My First Porsche
After watching the market and thinking "If I don't do this now, I'm going to pay a whole lot more later." I pulled the trigger on a 2004 GT3 with some mods (RUF Bumper/side skirts, Numeric shifter, and Guard LSD). This was a photo I took after my first drive ever in a GT3 after purchasing the car from the previous owner, we went up on Highway 9 for some fun driving. I was following my friend in his awesome 997.1 GT3.
What I appreciate about this first photo now is that after parking and immediately taking this picture, I went to fill up and had no idea where the gas cap was hahaha. My buddy pointed it out, so I had to get back in and put it in reverse to get the car in position to fill it up. *face palm*
After that I drove it from the Bay Area to SoCal taking the 101 the whole way and it was just such a pleasant drive getting to know the car. I have been surprised to see how much love this car gets too. Tons of thumbs ups and people taking photos, glad it makes other happy too.
I've had some amazing cars over the years. '98 Z28 1LE, 91 NSX Comptech supercharged, 06 M3 Competition Coupe, 04 Gallardo (6 spd gated), and currently an 05 F430 being converted to a gated car... so for comparison sake that's what I'm going off of. This 996 is special!!! The steering on this might be the best I've ever experienced. And the sound this makes as it begins to really start pulling from 5k to 8k RPM is pretty incredible. I regret years ago not listening to a maintenance shop owner in 2018 telling me as I was shopping for a Ferrari 360 or Gallardo, "Have you ever considered a GT3? They're the best driving experience + ownership experience you can have. You just put gas and oil in it, take it to the track and drive it home." At the time I was dead set on an Italian sports car which is also great. But, had I listened to him I also might not appreciate this car as much as I do now. It's got 51k miles on it, and my intent buying a drivers example is to one day be someone that can say "Oh it has 200k miles on it." I've already put over 600 miles on it since Saturday!
What a car, and I'm so happy to be a part of the "weird" Porsche club. I have ALWAYS loved how the 996 looked despite what the herd said about the headlights. Looking forward to being part of this community, hoping all of you went out and drove yours today too!