With just under a week to go before the new Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet makes its world debut at the LA Auto Show, crankandpiston takes a last rose-tinted look at the outgoing convertible.
[Not a valid template]Many moons ago, back in rainy Scotland, a 1996 Vauxhall Corsa – complete with a ‘fiery’ 1.2-litre engine – was about as good as it got. Back then I could never have imagined that less than 10 years later I’d be running around the playboy’s haven that is Dubai, in the sunshine and with the top down, in a Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet. On arriving in Dubai and hearing horror stories aplenty about the driving habits, I decided to plump for something big and went for a Porsche Cayenne Turbo. After many wallet emptying visits to the service center, enough proved to be enough and the Cayenne was gone.
The problem was where to go from there. A fast family saloon maybe? BMW M3? Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG? Or perhaps something that would give more of an involving sporty drive than a tarted up family wagon? Cue a trip around Dubai’s showrooms, which led me to stumble across a white 2008 Porsche 911 GT3. I had much to mull after an excellent test drive, and it wasn’t long before I was back in the showroom, only to find the GT3 was away for ‘interior cleaning’. One week and another trip to the showroom later, the Porsche had lost almost 30,00km. Cue a quick turn on the heels straight out the door. This experience though had whetted the 911 appetite and an Automart search threw up a dealer selling my 2008 Turbo. A test drive was arranged, and it took only 100m down the road before my mind was made up.
Maybe I should have given more consideration to the ‘learn from past experiences’ philosophy after the money I threw away trying to maintain my Cayenne. But as a petrol-head who had been without a car for a few months, or even worse had been subjected to a rental Lancer, I was smitten and the Turbo was on my driveway a week or two later. Obviously as a used car the choice of interior trim color would not have been my first, but in all reality I have grown to like it: in the land of show-offs and excesses, I think it fits quite well.
Ownership of the Turbo has not been without its ups and downs over the past year. As with the Cayenne it appears that somehow, with all the money they throw at Research & Development, the marque has managed to find a magical switch that means on the fourth birthday of any Porsche it decides to develop – for the purposes of this story let’s just call them – ‘quirks’. The Tyre Pressure Monitoring System, for instance, which kept thinking I had decided to change a set of tyres whilst travelling at 120kph along the highway. Then there’s been other expenses like new rear tyres, and brake pads and discs all round. I prepared myself for these expenses when I bought the car, and now favour a ‘just shut my eyes and hand my Visa card over’ philosophy.
