, easily. Let me actually find it.

Crew Chief Eric: The other side of that, Ryan, as he’s looking this up, what does it go for? Non turbo?

Ryan Bahrke: Well, those C4Ss can be 60, 65, 000 cars now. Can they not a nice one? And they were 30, 000 cars five years ago.

Don Weberg: No, they were just spot on and they were stuck there for the longest time. And that was that sort of boom. All of a sudden there was like a train budged them and they’re like, Oh, we’re, we’re going now, moving now.

You know, why was that? Did that suffer from 997s are going up and all of a sudden we can’t afford a 997. There was 993s, et cetera. They were untouchable. I

Crew Chief Eric: think it goes back to what William was saying. [01:01:00] It’s this proliferation of folks that are modifying 964s and 993s and Singer and all this. And so you kind of look in either direction and you go, well, the super old cars.

Are super old and they’re expensive. You look that way and go, do I want something that modern? I want a good deal. I’ve got 50 grand to spend. You buy a nine 96.

Ryan Bahrke: Right. Horses for courses. What are you looking for? If you’re looking for outright speed, you’re getting a nine, nine, six turbo with your 50, 000. I mean, that’s, there’s just no other answer to that question.

Mark Shank: I’m shocked. The six speeds don’t go for more. Yeah. I think it’s a reflection of where we are in 2024 right now, 47, 000 miles. So more than 29, but six speed, very clean. Nice, tastefully modded. Looks great. Was 66 grand. Really?

Ryan Bahrke: We’re all going to look back at this episode and say, we all should have gone out and bought one the next day.

Mark Shank: What the hell I’m buying a nine, nine, six turbo speed, like next week.

Crew Chief Eric: and if I remember correctly, nine 96. Was using small turbos, but they were variable vane turbos, [01:02:00] similar to the technology they were using on the diesels at the time over at Volkswagen. So it was really interesting where they were messing around with technology, but also using sort of off the shelf parts to make it all work.

Don Weberg: You bring up the Volkswagen parts bin and I brought up the Boxster headlights earlier and I hate to say this, but it almost feels like, and I really don’t know, but it honestly feels like Porsche was really, really pinching pennies when they brought out. Yeah. 996.

William Ross: Those are accountants building those cars, but

Don Weberg: it

William Ross: costs R and D.

Don Weberg: But yeah, it was almost like a hail Mary car when they did that. Cause they had the Boxster coming out and they were using a lot of those different parts to save money, but it’s still such a Oregon, and you’ve got a car that easily runs circles around most Ferraris of the day. Drop an LS in it! What?

Crew Chief Eric: Dude, I’ve seen weird stuff in the back of 911s.

Ryan Bahrke: There’s six of us here if we all chip in. Yeah.

Don Weberg: You know, Mark, I keep looking at that one behind you and I got to tell you, I just start salivating over that car behind you. I think that is [01:03:00] such a great looking car. And it’s funny because we brought up the hips. That came out in the SC and how that really turned all of us on.

We love those hips. And now you look at that 996 behind you, unless you get a C4 S you’re not going to have the hip. That’s what that is. I saw the nose on it and I kind of wondered, look at that body. That body is so pure. It’s so simple. It is just absolutely gorgeous. It’s like

Crew Chief Eric: a 964. What are you talking about?

William Ross: I get hungry for some sausage, a little toast.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, man. William checked out. He started taking a nap as soon as we said water cooled.

William Ross: Would I turn one down if it was a good No, heck no. As long as someone else dealt with the IMS bearing and dealt with all the stuff. As long as that stuff’s all done, you don’t have to Do it, try that thing all day, just as a daily driver.

I mean, have fun with it. Beat the heck out of it. Go cross country, just have a good time with it. Hit your events with an area like that. Great, solid car. You take care of it. I mean, I want to see if the engines are bulletproof, but they’re pretty bulletproof. As long as you take care of your stuff, that car will go a couple hundred thousand miles.

There’s no reason not to. And [01:04:00] parts aren’t that difficult to come by. So maintaining it’s that thing. And there’s a lot of modifications you can do to it. It’s such a flexible chassis in regards to base you could work from with it. You can have a lot of fun with it. Especially if I’m looking to buy my first sports car, whatever, like go to cars and coffee and go to these events and show it, blah, blah, blah.

You know, it’s a great entry to get into those without having to break the bank or take a second mortgage out on your house or anything like that, because everyone buys these cars and I think a lot of people forget to take an account. As well, I also got paid to maintain it. You know, your annual service costs on those, isn’t all that crazy.

Yeah. You’re going to want to put probably a couple of grand a year aside. Not saying it’s going to cost you a couple of grand every year. It’s going to kind of go up and down. Yeah. But it’s not going to break the bank where, you know, you got certain other brands that I have an affinity for where you got to put six, seven grand away a year, because you’re going to have that inevitable engine out service coming in.

Blah, blah, blah. You know? So it’s great card. I mean, even on those though, even if you got to take the engine out, what is it? Four bolts, drop that thing out and go. It’s a great car to [01:05:00] jump into. To have some of these young kids in their twenties, whatnot. Hey, I can jump in for some 30, 40, 50 grand. It’s got low miles, well maintained, everything’s done.

I can hit these events when, and you’ll get, I would say respect immediately. I mean, I’d rather have that to buy some like new Supra or something along those lines like that, because it’s got more character. It’s got more of a soul, I guess you could say. It doesn’t have all the BS that you got in this day and age with screens and all this kind of bullshit.

It’s a great analog car. Yeah. And you can work on it yourself. Yeah.

Ryan Bahrke: Last of the timeless cars.

Crew Chief Eric: Except for those headlights. Those are super dated. I’m sorry.

William Ross: Yeah. I think you can buy stickers or something that you can put on there.

Crew Chief Eric: The 997 isn’t too much of a step away from the 997. Six, the reality of things, it’s sort of like C5 into C6, which is what Don was talking about earlier.

So they straightened it up, they cleaned it up, different headlights and change the fenders, whatever. But at the end of the day, nine 97 DNA,

David L. Middleton: I would say that the 0. 2 was vastly different from the nine, nine, six, start to be a bigger shift between 0. 1 and 0. 2 with that generation. I mean, I’m [01:06:00] probably biased because I used to have a nine, nine, 7.

Ryan Bahrke: Good man.

William Ross: Pretty much the only car I mean, it’s, it’s longer. It’s a bit wider. It’s changed a lot in the chassis. They really improved the chassis on that. In my opinion, you know, if I was going out to buy a Porsche, I would buy a 997 series GT3.

Ryan Bahrke: That’s the one. Ultimate all time favorite modern Porsche, especially the 0.

2, but they’re just right. They’re just right.

