The thing is, you’re filtering out the times that wasn’t true. I don’t know why but people always do - I owned 4 Porsches and 5 BMWs before I hit 50 and the only strangers that noticed were the police. I belong to a local BMW car club specific to M-cars and I’m the ONLY member over 40, much less 50, out of 40-something men and women. The chief gripe of the 20-somethings? People assume they’re driving their dad’s car.
Now that I’m in my 50s, strangers assume I’m having a midlife crisis, which is hilarious.
I was the same way - in my teens, it seemed every cool car was being driven by some guy too old to enjoy it (since decrepitude started at around 30, of course!); it was a big factor in my getting my first sports car while I was in my 20s.
A funny thing happened when I was driving my Porsche…
I was in my 30s, and I picked up a friend from LAX. He said people were looking at the car. I’d never noticed. For the most part, I don’t give a crap what people think. (Oddly, I do have a strong sense of decorum.) I drove the car because it was fun. If I ever get another, it will be for the same reason. People can think what they want. It’s not my job to make people think one way or another about me.
Strongly disagree. Out of the entire Porsche lineup, The Boxster and the Cayman are in the sweet spot for the sports car enthusiast. The 911 and its variants continue to have to compensate for the long-ago (and purely dumbass, IMO) decision to put the engine behind the rear axle. The 911s may outperform the mid-engined cars on a numbers basis, but I firmly believe the Boxster/Cayman is more fun to drive, and I’m not alone in that thinking.
And I know some Tesla owners that would disagree about that ‘no maintenance’ comment. Different maintenance, yes.
It made sense at the time, but I’m a strong advocate of the idea that since the 911 debuted Porsche’s best work has been cars not tied to the 911 platform - the 914, 944 and 968, the Boxster and Cayman are all fantastic sports cars. The 911 sells great because 1) it’s an icon, and a lot of people would buy it for the name no matter what and 2) Porsche lets the other cars handle better but make sure it stays on top as far as performance. The 944 was much more favored by journalists in its heyday compared to the 911s of the time, and Porsche provided a racing team with 911GTs when the team started dominating a series with a Cayman they’d fitted with 911GT3 hardware, regularly beating GT3s.
Buy low and sell high … so keep it for awhile, take lots of pictures, enjoy the moments it gives you and then move on to something that give you real pleasure like side airbags and a low crash rating and good gas mileage.
No matter what the car this is good advice … take it from someone that owned the first Shelby GT 350 back in 1965 … purchase price $2600 used by the Ford dealers son and the owner took it away from him for speeding and sold it to me.
Todays price $75,000, but I couldn’t afford the five dollars a day storage fee’s lol.
Buy low sell high and you won’t lose any sleep over it that way
I love the looks of those, but they’ve got their own issues, like most old cars. My favorite Studebaker is the Hawk GT (same name as my Honda motorcycle, coincidentally). For something individual but more modern, I’d suggest a Porsche 968 or BMW Z3 coupe (that’s my old one) - you rarely see either on the road, they’re fun cars, and fairly cheap.
