1990 Porsche 911 C2, A Story

Safe travels. This will be SO memorable for you and your son.

My 7YO loves road trips in my old 911 too.

I have made a very good purchase. I might not say that about the car every day, but at the end of the first day, I am a very happy man. What a great car.
Tomorrow the roads get twisty.

Pics please! Man, I hope I can do this with my son someday! Although my trip would involve a mint Datsun 510 driven home to VA from sunny California...

Good to hear that all is going well knock on wood. What does your co-pilot think?

He's the coolest cat to ever co drive. Seats are good for sleeping as well.
We're up and off to the Smokies.

Awesome - safe travels!

Thanks for the updates! It puts a smile on my face every time I'm reminded your adventure is underway...

Dead relay this morning that had me freaking out. Advice here and on the rest of the net reminded me that the PO said something about the relay in the box in case it didn't start. Swapped out and all is well.
Spent some time on the Blue Ridge Parkway with the sunroof open enjoying life. Back on the freeway and headed to the smokies.

mazdeuce wrote: I love the boy, I really do, but if I was like this at nine I'm surprised I wasn't abandoned.

Hahaha. My 11 year story of fatherhood so far! You're not alone! Great story, enjoy the drive.

this is one of the many reasons I love this place.
Wife and I were talking about flying to the west to pick up something cool and driving it back once we get things straightened out.
as you said: Adventure!

man. . . I have always wanted to do the whole cross country buy and drive. . . it wouldnt even matter what car it was, but in a porsche . . . This thread is awesome and I haven't even seen one picture of the car yet. I feel like the stories that go along with the building and driving are part of what makes cars so close to our hearts, thats why I include the good ones with my build posts. You owe us some pic included journal entries upon your texas arrival . . . . have a safe journey you two.

Pictures are coming, I promise. There will also be some actual hands on Porsche wrenching to fix some stuff.
I will say that the Dragon is worth driving. It was fun. The whole day has been fun. We need to get a couple more hours down the road tonight and then it's all freeway for rest of the trip.

The speedometer is having periods of vaguely pointing at speeds not directly related to the speed of the car. Sometimes it's fine. Speedo gear? I've made a cheat sheet of rpm/speed in 5th. It should get us home.

I did something like this december of last year, but took my brother with me, should have taken my eldest too. In for pictures!

J

mazdeuce wrote: Pictures are coming, I promise. There will also be some actual hands on Porsche wrenching to fix some stuff. I will say that the Dragon is worth driving. It was fun. The whole day has been fun. We need to get a couple more hours down the road tonight and then it's all freeway for rest of the trip.

Was Killboy out there today? You'll have to buy one of those pictures for sure to commemorate the trip!

This is a Porsche 911. There are many like it, but this one is mine. It has safely carried my son and I home, and I have tucked both of them in for the night. More pictures and stories to come tomorrow. Thank you to everyone for following along.

In reply to crankwalk:

Killboy was there. I'm checking for pictures right now.

I love happy endings. Or is this the beginning?

TRoglodyte wrote: I love happy endings. Or is this the beginning?

This is going to be a very long thread. Very long.

Beautiful, brave man putting the GRM stickers on the paint!

Very happy to see you guys back home, safe and sound.

The car's a beauty! Not that a 911 has any bad angles, but that's one of its better sides. Can't wait to hear more!

crankwalk wrote: Beautiful, brave man putting the GRM stickers on the paint!

Those are magnets.
I made them up for autocrossing and threw them in with my stuff for the trip. I think they look quite nice.

Now for the full version of the story.
I woke up at 4:05 on Friday morning and shook the kids awake. My poor dear wife had to drive us to the airport so we could make our flight with a 6:15 departure. Things went incredibly smoothly. This was the first airplane ride my son has taken since he was a baby, so he was excited. We had clouds for a bunch of the trip which was a bummer because he couldn't see anything. As we started to descend I told him to watch closely. The moment where the plane breaks out of the clouds and the ground becomes visible is pretty cool. Lower. Nothing. Lower. Nothing. Lower. Oh my god the ground is right there! Safe landing. The clouds were right down to the ground and it was snowing, heavily. Snow and slush on the runway. Slightly terrifying.
We had 20 minutes to make our connection from NJ to Pennsylvania. We made it and hiked across the runway to the turboprop. Turboprop taking off in a blizzard. That sounds like the start of a really sad novel. After 20 minutes on the plane, right when the doors should be closing, we were ordered off. We didn't have clearance to take off and they didn't know when we would get it. As it turns out, our 11:15 flight turned into a 3:45 flight. Luckily we did take off eventually and didn't even crash. All things considered, it wasn't too bad.
We met the seller outside the terminal. He said to look for the guy sitting in a red Porsche. There was only one. We walked up to the car and I introduced myself to Giant Purple Snorklewacker.
I can't say enough about how nice it was to buy a car from GPS. I actually paid him for the car nearly two months ago and he's been puttering about fixing things on the car since then, making sure it was tip top for a trip across the country. My plan had been to talk him into letting me buy him lunch and sitting and talking cars for an hour before we had to head south. Four and a half hours of delays changed things and we really had to go. The handover was quick. We tried to do it right in front of the airport but the security lady in front complained multiple times that the car was stinky and that we had to move. We drove half a mile to a neighborhood and finished things.
Here is the car as it sat during the first moments of my ownership. GPS is in the truck in back. He seemed genuinely sad to sell the car. He might have been weeping just a bit.

We headed on down the road hoping to make up some time. If we wanted to drive Deals Gap the next day we really needed to try and get as close as we could that night. We made it until about 11:30 before I was just too tired. Right before it got truly dark we stopped at a rest area and I took a few more pictures. It's a beautiful car.

Certain 964s make me feel wishy-washy about that generation. This is not one of them.

Like you said - beautiful car. Congrats!

Hey now! I wasn't weeping... I got a little piece of dirt or something in my eye It would have been nice to grab a bite but I knew you were going to be in a hurry as soon as I saw the weather when I got up. It was nice to meet you and your son in person regardless.

I'm glad the car went somewhere where it will be driven. I put 20k on it in the 5yrs I had it but the lion share of that was in the first two. I just wasn't using it enough to justify it to myself anymore despite the pangs of regret I had while driving it to the airport.

I will console myself by using the proceeds to fund a build thread involving an E30, a home-made IRS and a big hole in the firewall. Starting as soon as I find time to go pick up the parts.

In the meantime I'm waiting to read the rest of your tale.