William Ross: And the thing is, you know, that too, is you can get an RS, you can get a manual, and a GT3 RS, and you still have that option. I just think it, to me, that’d be the one I’d buy. Yeah, I mean, they’re expensive, but not talking half a million dollars, a million dollars for something stupid.

It’s an awesome, awesome car. That Metzger engine’s just, it’s the shiznit.

David L. Middleton: And also the first RS I ever was in was 997. 1, and actually the first one I got to drive. I like the 997 generation. I know that since I sold my car and I’m trying to get back in a Porsche, a lot of people have been trying to convince me to get a 996, but I just can’t seem to take the leap and get the 996.

I feel like I would like to spend more money and even get [01:07:00] a 0. 1. I get personal preference, but I think there was a really big gap between the 0. 2 and 996. And as an ex owner, I was 50 50 on getting manual or PDK. And I ended up finding a really nice PDK car, but I couldn’t go for Triptronic cause I hated that.

Yeah. I like, I didn’t like Triptronic on the Boxster it came in. I didn’t like it on the 911 and I drove it a few times. I didn’t like how the shifting wasn’t the same as when they incorporated PDK as far as going upshift and downshift.

Mark Shank: That’s what really puts some of the modern buyers off. Cause Porsche’s had that PDK for a long time now, and it’s become a big part of the brand that you can just slam through those gears fast.

Crew Chief Eric: We call that DSG on the Volkswagen side of the house, just want to let you know.

Ryan Bahrke: And those early PDKs weren’t that great.

Crew Chief Eric: No. So Tiptronic, that came out in the nine 64s. I remember with the buttons on the steering wheel, the nine 68 had that as well. Ooh, look, I can shift by pushing a button on my steering wheel.

David L. Middleton: So for me, they looked at the success of the nine, nine, six and the GT three. And they said, we’re just going to take it even [01:08:00] further. I think they got really serious about the whole GT three department. Once they stepped into the nine, nine, seven generation, you know, it was like, okay, this is profitable. So nine, nine, six, we weren’t sure what was going to happen.

And then 997, the GT3 department said, this is really profitable. We got to keep doing this and we’re going to do it bigger and better. Every time

William Ross: that’s charged people more for less,

David L. Middleton: stereo delete, we’ll charge you more.

Ryan Bahrke: So I was going to say the 996 didn’t have the nannies that the 997 by the 0. 2 had. I mean, that was a really a pure car.

There’s really something to be said about a 996 GT3. I think

Don Weberg: that’s why the 996 is such the last stop in the depot, because it was the last of the truly analog. 911, 997 came along and yeah, it was close. It was similar. It was sort of like going C5 to C6 in the Corvette world, but there were so many differences that people didn’t see beneath the skin.

And the same was there with 996, 997, but the 997 became a much more digital, a much more technical vehicle. It started losing, in my opinion, is out of that Porsche purity. It really [01:09:00] did in a drastic measure. I mean, it had been slowly losing it over time. I think, uh, the 997 was really kind of a gauntlet. It really said, Nope, we’re going this direction.

Crew Chief Eric: And even in the motorsports world, it’s sort of interesting because 9 11 kept getting better, better, and better. And the engine. Surprisingly kept getting closer and closer to the driver too. Right. Forget which generation it is. David and I talked about this at Lamar, where it’s like, you know, the engine’s facing the wrong direction and this one, you know, blah, blah, blah.

Oh, yeah, it’s not really a nine 11. It’s a Cayman all jokes aside, I started to think that it was this evolution of a bad idea. And that’s why the nine 11 had to get longer. It had to get wider. They had to keep inching the engine forward because the balance was wrong. I mean, what car still has the motor hanging out over the rear end?

Like a nine 11, only a nine 11. Back in the day, you had the Beatle and the Hillman Imp and the Fiat 850 and all these different cars. Sure. But now the 911 kind of stands alone in that department. But what I’m getting at is in the motorsport world, they kept making [01:10:00] the 911 even better. And the cars we get on the street outside of the GT3, cause I don’t want to take anything away from GT3 owners.

They’re basically the equivalent to the eighties homologated cars, where you sort of like live the fantasy that you have what the team has. But it’s not really that good compared to what they’re racing. Now, today, 2024, I think maybe less so because there are more high end 911s being sold that are closer to what is race ready.

Then there was during the nine 96, nine 97 period of nine 11,

Ryan Bahrke: I read a figure somewhere that something like, I don’t know, it’s a large percentage of all Porsche sports cars that are now GT cars. It’s not 80, 20 anymore, you know, 90, 10. It’s closer to like 40, 60.

Mark Shank: I tried to run that down. Yeah. And they don’t disclose the numbers.

Like they used to. Okay, so you can go through Stut cars. Oh, sure. Yeah. Like astute guard, like S-T-U-T-T cars.com, and they’ll give [01:11:00] you volumes by generation up through like 9, 9 3, 9, 9 6. And then when you get into the 9, 9, 7, 9, 9 ones. It’s harder to get the volumes. David looks skeptical. I hope he’s Googling right now.

And he finds something. I’m looking it up. I

Ryan Bahrke: don’t want to spread it, you know, misinformation or anything. I’ve never done that before. We’re fact

Mark Shank: checking.

Ryan Bahrke: Yeah. Yeah.

Mark Shank: I can only find approximations. I hope I’m wrong.

Ryan Bahrke: Okay.

Mark Shank: But what I was finding, there were some on websites, but they just didn’t seem super credible.

You know, I mean, I guess it was just using my spidey sense, but like they didn’t feel that detailed or structured like previous things that I’d seen. Okay. And you’re looking at like 30 ish thousand 911s a year, and you’re looking at like 5, 000 ish GT3s a year, generally over like the 991 generation. Like there was obviously a GT2 in that, and you know, there’s GT3 RS.

And so to be clear, the 5, 000 was a fraction of the 30, right? So you’re saying it’s 30, so 25 and then minus maybe 2, 000 [01:12:00] RSs, you know, however many GT2s that they sold. And so you’re looking at like, what, 20? Thousand nine 11s. Like, I don’t know. I mean, I was having a hard time finding as descriptive numbers as you find previous generation.

William Ross: It’s almost like you got to take convertibles in their own little realm, like our production number, because if someone’s buying a hard top, they’re more than likely going to be getting a GT car. They’re just buying a regular, they’re going to buy it. Convertible, which you can still get a soup or the target

Crew Chief Eric: or bro.

S yeah.

William Ross: So I guess you can maybe break down because they got so many variants of that car, but you probably could take out almost close to almost half of that production run, be like, what was your convertibles and whatnot. Those are for your Sunday guys, blah, blah, blah. You know, just want to say, I own a Porsche, not the purest guys.

