2022 has been a year of change here in the FlatSixes garage. We’ve seen the departure of two 944s from the stable, as well as the addition of a 996 Turbo and a rusty-but-trusty beater Cayenne. We’ve also moved across the country and driven many of our cars all the way! Some cars got a bunch of miles this year, and others didn’t move an inch for over 12 months. In this entry we’ll give a brief update on the cars we still have, what happened to the ones we sold off, and what we’re working on next. It’s an interesting one, so buckle up!
1976 Porsche 912E
This Talbot Yellow 912E is my one true automotive love. I’ll always have this car, and will always want to drive it. This little beast has had all of its mechanical bits refurbished, but the bodywork and interior are what I lovingly refer to as shabby chic. This car gets looks everywhere I go, but it’s in need of some light restoration at some point. For now I’ll keep letting it ride, but there’s a bit of rust that will probably need to be dealt with sooner or later. This car made the move from Reno, NV to Clevaland, OH this spring, and has been giving me ignition fits this year, but I think I’ve got them sorted.
Over the Thanksgiving holiday I drove the car 200 miles to my mother’s house for winter storage in the pole barn. I’ll make some more concrete plans on what to do with this car next year.
1997 Porsche Boxster
One of the major downsides of moving across the country is that you don’t always have room for all of your projects to make the journey. Not only did I not have trailer space for this car to come to Cleveland, but I don’t have garage space to work on it. This track car project has been temporarily sidelined until I can get space and time to move it across the country. The plan was to have this car in for roll cage construction this summer, but moving really put a damper on that idea. Maybe Porsche will beat me to the hybrid/electric mid-engine sports car after all?
2001 Porsche 911 Turbo
The 911 Turbo is the newest addition to the club, growing our flat six ownership levels to two! This is an exciting and interesting car that will serve very well as a daily driver sports car. The majority of this car’s needs are aesthetic. It looks much grimier and dirtier than it should because the bumper is missing its paint. Once the bumper is sorted and we have the proper wheels on this machine, and get the headlights polished up, it’ll look like a nearly new car. Last weekend I spent a few hours swapping out the track-abused brake pads and rotors for fresh. The Pagid Yellow track pads were squealing and dusting far too much for street use, so those were kicked out for a set of factory-equipment Textar pads. The front rotors have been swapped for a set of ECS Tuning floating rotors that shave around three pounds per corner in rotational unsprung mass. I’ll take it.
This car will be headed in an OEM Plus direction, getting a wrap in a rare Porsche color, a new set of wheels (that’s a surprise), and some light interior work. It’s a good car, it doesn’t need much.
The Porsche Cayenne
A good friend of mine has owned this Cayenne for several years, and it was daily driven in Ohio winters for most of its life. It’s in need of a bit of work, but we’re going to turn it into something fun. With a lift kit from Eurowise, a set of gorgeous wheels from Braid, and a set of big chunky tires from Mickey Thompson’s off road division, this Cayenne should go from lean to mean in a heartbeat.
1986 Porsche 944 Turbo
A handful of years ago my friend Ethan Tufts and I went in together on this 944 Turbo. My west coast Porsche mechanic had it for sale, and we borrowed it for a thousand miles of bombing around California mountain roads before committing to the purchase. It’s a high-mile hero with the odometer showing over 340,000 miles, and it was broken for the better part of a decade. How many miles does this car actually have? Half a million? There’s no way of knowing. It served us both well for those years, despite its age and mileage, but we just ran out of time and space to deal with it, and it had to go. This car sold on Bring A Trailer on Black Friday for $13,800, which is about what we expected it to do. I hope the new owner appreciates it as much as we did (or more, actually).
1983 Porsche 944 Euro
This one was hard to see go, but I’m ultimately glad I did. This was one of my favorite Porsches I’ve ever owned, but I sold this one off to a good friend over the summer and he treats it nicer than I did. Earlier this year we sold our ownership stake in Radwood to Hagerty, but the “Rad 44” was titled in my name and not part of the sale. With the cross-country move, the car was just sitting in Nevada waiting for me to get to it. With limited time and space, I decided it was time to get rid of it, and a friend was more than eager for a good first Porsche. If you see this car in the Phoenix, Arizona area, tell them I say hello.
So that’s it. That’s what the garage looks like right now, and what we’ve done with all of our cars this year. The driving season is pretty well over here in Ohio, and a couple of the cars are tucked away for the winter. Maybe next year we’ll make more progress on our projects instead of buying new ones. Then again, that seems awfully doubtful from where I’m sitting.