Alvin Martin’s Wikipedia page provides a pretty good introduction. Liverpool lad, born in 1958. Professional footballer, now retired. Defender for West Ham in 598 matches, including the one that won them the 1980 FA Cup. Played for England 17 times between 1981 and 1986. Former manager of Southend United. Now a regular on talkSPORT radio and Sky Sports. Two sons, both professional footballers too.
But it doesn’t say anything about him also being a petrolhead and, best of all, a Porsche owner and PCGB member to boot. While it’s obvious that football has been a major part of his life, cars have too and his garage has also played host to the likes of a Triumph TR7, a Jaguar XJS and a Jaguar E-Type over the years. Today, he’s the happy owner of a 997 that he has high hopes for and there’s a good reason why.
“My mum gave me this advice four or five years ago: ‘Start to live your life’,” he explains. “She’s 90 – god bless her – so I started to apply that and this is my time now. I always wanted to have a car in the garage with a cover on it and thought: what car would I want first? The first one that came to mind was a Porsche. I’d always wanted a 911. I always think that nobody should ever depart this Earth having never owned a 911.”
Like many of us, suddenly finding himself with time on his hands while in COVID-19 lockdown prompted Alvin to new find ways to pass it and putting this admirable principle into practice was one of them. He began searching for a 911 online and started by looking at 996s in particular on the logic that they offered good value for money. Over the next six months, he was genuinely tempted by a couple but they weren’t quite what he had in his mind’s eye, so he revised his budget upwards and searched more widely.
Then, one day, he found exactly what he was looking for at last in the form of a 2005 997 Carrera S in “beautiful” metallic grey with a tan interior and only 17,700 miles on the clock. “I found this one and it was perfect,” he says. “You know how you see a car and think: ‘That’s the car I want’? I’d already made my mind up before I made the phone call.”
Happily, making the call only strengthened Alvin’s resolve. It turned out that the owner, a young Frenchman living in Clapham, felt the need to change to something a little more practical after welcoming a new baby – a familiar enough reason to sell an otherwise excellent car. He had owned it for 18 months and had only put 700 miles on it himself, but he was able to confirm that it had a full Porsche main dealer service history.
It’s also a manual, which offered a very welcome blast from the past. “I haven’t had a manual for a long, long time. When I was growing up in Liverpool, you didn’t see many automatics around and it was all manuals. It’s taking me back to a place where it was just the clunk of a gear stick. Incredible.”
That was more than enough for Alvin. A deal was struck and at long last he became a 911 owner. But the competitive streak in this former England defender meant it wasn’t long before Alvin was figuring out how he could make his dream car even better. Preferrably, better than anything else on the market…
“This one, I think, can be the best car in the country,“ he says. “What I want is the perfect 997. When you look around, there are some lovely 997s. There’s one up in Sheffield at the moment, it’s got 10,000 miles on it and that’s a lovely car, but this one, I think, can be the best.”
That’s why Alvin is currently exploring his options with Hartech to see about what can be achieved with a complete rebuild. Going “the whole hog”, as Alvin puts it, may be what it takes to fulfil his ambition and raise this already excellent 997 to the truly exceptional. “Everything that needs to be done on it will be collectible standards,” he explains. “That’s what I’ve got in my mind.”
“What I love is perfection,” he says. “It is the beauty of the car, the feel of the car, the look of the car – inside and out. Lifting the engine bay lid and seeing a brand new engine in there. Looking at the wheels and seeing not a speck of dirt on the inside or outside of the wheels. I enjoy owning something that is like this. You feel like a collector, not a car owner, of something really artistic.”
“I anticipate I’ll be doing 800 miles a year or something like that. It’s in the garage, it’s covered, it’s heated and sometimes even just getting the car out and looking at it gives me pleasure. It’s a hobby more than it is about the practicability of owning the car sometimes.”
“It’s not just a car. It becomes part of your life.”