We’re out there really having some, I’m going to do some driving with this, go on some rallies, blah, blah, blah. So I think that if you start breaking them down that way, then you could see that, yeah, I think a larger percentage technically would be that they’re selling this GT car. And again, that’s where they’re making above sticker and they can charge what the heck they want.

And it’s a waiting list. You gotta [01:13:00] be a special customer, da, da, da, and that sounds like

Crew Chief Eric: a Ferrari. What are they doing over there?

Mark Shank: Yeah, I know. If I can offer some purchase advice from someone who got a 991. 2 GD3. Porsche has some weird rules. So they don’t allow GT cars to be on the website. Rule number one.

So if you go to the dealer website, you won’t see a GT car. And you have to call the dealer to find out if they have what they have and what’s there. When I was in the market, this was 2018. So it was a little bit out of date at the time, but I just started calling around to all the Porsche dealers in the major markets all across LA and Southern California and through Texas and Atlanta.

And just like, if it sounds like it’s a reasonably sized city, I’m going to find the Porsche dealers and start calling. And there were definitely GT cars that are out there. Usually they were cars that customers had walked away from or something, the dealer had specked out. So most of them were absurdly specked.

I found mine in Dallas and had the only option on it that I wanted, which was the extended fuel [01:14:00] tank. It had the six speed and the extended fuel tank. That was all I wanted. The GT game is an interesting one. If you just go to your local dealer, that’s not the best way to play that game. And it’s true that the dealers are not out to provide good service.

Like the dealers are out to make money. They’re making 20, 40, 50 grand per car. Like the amount of the dealers make, even on just selling cars at MSRP is kind of crazy. Your dealer is not your friend. No. Call around. Go through the Google maps and find dealers and call around and you’ll benefit from it.

Crew Chief Eric: And I’m glad we went down this path because as Mark and I were putting the show notes together for this, it was one of the things we had in the notes was this perception of more GT cars for sale today than there is base 911s. But I think Ryan made a very valid point in that perception is reality. And so if you think about it, even if the numbers don’t fact check, When you go to a car show or you go to a track event these days or anything, and somebody shows up with a nine 11, chances are that’s a two headed coin.

You either way [01:15:00] you flip it, it’s a GT three or GT three RS. You never see a regular nine 11 or just a turbo cab or what age they sort of don’t exist, but they do exist. They’ve become so commonplace that I think the perception is. Well, if you’re buying a Porsche, you’re just going to buy a GT3.

Ryan Bahrke: And I feel like those are the ones that are perpetually for sale.

David L. Middleton: I think also some of the problem is once you get into Porsche, so if you haven’t been into Porsche as a kid, and let’s say you get into Porsche as an adult, right? What do you go out and do? You do what, what our buddy Ty did, right? He went out and bought, I think a nine, six, four cab lives by a track has a nine, six, four cab immediately realizes it’s not good enough, right?

Then he switches and he was like, all right, do the turbo. It’s a turbo. Then he starts getting like training and then he realized that’s not good enough. Then he gets into the GT platform and then he just continues to buy because he’s got the means, of course. And I find that living close to a track, when I do go to track days, or I do hang out at road Atlanta with like DCRA, the people who are just getting into track days, just getting into motor sports and they bring.

A base Porsche, or they bring maybe just a turbo and then they get put in the beginner group and they’re [01:16:00] feeling bad because they’re in the beginner group. And like everybody else in their GT cars is in the advanced group. And they spend the whole day behind an instructor. And then they start saying, well, what do I have to do?

Or they’ll get a ride along in a GT car. And then four or five months later, person of means we’ll go and get a GT car. Or they’ll go get a GT4 or something like that. And then they keep stepping up because I think once you start tracking your Porsche, you realize you need something more in the GT, like at least a modern one, right?

If you’re not doing historical racing or not doing anything like that. So I think that’s one of the reasons that you feel that you go to track days and you go to things is that. You’re seeing a lot of GT products because they are that good. They are the ones you want at a track and you’ll quickly know it.

You know, same thing for the BMW. When I first bought my original BMW, I just had an E90 and I took it to a track. And within six months, I realized I better get a track focused car, right? So I kept that. And then I bought. My track focused BMW, which had the roll cage and everything was prepared for the track.

I think that’s one of the issues, and these cars are meant to be driven. So once you get into that, you will realize immediately that you need to transition.

Crew Chief Eric: And [01:17:00] here’s where we step back to Corvette for a moment. Because people are spending six figures plus on these 911s to go to the track, whether it’s HPDE or whatever.

You don’t see GT3s club racing, right? Because that’s too dangerous, realistically. So at these HPDE events, The Corvette is sort of there. The C8 is a six figure car, depending on demand and which year you bought it and all those kinds of things. But we talked about this the last time, right? The hope and the prayer and the wish is that there’s a GT3 version of the Corvette C8 coming at some point that hasn’t existed up until this point in the Corvette world.

There’s been Z06 and there’s ZR1 and there’s this and that, but it’s always like, let’s throw more horsepower at the same chassis and tires and all this kind of thing. But you have to respect that for a minute, because when you go to the track and you look at the battles on track, you’ve got this guy in his lowly Z06 being towed by a 911 GT3 out on track.

And you look at the price discrepancy and he’s got a GM and he’s got a Porsche and you’re like, it does not compute the Corvette’s just [01:18:00] as good as, and I’m not trying to take anything away from the Porsche because it’s superior, but sort of the Corvette’s the underdog in this equation. What does it for me is that I’ve sort of been.

Tainted by the new Porsches because there’s so many GT threes and I’m like, uh, you know, they’ve achieved that hypercar status and that’s wonderful. I applaud them for it. But then I turned to look at the guy with the Corvette. And as Mark said in the last episode, that’s the dream car they’ve saved up for that.

That’s what they bought. And they got it. Kick ass car for a lot less money than the nine 11. And so now we start to diverge, but when we look at it as the every man buyer, where do you put your money?

Don Weberg: Well, if I can interject here, just a little bit, I get what you’re saying. The one thing I’m just going to throw out there and it goes on both sides of the fence, it goes in the Corvette side and it goes on the Porsche side from what I’ve seen, and I’m not a tracker.

I don’t race. I don’t do any of that. I noticed a lot of their GT3s, GT2s, GT4s, whatever the hell they are. And they’re vicious. They’re absolutely [01:19:00] incredible. But the guys that I talked to who have them, they’ve either never tracked them. They don’t intend to track them or they tracked them once, maybe twice.

And that was really cool. That was fun, but they’re done. And now they just don’t drive them. They just don’t. It kind of falls on the same side with the ZR1, the Z06, because what you’ve got is one of these cars that. As you said way earlier in the conversation, they require your attention pretty closely. I think the Corvette’s a lot more forgiving than any of the Porsches.

