After two years away, I returned to writing for Total 911 magazine earlier this year. I contribute a column and a feature or two a month.
Here’s the first column I wrote on my return. Takes me a while to get into it…
The Second Gold Rush
Photographer buddy Jamie Lipman and I just got back from sunny California: our third trip in two years. Before our last visit, I bought a sweet little 1980 SC Coupe. The car had been owned by the same guy since 1989 and was an honest, rust-free 911.
The paint had weathered a few storms and the trim had seen better days: it had been used to commute and California roads are not the kindest to cars. But, riding on Fuchs, with an engine rebuilt to Euro specs – new pistons and cylinders and SSIs too – it pulled like a train with a Tornado strapped on top.
There were one or two jobs to do before we arrived: new Turbo tie rods and a full alignment for starters, followed by a little bit of wiring repair when we got there. After that, there was no stopping us.
We used the SC (christened The Varmint) for ten days and over 2,000 miles. Let me tell you: there is nothing like ripping around sunny California in your very own 911. Our travels took us all over: across the Golden Gate, along Mulholland Drive and down the Pacific Coast Highway to Malibu, at sunrise and sunset.
When the trip was finished, I shipped Varmint home, intending to use it as a daily driver. Photography studies and some expensive camera gear beckoned, so when a friend made me an offer I could have refused, I chose not to. Varmint left for a new home and I put some of the proceeds away for our next trip.
A few weeks before we were due to leave this time around, I started looking for Varmint Mk 2: something that wouldn’t break the bank, but could transport us in SC comfort for a week, before we sold it on or shipped it home. Shergar would have been easier to find.
In the year or so since buying Varmint, the exchange rate had shifted, the economy had lifted and the number of affordable 911s on offer had drifted away. Between the breakers and the other European speculators, California had been drained of sub-$10k 911s.
My regular trip to Essen earlier in the year had showed there was no letup in the number of 911s finding their way back to Germany from the USA, but California is Porsche nirvana: these cars are everywhere! I couldn’t believe how fast the tap had turned off.
Markets shift and money follows. As economies rise and fall, so sought-after cars like the 911 zoom around the world. My first 911 lived in 5 countries before I bought it. Of my most recent three, one has been registered in three European countries, another has been though four states and three countries and Varmint just left its fifth state/country, en route to the sixth. Busy, busy, busy.
When I first got into 911s, left hand-drive was the cheap option. UK dealers were buying in Stuttgart and selling in Stratford. I prefer left hand-drive, so it suited me fine, but it wasn’t long before Germany woke up to the UK bargains and took the left-hookers home. A similar thing has been happening in west coast USA.
Now however, the Euro has slumped to a four-year low against the Dollar, so might the USA begin buying cars back? Ebb and flow is how it goes. In the middle of it all are the shippers: making a living, whichever way the cars sail.
Sod these old Porsches, I’m getting into boats.
