Mick Brown’s history with Porsche began in 2004. His brother had just bought an early 944 in Crystal Green Metallic and this quickly piqued his own interest in front-engined Porsches too. Soon afterwards, he got his hands on a black 944S – “the face-lifted model with the oval dash and 2.5L 16V engine” – and he’s not been without a front-engined Porsche since.
After owning the 944S for a couple of years, Mick started hankering after a 968 and, in 2007, the 944S was replaced with a black 968 coupé. It was already in good shape when he acquired it but, over the next few years, he improved its condition further and enjoyed some success in R16’s concours events. However, he also enjoyed driving it and, in 2008, a R16 weekend trip to the Nürburgring whetted his appetite for track driving. A PCGB trackday at Castle Combe followed and this led to the feeling that a tiptronic 968 was not quite the right tool for the job, so he began a search for something a bit more track-focussed.
In 2011, he found it when he saw an advert for a slightly tired Maritime Blue 944 race car that had been built in the early 2000s by the racing preparation specialists at EMC Motorsport and which had been campaigned for several seasons in the Porsche Club Championship by Frank Cortez. Apart from needing a healthy dose of TLC and the fact that the engine was burning oil, it certainly met the track-focused requirement. Mick solved the engine problem soon afterwards when, browsing the 944 section of the PCGB forum one day, he saw a post from someone who had unfortunately written off a 968-engined 944 S2 track car asking if anyone would be interested in buying it for spares.
So the “severely bent” 944 S2 became a feature on Mick’s drive for a couple of months (“much to the delight of my neighbours, I’m sure,” he dryly puts it) as he began stripping it down. His plan was to keep the engine and gearbox (complete with Quaife differential) and sell many of the other parts to re-coup costs – a plan that worked so well, he effectively got the engine and gearbox for free. As well as upgrading the engine and transmission, he also returned the race car to a road-legal specification to make it easier to get to and from tracks.
However, something happened in among all this that would lead to a change in his plans. When fitting the 968 engine to the car, he needed a clutch alignment tool and, rather than just order the tool and wait, he drove a few miles to a house that always had a couple of 944s on the drive on the off-chance that the owner might have one he could borrow a bit sooner. By fortunate coincidence, the owner happened to be Justin Mather, one of the front-running drivers in the Speed and Hillclimb Championship, and he encouraged Mick to dip his toe into competitive motorsport.
Thanks to this serendipitous meeting, Mick’s hillclimbing career began in 2015 and it’s continued ever since. Despite still considering himself a novice, he enjoys it a great deal and it’s clear that Justin Mather read him perfectly all those years ago.
“The concept of sprinting and hillclimbing is very simple, but the practice is anything but!” Mick explains. “Unlike a trackday, where you can build speed over several laps as car and driver both warm up, with sprinting and hillclimbing you have to be ‘on it’ straight away, with cold brakes and tyres, and no clear idea of how much grip there is until you’re into the first corner. Like all hobbies, there are days when it’s not going your way and you wonder why you bother, but those days are easily outweighed when it does all gel, when both car and driver perform well, and you set a personal best.”
But his original plan to enjoy trackdays came to fruition too and Mick has been to a good number of those as well. He has been to several at Castle Combe, his local circuit, and one particularly memorable visit to the Bedford GT circuit with other members of the 944 Register saw his car hold its own against some impressive competition.
However, the 944’s rather harsh suspension, full harnesses and lack of any creature comforts mean it is not an ideal road car and nowadays he tends to trailer it to events.
Even though he has no regrets about buying it, part of him always regretted selling that black 968 that started everything and he kept an eye on the market with a view to getting another one day. Increasing 968 values made him think that perhaps that ship had sailed but, in late 2018, a member of a forum that he belonged to announced that he was thinking about selling his low-mileage, Cobalt Blue, manual coupé that was afflicted with a few issues including an unfortunate case of the dreaded pinion-bearing whine from the gearbox. They agreed a fair price for it, so now Mick has a 968 again.
This 968 is now an ongoing project for Mick (who, as a project manager for major government projects, is no stranger to them) and, although he has not yet had the time to do everything he wants to, he has had the gearbox rebuilt and he is looking forward to bringing it back up to a high standard. Once that’s complete, he’ll be able to enjoy a front-engined Porsche on the road as well as on the track – a textbook case of the best of both worlds.
Mick would like to say a big thank you to his wife Lisa and their two grown-up children for their support and patience, and for “reminding me on those days when things are not going well that a hobby should be fun!”