And I think it’s a lot more of a crossover car where if you just want to be the yuppie with the super fast, super cool looking Corvette, yeah, you can do that. You can drive that car every day. It’s not going to beat the hell out of you. Porsche is going to beat the hell out of you. And I think that’s really, really interesting.

There are so many GT threes out there on the market. There’s so many of these people that have them, but I think the majority of them are posers who want to show up to cars and coffee and have this amazing, amazing instrument of a car. And they don’t know how to use it. You know, I mean, let’s face it, Eric, if I got a GT three hell, if I even got a ZR And you took a ride with me.

You’d probably laugh your ass off because I’m not going to [01:20:00] be able to control that car as well as you would, because you’ve got more training than I do. I’m not a tracker. I don’t do that stuff. So when I look at these, you know, they wear the little baseball cap and they’ve got their little polo shirt with some sort of reptile on the breast and they’re all tucked in and they’ve got their little deck shoes and And they got their little Starbucks coffee.

They look like a stiff wind would blow them over, but by God, they’ve got the King of the Hill at Cars and Coffee. They’ve got the GT3, the GT4, they’ve got the ZR1, they’ve got the Z06, but again, I root for the Z06 or the ZR1 just because it’s a Jekyll and Hyde car. If you treat it nice, if you treat it docile, it’s not going to beat you up.

But if you want to get rough. It’ll get rough with you.

Crew Chief Eric: Did you hear that Mark? He pulled the poser card on you. You’re going to let that stand.

Don Weberg: Mark, are you a poser? I

Mark Shank: have a 991. 2 G3 with the manual.

David L. Middleton: The one with the two air intakes in the back.

Don Weberg: Yeah. The two little suckers. It’s a really

David L. Middleton: good one. Yeah, it’s a really good one.

Don Weberg: Well, that was, I was telling you, Eric, at some point we got to start telling people we have a 0. 5. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Right.

Don Weberg: So the people are like, wait, wait, you have a 11, what?

Mark Shank: It was the poor man’s 9 11 arm. Right. It was the four liter and the six speed that did me [01:21:00] in. I wanted the spoiler in the back. I didn’t want the touring pack because my nine 30 that I put on a poster on my wall as a kid had a big spoiler on the whale

Crew Chief Eric: tail.

Yeah.

Mark Shank: So that’s what I wanted. Honestly, I think there’s a fair amount of validity to what Don was saying, but I think we have to remember where we are from being under assault as a community of automobile enthusiasts, as. Kids get their licenses later and later and electric cars try to sap this element of car culture and whatnot that like, I don’t like the gatekeeping aspect of it.

Like you like your car. Great. That’s cool with me. If you like your car, you’re passionate about your vehicle. That’s great. There is something to be said for the amount of volume that they’re selling with GT cars relative to how many of those are really going to track events. Definitely. The flip side of that though, you could go in the other direction where it beats you up in a modern context.

But not relative to what like old tightly sprung cars used to do. Like I agree with that. It’s really not like my take on my GD3. You know, I did [01:22:00] some autocross and I did some stuff with it, but I really haven’t done much track with it. I take it out. I’m a morning person. I wake up at 5am, no alarm. And so Saturday, Sunday, I’m on the road by 530.

I’m home by seven. I do a little 90 minute drive Saturday and Sunday in my car. And to me, it’s everything I ever wanted. out of a sports car. And then on Saturdays, I take my SUV and I take my two girls to cars and coffee. I’ve never taken my GD three to cars and coffee because I want to take my kids. I love that.

But the point being is that like, from an enthusiast perspective with the manual transmission, I think is important because if you’re on a track, if you’re untrained, it’s a degree of a liability with a car like that, right? The weight change and the G that you’re under, like, are you going to put it in the wrong gear?

You’re going to blow your 50, 000 motor that you have to replace because you put it into third instead of fifth. It is honestly a serious consideration. I mean, I think if I was going to do more track stuff, I would have done a PDK, but I would push back on the suspension narrative. It’s like, yeah, my wife doesn’t like riding in it because it’s tightly sprung, but compared to [01:23:00] even my 85 Carrera, which admittedly I had suspension work done on it, but that was harsher than my modern 991, you know, it’s a relative term.

Yeah. The Corvette benefits a lot from its magnetic shocks. That are able to change profiles and do things differently. But I think with the mechanical differential that comes in the manual, as opposed to the electric diff, it changes the character of the car and it makes it to me, the sports car I always wanted.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, there’s one generation left and that’s the current one, the nine nine two. And as you guys mentioned, dot this and dot that. And the other thing, I mean, I remember the days of. 85 and a half because of the half year splits and all this kind of stuff. So now he’s got these dot ones and dot twos. Cause I guess we’ve run out of numbers in the 900 scale over at Porsche.

And that’s fine. They’re like software releases, right? So 992 for me is sort of like the C8, born right on the auspices of COVID. Hard to get cars in that 2020 year, although Porsche didn’t seem to have as many problems as GM did and Ford and others trying to [01:24:00] get cars out during 20 and 21. I still don’t like it.

It’s really big. It’s really wide. The Targa is probably the worst looking one, in my opinion. I mean, I’m not convinced on 992 yet.

Ryan Bahrke: Horses always take a little time. I feel like they’re just a step ahead of us. And a couple of years in, they really come into their own, but they are big. They are a little detached and I’ve driven a few of them now.

I’ve not driven the GT3, but after a couple of GTSs and some other models, T, when I get back into my GT4, all is good again. I love the idea of a 992 for a special car. For me, it’s just a little much. It’s just a little too much in every direction. A little too big, a little too detached, a little too much power.

For me personally, but I’m wondering if in a couple of years, we’ll look back at them and say, Oh man, those were really good. Like, boy, they knew what they were doing.

Crew Chief Eric: I guess it depends on what comes next, which Porsche hasn’t hinted at yet.

Don Weberg: In our previous episode about Corvette, you know, we talked about C7, you talked about how the C7 had gone as far as it could, there was just nothing else that Chevy and Corvette and GM could really do with that chassis, do with that [01:25:00] motor, do with, you know, whatever that package, it was kind of spent, it was kind of done so that they needed the C8.

I think this generation of 9 11 is a classic example of why the C8 needed to come out, because I can’t stand the new 9 11. It is just a fat toad. And yeah, it does a lot of really cool technical stuff with its top and all this yin yang doodad. It is actually pretty impressive. But, ah, the thing is just a boat.

Mark Shank: Okay, yes, the 992 is a bit of a fatty. They at least made it bigger for a very specific reason. Front suspension geometry is totally different, and that’s largely driven by what they wanted to do with the GT3, so that tells you the importance of the GT3 line relative to the car. But the only sports car, or at least car that claims to be a sports car that is bigger in every dimension and fatter would be the C8 Corvette.

