Dreaming of warm dry tarmac
As I write this column it’s a frosty morning and I’m dreaming of warm dry tarmac, I’m sure I’m not alone. I used my Targa GTS a bit through the winter - recently I took it to Bath for a weekend away - but I know many will avoid the roads during the colder months. We would love to hear about your winter experiences, be that how you store your car or your adventures on the winter roads. In 2021 Gary Spencer (@gsspencer_gt3) wrote about how he used his GT3 through the winter. Drop us a line if you have similar story.
Members and their cars - Robin Sim
“I got into Porsches shortly after retiring for the first time aged 50 when I was offered a test drive of the then new 993 – Flavio was keen to demonstrate the ABS, in the pouring rain at high speed with traffic coming in the opposite direction. Staggering and frightening in equal measure, but I was hooked.
“Reading a review of the 968, I decided it was a good place to start. A one-owner, two-year old cabriolet in Polar Silver with Magenta hide interior became available at the original Porsche Centre in Glasgow. I kept it for over 17 years but, when my number plate was worth more than the car and repairs were becoming unsustainable, it had to go.
Robin Sim’s 991
“In 2013, with the 968 sold, I visited the new Porsche Centre Glasgow with the immortal words ‘I’m not here to buy a new car today’, until I saw a beautiful one-year-old 991, again in silver with £10k worth of extras. The clincher, for a man who believes a true sports car had to have a soft top (two Austin Healey Sprites in my youth), it had a sliding glass roof. No more scuttle shake but also for a man of advancing years it was an automatic. I had been on a factory visit years ago when my turn to be driven round the test track at Weissach with a professional at the wheel proved that the auto version was faster than my wife’s drive in the manual.
He’s thrilled every time he gets into it
“The salesman said ‘You should easily get 32mpg’. Aye, right, as we might say north of the border. I’ve had it 11 years now and, though I don’t do a high mileage, it returns 28.5mpg overall. Nevertheless, it has 110bhp more power than the 968 with 400 more cc, and that one returned 23.5mpg overall, so a good investment I keep telling myself. Nothing lasts forever and things decay or break eventually; air con, cooling system, tyres, the list goes on, so I’m lucky to have found a specialist garage near where we live in the East Neuk of Fife, beside the Crail airfield where many members may have raced.
“I still get a thrill every time I get into it, and until I really struggle to get in and out of it, I’m not ready to part with it. It’s a great machine.”
We look forward to seeing you at future events, in the meantime, enjoy your cars and happy motoring. Roll on summer.
Phil Swain and Phil Graham