So there’s that. I mean, you can’t call the 992 a big fatty without kind of acknowledging that the C8 is heavier and bigger in every way. Let’s just be fair. Them’s [01:26:00] fighting

Don Weberg: words.

Mark Shank: Are

Don Weberg: you all down over there? Mr. Shank?

Mark Shank: These are simple statistics, like you can just look .

Ryan Bahrke: These, you can find on the internet.

Mark Shank: These, you can find numbers, you can look at the wheel base. You can look at the front track. You can look the length with, no, I mean, the fact that the Carrera s. Is beating the Corvette on a power to weight ratio? That’s new for this generation. Come on. It’s about

Don Weberg: time,

Mark Shank: isn’t it? Well, we all know the

Crew Chief Eric: C8 is severely underpowered compared to other Corvettes.

Don Weberg: it is.

Crew Chief Eric: They’re going to fix that real quick. No

Mark Shank: fix. I’m a C8 fan. I’d like to be clear.

Don Weberg: We’ve also all seen the ZR1, right? You guys are familiar with the new ZR1? Oh yeah. Hello. I mean, we’re putting out train horsepower now. This is like naval horsepower. Yeah.

Ryan Bahrke: And yet that car interests me not at all.

Don Weberg: When it comes to, yeah, it’s a fatty and it comes to the C8 being a fatty and the 99, whatever the hell that Opel is over there. They’re both fatties. That’s fine. Going into the evolution and we had to change the [01:27:00] suspension and we had to change this and we had to change that. Great. Porsche took a huge step and it was an ugly step for them.

When they took the 9 11 water cool, we all know we were all there. And some of you all, you know, you pray to Portia and then you pray to whoever you pray to. When they went water, every one of you was, Oh my God. You know, it was a big deal when Mr. Mulholland started bringing his product in to cool off that little car.

But you know what, you survived and that car got better. I hate to admit it, cause you all know I love the 930 and that particular generation of Porsche, but it survived and it did better. It thrived. And I really wish Porsche would just shut the hell up and develop a damn car that didn’t sit there and say, we were developed in 1964 and we still have the 1964.

You know what? It’s old, it’s over.

Crew Chief Eric: I get where Don’s coming from with this because 9 11 suffers from the same systemic issue that Mustang suffers from. Oh, the [01:28:00] S650 blah, blah, blah, goes all the way back to Iacocca in 1963, blah, blah, blah. And they’re holding onto that legacy. And I get that versus Corvette.

When we talked about it the last time, it’s sort of like 1983, eh, screw it. Throw it all in the trash, start over again. And Corvette’s done that a bunch of times. And C8 isn’t the first time. I gotta give credit where credit is due, where GM sort of sees the writing on the wall and says, you know what, too much of a good thing, not so much.

Let’s turn a page and try something different. That’s why I joke 9 11 is the constant refinement and evolution of a bad idea. It’s okay. It’s gotten better. It’s awesome. It’s amazing. And I appreciate it for what it is because it does kick, but it’s very difficult to challenge Porsche like it is to challenge Ferrari and things like that.

Don Weberg: You’ve all seen the meme. I’m sure it comes around on Facebook. It’s two pictures put together. One of them is Roseanne Barr. The other one’s Madonna. And it says, I never thought I’d live to see the day where Roseanne Barr was better looking than Madonna. That. That is what has [01:29:00] become of the 9 11. The 9 11 is Madonna.

It had been plastic surgery so many times. It is now an opal. Look at that picture behind Mark. It is an opal.

Ryan Bahrke: But it’s still the fantasy of Madonna, right? And that’s what we’re buying at the end of

Don Weberg: the day. Unbelievable. But just

Mark Shank: for our listeners who don’t have the video feed from Patreon or whatever, what Don keeps making fun of, he’s probably the only person on the internet, Who’s made fun of the Dakar 911.

I think Porsche should get a lot of credit for making a rally version of a modern sports car. It is in a very light shade of blue, which were you, you calling it teal? Opel? Sure. Fair enough.

Crew Chief Eric: No, no, no. He meant it looks like an Opel GT from the seventies, which is just a small Corvette, but we won’t go there.

Don Weberg: It’s a C3 that got strong.

Crew Chief Eric: I see where you’re going with that, Don. But the problem is. Porsche’s flagship is the 911, and it got to the point, like Mark sort of hinted at earlier, that [01:30:00] with 928, 944, and this and that, even though maybe they were superior, the idea was to be better. They put all their eggs in 911.

Nothing shall beat the 911.

Don Weberg: Right.

Crew Chief Eric: Realistically, payment is a better platform. Form at the end of the day. But to succumb to the idea that they’re gonna do away with the rear engine, rear mount las layout of a nine 11 and go the way Corvet did with the C eight, that means they’d have to give up on nine 11 altogether and admit that the Cayman is a better car.

’cause it is. And my joke is that they finally got the nine 14 right with the Cayman, right? After so many years, that’s not gonna happen. So the question becomes. What is next for 9 11, which we don’t know, after 60 years of production, what are they going to do with the ninth generation of the 9 11, other than make it bigger and wider, or has it just become the take hand, because the take hand sort of looks like the next generation 9 11, if you think about it.

David L. Middleton: think they teased it a little bit by leaving space for a hybrid system. But also what they’re doing with the dot two GTS. So if you’ve been keeping up, they’re [01:31:00] incorporating the electrical power train. It’s not a typical hybrid in the way you think. And I think that’s the next evolution to the nine 11.

I think they’re kind of testing it out with the GTS waters and then they’re going to bring it to that.

Crew Chief Eric: A derivative of the MGU that they were trying to develop for formula one.

David L. Middleton: This is something different. They’re using the electrical power plant almost as like a torque filler.

Crew Chief Eric: Isn’t that the same idea behind the E Ray?

Isn’t it? Aren’t they doing the same thing?

David L. Middleton: I’m not sure, but from what the reviews are is, is that the way they do it is uniquely to Porsche.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, well, of course.

David L. Middleton: I mean, the E Ray has gotten very decent reviews, right? But I heard that it has a feeling of almost an NA engine with the 911 and the way they’re doing the torque filling.

So I think that’s the next evolution. Of course, it’s been working on the electrical hybrid stuff since I started an industry back in like 2011. They didn’t release it. You know, I told you there was fully electric man 11s running around the company back in 2012. There’s a reason they’re not doing it. And then they’re also looking at the landscape of what’s going on with hydrogen.

And I think they’re going to maybe stick with the seven 18 to having that fully electric, but I [01:32:00] don’t see them fully electrifying the nine 11 anytime soon.

William Ross: Yeah. They’re investing heavy in those synthetic fuels, sustainable fuel, whatever down was that Brazil built that huge plant. Uh, my thing, I hope that goes the route, you know, that, Hey, you can still build the, uh, any engine you got that

Ryan Bahrke: the Germans like South America.

Um, but

But I think that’s the work around. I think it’s that synthetic fuel because what is a nine 11 if it’s not a flat six rear engine car? And my God, when was the last time there was a, another rear engine car on the earth that was being produced? It’s shocking that they’ve been able to do it as long as they have.

And to your point, David, I think that they’ll keep dialing out the nine 11 this while still keeping it a nine 11. Exactly. That’s

Crew Chief Eric: right. Just like with Corvette, we don’t know what the future holds for Porsche. And I’m excited to see what comes next. Although I hope, maybe, like a lot of other halo cars, they find their roots again.

It’s not just Porsche. It’s not just Corvette. It’s Mazda. It’s Volkswagen.

Don Weberg: [01:33:00] BMW.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, BMW. You look at all of them. They all suffer from the same thing. They call it progress. Let’s just call it another model and sort of maybe reboot or do something different.

William Ross: I got a trivia question though. Mark, you probably know the answer to this though.

What other manufacturer did Porsche design a water cooled engine for? Oh, I

Ryan Bahrke: know. You got it? Okay.

William Ross: You don’t know this one, Mark?

Mark Shank: No, I don’t think so. I mean, I could guess, but I don’t know.

William Ross: It’s got two wheels. Harley Davidson. There you go. The V Rod.

Ryan Bahrke: Even they saw the light.

William Ross: I know they all said some of that cars were going water cool.

A lot of people don’t realize that that V Rod, that

Don Weberg: motor is a, it’s a Porsche motor. Actually, Porsche did a lot of engineering for the V Rod. It was a lot more than just the, uh, the engine. They also did the brakes. They helped with the suspension geometry. The V Rod was a real technical piece of machinery.

It’s weird to me that Harley would go to Porsche. Yeah. I know they’re a consulting company, but here’s a company who refuses to evolve. I mean, they absolutely refuse. We are not going to take the engine out of the back. We are not going to make it a mid engine. We are not going to [01:34:00] evolve at all. We are going to keep, as Eric says, evolving a bad idea.

And yet Harley goes to them and says, we want to evolutionize a motorcycle. Yeah, no problem. Let’s do that.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, Porsche and Ferrari are similar in that respect. They make the money so they can go racing, but they’re an engineering company first. They are a car company by proxy versus GM is a car company that goes racing and does engineer it’s the other way around.

And so I appreciate that. And that’s where you get into the weird stories of Porsche helping to design the Mercedes 500 E working on the Audi RS2 Avant, building diesel tractors back in the day, you know, they got all these projects and all these. Things because they’re an engineering company at the end of the day.

So that’s, what’s interesting, but that’s, what’s also confusing about nine 11. Whereas Corvette is designed for the American dream. It’s designed for the consumer. It’s designed for the enthusiasts. Not that nine 11 isn’t a lifestyle, but Corvette is a lifestyle. People aspire, as Mark said on the last episode to own a Corvette.

I’m not [01:35:00] saying that people don’t aspire to own nine 11s, but it’s different. And it’s attainable at a different way with that thinking in mind, knowing what we know now, before we sort of turn the tables for our lightning round, would you buy a Porsche or a Corvette? Does it

William Ross: matter what model?

Crew Chief Eric: No. Before we spend our a hundred grand, if you just had to pay.

Would you spend it with Porsche or would you spend it with Corvette? Porsche.

Don Weberg: As hard a time as I give Porsche. I do love Porsche. I always have. It was really working for Mecham that trained me on the Corvette and I had nothing against Corvette either. But learning about them is really what made me such an enthusiast about them.

But I still have all the respect in the world for Porsche. But I think if I had my money, if I would go with a Corvette, if for no other reason, they have proven to be more reliable on many different occasions. They are absolutely neck and neck with Porsche when it comes to performance. We’ve had this discussion before about my Ford driving across country.

I love seeing all the dealerships out there. My God, if that Corvette, anything goes wrong with it. There’s a dealership. I know there’s [01:36:00] enough Porsche dealerships out there, but look, when you go to certain States, there are no Porsche dealerships, or maybe there’s one. So you’re in the wrong side of the state and you’re going to have that tow truck.

Wow. The tow truck alone is going to cost two grand to get to wherever you’re going. Corvette, you’re going to have a lot more serviceability. Again, I do really have a hard time saying no to 996. If this is just a Porsche discussion, I go with 996 all day long.

Crew Chief Eric: All right. So William, Porsche, Don Corvette, David, you’re going to go Porsche.

I mean, that’s a no brainer

David L. Middleton: because of the, what the brand has had an effect on me personally and my career. But I’m the opposite. Like I’m the guy who would drive my RS to church and park it away from everybody else. Right. I’m the guy who’s driving, I drive like the nine 30 turbo to the coffee shop, just cause I can, I want to use my Porsche.

I don’t have that kind of money, but use it. However much I want to, and to say, damn the torpedoes and enjoy the hell out of it, because that’s all I wanted. I grew up as a kid on a bus stop and a kid where my dad picked the absolute worst cars. He would never listen to anything I said. You know, he had no idea and, and [01:37:00] me, I’m sitting at bus stops and standing at bus stops throughout my whole life, even through college, like I didn’t get my first car until college.

And then I got on my own and I’m the kid who was like, always wanted something. I always wanted my dad to have something cool. I always wanted like a cousin, have something cool. They never had it. So for me, it’s the dream of having a Porsche, the dream of Porsche ownership. And when I finally got it, yeah, I used the hell out of my Porsche, man.

I would have continued to track it. And if I had an RS or a GT3, I’m going to track it forever. And I have nobody to tell me no currently. So that’s just me. But everybody’s not built that way. I get it. And I personally, I respect what GM has done with the Corvette. I respect the fact that they’re still racing.

I respect that they’ve got programs. And as we get older, I think there’s room for all the enthusiasts. Like Mark said, I can start to appreciate that. Maybe as a kid, I couldn’t always appreciate certain brands and what they brought to the table. But the older I get, I’m like car culture in general is so great.

Absolutely. For me, it’s, it’s going to be Porsche.

Ryan Bahrke: I’m a Porsche guy. I mean, I’ve owned few now, never owned a Corvette much like David. I didn’t grow up with Porsches, but I guess it’s, it’s those intangibles. Do you like redheads versus blondes or whatever? I [01:38:00] don’t know why I just like Porsches. I tend to like the people who like Porsches and honestly, the Porsches I’ve owned have been the most reliable cars I’ve ever owned, so there’s that.

There’s a familiarity to it. Now they’re not intimidating to me. They’re familiar. They’re known. I still have a thing for his C4 Grand Sport. Do you remember those? I don’t know what it is,

William Ross: which

Ryan Bahrke: is weird because they were just on the one fender, right? But I dig those, but proof’s in the pudding and I’m just a Porsche guy.

William Ross: And I wouldn’t say once you buy the Porsche, you can buy another Porsche because it’s going to hold its value a lot better than the Corvette.

Ryan Bahrke: That’s a good point too.

William Ross: You drive that Porsche for five years, you do what you’re supposed to do, maintenance wise, either A, depending on which one you bought, it could go up in value, it could maintain value, it could go just a little bit lower.

But you could turn around and sell that and not have to remortgage whatever and whatnot to go buy the next generation Corvette because you lost, you know, 70 percent of the value to Corvette, the Porsche will hold it. So you can kind of roll the other ones too. So it’s just good.

Ryan Bahrke: William, such a good point.

That GT four behind me is worth every cent I paid for it four years ago. That’s [01:39:00] a free car. It’s a free car other than the tires, right? And the occasional oil change. It’s a free car. So you talk about a financial decision that makes sense. I mean, that’s part of it too. So all the above.

Crew Chief Eric: So Mark, if you had to do it all over again, Porsche or Corvette?

Mark Shank: Maybe slightly surprising. I would stick with my answer from the previous episode. So I was spending a hundred grand on a car. And I had to choose between Porsche and Corvette. I’d get a C7 Z06 and turn it into a thousand horsepower monster, but that’s because I have a GT3 that I love and, you know, I’ve scratched that itch.

So if I’m buying a car, I like the idea of the real high horsepower, Texas mile car, just as its own 150 mile an hour roll on that’s where the race starts.

Crew Chief Eric: I appreciate everything you guys said. I mean, I think we’re kind of split down the middle. I am personally torn 50 50. It’s sort of like Lay’s potato chips.

You can’t eat just one. I want to have every car. So I’ll take a Corvette. I’ll take a Porsche, you know, who cares? It’s all good. Got four wheels and a way to steer it. I’m all about it. But more importantly, for our [01:40:00] listeners, since we’re talking about Porsche, we already decided on the Corvettes that we would buy with a hundred grand.

But now specifically, you got a hundred thousand dollars to spend on a Porsche. I’m just going to leave it as a Porsche. You could focus on 911, but you got a hundred grand to spend. What do you buy? How do you invest your money? Do you buy a brand new 992 for a hundred thousand dollars? I

Mark Shank: don’t think you can anymore.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, let’s just say, theoretically, what do you buy for a hundred grand?

Ryan Bahrke: I would buy exactly what I did buy. Four years ago, I bought a very low spec, you know, no, that’s a GT four, but a nine 11, I guess it has to be a nine 11, right? Yeah. I would get a nine, nine 1. 2 career T that’s what I would put my a hundred thousand dollars in

Crew Chief Eric: David’s laughing.

What would you buy?

David L. Middleton: I’m laughing because that was my thought. I said 991T, that was the first thing that came in my mind, maybe to switch it up a little bit. If I couldn’t get the T, then a GTS. If I could get a GTS, the T I think is great. It really is.

Crew Chief Eric: Don, do you go 996 or do you buy a [01:41:00] 928?

Don Weberg: Yeah, I know. You knew, you knew the two I was looking at.

And honestly, reasonably practical. Look, I see the GT3, the GT4. I wouldn’t advise anybody who’s got whatever kind of money go buy one of those, because I am the kind of guy who wants to be able to drive it every day. If I want to, if I want to drive it to work, if I want to drive it all the way to Pennsylvania to go see friends on the East coast or back to California and see friends on the West coast, I want a car that’s going to not eat me up.

As I say, and Mark has kind of brought that to life. The older ones beat you up worse than the newer ones. That’s still no consolation to me. They’re still beating me up one way or the other. Honestly, if I had the a hundred grand, it’s hard for me to walk away from 996. I really do like 996 and over here in the back of my mind, there’s always the Cayman pulling at me cause I really do like the Caymans and I love the Cayman GTS.

I just know that when it came to 9 11, even the, uh, high end and the Cayman whenever I’d see the GTS package, it always caught my eye. Yeah. It’s hard to say between. All three of those cars, but I think really if push came to shove as much as I love 928 [01:42:00] And I really really do I think I would probably go with a 996 c4s.

Crew Chief Eric: William. What do you buy for 100 grand?

Don Weberg: 928 s4

William Ross: 5 speed

Crew Chief Eric: brilliant

William Ross: That’s last change left over. I can go buy myself a 914. There you go Even a beat up 911 needs some work. I’m just a big fan of 928 I think that with the s4 5 speed, you know It’s got the gremlins and everything like that. But I mean, I just think that’s just a classic car.

I mean, I just love that.

Crew Chief Eric: All right. But you got it by 9 11. So what are you buying?

William Ross: Oh, that’s right. I gotta buy a 9 11. I’d probably buy a 9 6 4 series C4 because I drive that thing in the winter, put some blizzacks on it, put some snow tires, come

Crew Chief Eric: tow you out with my jeep when you get stuck.

William Ross: I mean, yeah, you could get the new stuff, the new stuff, spray stuff.

I don’t know. I just, you know, I’d get something older, go into a, an 80s SC or something along those lines. You know, you hear that ad, you know, it’s always funner to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow. Tell them about them. It’s just got that soul and whatnot. There’s other stuff I could drive that goes faster, but I gotta buy a 911.

I don’t have something that’s gonna kind of really get you going a little bit and have some phones and just ring the shit out of it.

Crew Chief Eric: Mark, do [01:43:00] you buy back your 85 Carrera 2 or do you do something different?

Mark Shank: For 100k, I’m torn between Do I do 997 Turbo? You get away with both of them for 100k. Maybe not a 997 manual.

I guess maybe if you hung around long enough to wait for it. But I think I would do previous generation Turbo 996 or 997 depending on where the market was.

Crew Chief Eric: Well guys, it probably comes as no surprise that That I would buy an e production or e prepared 914 race car. But you know, Hey, I’m the weird guy, right?

I’m a mid engine guy. So I like Caymans, all that kind of stuff. I am a big fan of 9 11 too. I’ve grown up around these cars. I mean, literally in PCA since I was in diapers. So I am no stranger to Porsche by any stretch of the imagination, but there is a 9 11 out of all the ones that we talked about, it’s a bit of a rare bird.

And it’s not the 911 L or the R or even the slant nose and all these ones that we talked about, you know, as exciting as the 930 is, there’s one in particular, that’s super special, at least to me, and maybe [01:44:00] to a bunch of other people. And that, my friends, is the 1989 911 Speedster. This thing Is super cool.

I’ve always loved these cars. I’ve only seen a handful of them in person, you know, with the chop windshield, the canopy over the back, it’s different than the cabriolet. It’s as wide as the turbo. It’s a car that makes people want to come and talk to you. It’s a story car. And I love story cars. And it’s more attractive in some ways than a lot of other older 9 11s.

And these are stupid expensive nowadays. So if I had a hundred grand to spend and I had to spend it on the 9 11, I’m buying a Speedster.

Mark Shank: You mean you’re buying one and doing a Speedster tribute? Cause you’re not getting a Speedster tribute. Yeah, that’s right. That’s what I was going to say. Yeah, I’d buy

Crew Chief Eric: one too.

Well, there you go. That’s what I would have.

Ryan Bahrke: They are so good though. They are so good.

Mark Shank: If you’re looking to add a classic Porsche or Corvette to your collection, reach out to William at exoticcarmarketplace. com. Once you hear about cool adventures with Porsches, then check out [01:45:00] Roadshow Podcast with Brian.

If you want to learn how to drive a 911 really fast in the virtual world, then be sure to chat with David at MIE Racing. And you’re guaranteed to catch me on another upcoming episode of BreakFix. So stay tuned for that and don’t forget what should be in your garage. A Porsche! So be sure to keep an eye out for cool Porsche collections with Don over at Garage Style Magazine.

Thanks again to our panel for another great What Should I Buy? episode.

Crew Chief Eric: Like always, I can’t thank you enough for coming on the show. And I don’t know that we ever come to a consensus, but that’s kind of the point of what should I buy is we’re not really supposed to agree on what we would buy. We’re supposed to give people food for thought.

So this was new. This was different for us to do a two parter Porsche versus Corvette. I had a lot of fun. I thought it was informational. And I hope that our audience got a lot out of this too. And if you have further questions about Porsche or Corvette, hit us up on our discord, reach out to us on our Facebook group, email us.

We’d have a lot of. We’ve got experts in our wings that can get more deep into the details if you’re looking to buy one of these [01:46:00] particular cars. So thanks again guys for coming and we hope to see you in another. What should I buy? Awesome.

Ryan Bahrke: Thank you. What a pleasure.

Crew Chief Brad: Thanks for having us.

Crew Chief Eric: We hope you enjoyed another awesome episode of break fix podcast brought to you by Grand Touring Motorsports. If you’d like to be a guest on the show or get involved, be sure to follow us on all social media platforms at GrandTouringMotorsports. And if you’d like to learn more about the content of this episode, be sure to check out the follow on article at GTMotorsports.

org. We remain a commercial free and no annual fees organization through our sponsors, but also through the generous support of our fans, families, and friends through Patreon. For as little as 2. 50 a month, you can get access to more behind the scenes action, [01:47:00] additional Pit Stop minisodes, and other VIP goodies, as well as keeping our team of creators Fed on their strict diet of fig Newtons, gumby bears, and monster.

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Bonus Content

There's more to this story!

All of our BEHIND THE SCENES (BTS) Break/Fix episodes are raw and unedited, and expressly shared with the permission and consent of our guests.

Singer Vehicle Design

As mentioned several times on this episode, Singer Vehicle Design is an American company that specializes in restoring and modifying Porsche 911s.

It was founded by Rob Dickinson in 2009, who is also known as former frontman and guitarist of the English rock band Catherine Wheel. The company is based in Los Angeles, California and produces rollings works of art using older 911s like this “Turbo” unveiled at last years Quail (Monterey Car Week 2023).

The Flachbau 964

William’s choice comes in the form of the 76 US-spec X85 Turbo S Flachbau “slantnose” examples of the 964, seen below with a 996 GT3. Do you agree?

What’s a Porsche Purist these days?

We spend some extra time with Lee Raskin (noted Porsche Historian, and subject matter expert on 356 and 550 Spyders) talking about vintage Porsche’s and his thoughts on “Porsche Purism” in today’s enthusiast world.

Tune in everywhere you stream, download or listen!

Learn More

Interested in buying a 911?

And if you’re interested in buying a Porsche, look no further than Exotic Car Marketplace with over 20 years of personalized service to find you the right 911 experience!

What else should you buy? Check out other What Should I Buy? Podcast episodes for more car buying “advice” 😉 And remember: the debate never ends – it just shifts gears.

Despite its consistent silhouette, the 911 evolved significantly over the years. From the 901 to the 911T, E, and S variants, each brought incremental improvements. The panel dives into the grassroots motorsports culture that fueled Frankenstein builds – mixing cams, heads, and carbs for performance gains.

David notes that Porsche’s engineering philosophy was more iterative than revolutionary, especially compared to Corvette’s dramatic styling shifts. Germans weren’t big on personalization – at least not in the early days.

With safety regulations came bigger bumpers, flared fenders, and a more mainstream appeal. This era of 911s – especially the SC and Carrera – became the poster cars of the 1980s. Ryan fondly recalls the hips on the SC as the moment 911s became “cool.”

Don and David point out that Porsche, like Corvette, began catering to yuppies. The cars got heavier, more luxurious, and less raw. But they never lost their engineering edge. Even the 930 Turbo, introduced in 1975, was a technological marvel – a six-cylinder that could clean Ferrari’s clock.

The 930 Turbo (above) was the car that made Porsche a household name. With its infamous turbo lag and brutal power delivery, it earned the nickname “widowmaker.” Eric shares a childhood memory of a neighbor with a silver 930 and BBS wheels – forever cementing the car’s status as the Alpha Porsche.

David reminds us that the 930 wasn’t just about luxury – it was about racing pedigree. Fuel injection, turbocharging, and endurance racing roots made it a standout in a sea of malaise-era cars.

If you’re a first-time collector, the panel suggests steering clear of the earliest 901s unless you’re rounding out a collection. Instead, look to the SCs, Carreras, and even the 930s of the late ’70s and ’80s. They offer the best blend of drivability, collectability, and that unmistakable Porsche charm.

And remember, whether it’s a Singer tribute or a bone-stock survivor, the right 911 is the one that makes you smile – and maybe makes your friends raise an eyebrow.

Thanks to our panel of Petrol-heads!

If you’re looking to add a classic Porsche (or Corvette) to your collection, reach out to William at exoticcarmarketplace.com. Want to hear about cool adventures with Porsches, then check out the Road Show Podcast with Ryan. If you want to learn how to drive a 911 really fast in the virtual world, then be sure to chat with David at MIE racing. And you’re guaranteed to catch Mark on another upcoming episode of Break/Fix so stay tuned for that, and don’t forget… What should be in your garage? A Porsche! So be sure to keep an eye out for cool Porsche collections with Don over at Garage Style Magazine. Thanks again to our panel for another great What Should I Buy? debate!