I bought my wife an NSX when we retired. Took her to Bellagio on our 37th anniversary, where a rental was waiting, to spend a week finding out whether she really wanted to own an exotic or just wanted to play with one for awhile. She loved it, so by Christmas she had her own and it became our daily driver.

Almost exactly ten years later the dealer picked up that car for service and left a loaner. Next morning we were told they had crashed it. The pick-up driver spun, bounced off a mountain, married a guard rail, and... well, it was a total loss and our insurance company bought it from us at a good price. Cindy said it was my turn to have my dream car now.

Yesterday we tested several Porsches at the Auto Gallery here in Southern California and picked a 2009 911 Carrera S. (997.2S is the proper abbreviation I gather?) Brought it fifty miles home on four California weekend freeways. In the dark. Without reading the owner's manual. Chuckling all the way.

Damn. This car is everything my occasional drives this last forty years had led me to hope.

Beautiful car and great engineering. And I am very glad to qualify for your number. Do you suppose that smiley face on the front end was intentional, or did it just arise from aerodynamics and aesthetics making whoopie in the back room?

 

Interesting story. Enjoy your car and do not allow any pickup driver to drive it...

 

That is a great story . Reading it one can almost feel the emotion that went into the decision and purchase as well as the excitment mixed with confusion on the drive home. It must even be more enhanced with a 10 year gap of time.

Congrats!!! Welcome to 6speed .

 

Thank you, I love having my own car again. I was always careful to speak of the NSX as Cindy's car, so she'd never feel like we bought it to get a sports car for me instead of her. This one is definitely the opposite.

We had the Mark II NSX though. It was already six speed and until it met that pick-up driver it was about as fast I'd say as a base 996. They are full aluminum, which that mountain emphasized so they're about three hundred pounds lighter than a 911. Lots to like about an NSX, but the 911 is what I always wanted, and the S in particular. I had the choice someone else is discussing in another thread. A new 997 base with lots of options, or at the same price a 997-S from this year and the same options, but with 11,000 miles. Both at the same price.

I turned down the chance to buy a couple of factory demos with several hundred to two thousand miles because I greatly suspect they are press cars, or otherwise driven hard and put away wet. The choice between almost-new-with-regular-use and really-new-but-less-powerful was a tough one. Took me all of ten minutes to pick the S, and I spent that making sure we'd asked all the right questions and made all the close inspections we could without putting it up on a rack.

For what it's worth, I was surprised at the difference in feel between a 2007 and this year's model. The salesman wanted to sell the later one for the extra twenty thousand of course, so his assertions are to be ignored. My books on Porsche engineering run out about 2005 when the 997's were first introduced.

Have they made significant changes this year that I haven't heard about? (Other than sales chatter, which I'll credit only when someone knowledgable says the same things.)

 

I can address some of your points :

1) The 2009 car is different than the 07 with a new direct fuel injection engine as well as the introduction of PDK . It also has the option of having an upgraded suspension which includes a limited slip differential. It also has a lot of the gadgets like ipod and phone .

Driving the two cars has a lot of similarities too but the most noticeable difference I found is how immediate the response was in the 09 car. I probably would detect even more to contrast if I wasn't so focused on the how the PDK has made its impact on my particular car .

Each of thse cars has it's character though . Having owned both an 05 and 07 997S as well as my current 997S I can honestly say I enjoyed all of them and I'm still having fun .

2) The NSX is an all time Japanese sports car Icon . I have never seen a production run like the NSX where we can talk about this car 20 years after it was launched . At that time I was younger and coiuld not afford one but test drove it and loved it . I opted instead for its rival --the 300ZxTurbo of that period . By the time I could buy an NSX Porsche had launched the 993(which I bought) and that car is a legend even to this day .

It's so hard to split hairs in this car level . One wins with any car he chooses . It is sad to hear of the NSX accident but it's also refreshing to read how the negative was turned into a positive .

You have this 997S now --Enjoy it for the ride and the years which bring it close to your heart .

 

fantastic story gary! i'm sure you'll both enjoy the 997... my wife certainly has fun driving our carrera S too!

 

I see. The DFI would be the justification for his saying "the '09 has a new engine". Sales talk for a worthwhile mod that adds power and flexibility. And I agree that the difference I felt could most easily be summed up as responsiveness. We also have to allow for a possible difference in state of... well, not tune precisely, but adjustment anyway. The '07 was a CPO, but nevertheless it's fly-by-wire throttle map might not have been adjusted completely to spec. In any case, the '09 definitely felt more like the power was a direct extension of my ankle. So to speak.

I agree completely. Really fine cars are like fine wines. Enthusiasts can talk about subtleties for hours, but you won't go seriously wrong with any of them. Despite my decades long urge for a 911, I seriously considered buying another NSX from the dozen or so very low mileage examples available around the country at any time. And a lot of their owners have three cars: the NSX, a Ferrari or Porsche or Aston that is their second fair weather toy, and a throw-away that is their daily driver whatever the weather. I grieve to say the last one was often a BMW, although I'd put them in the same category as "fine cars" if we extend it to allow fine sedans. But it's true. I kept meeting that combination when I did a search that found a low-mileage NSX. Say one with less than 20k miles. The NSX, another cherished car, and a workaday BMW seven series or something.

Incidentally, what persuaded me to try fulfilling a dream car at my age, instead of sticking with a known quantity in the NSX, was not just the warranty on a new car, though that was my practical excuse I gave aloud. What really mattered was lurking on this forum for a couple of days and visiting a couple of others with sports coupes a practical man of years would be considering, like the Audi S5 series.

Here, the atmosphere is essentially the same as at NSXPrime. People love their cars, discuss the foibles of different models, and help each other make decisions. In other forums, the talk of the day was typically about ways to deal with a notorious problem. Problems I wouldn't tolerate for two weeks. (Sidestep to the Audi forum and search for "shimmy" and read what brand new owners are reporting. Then do a google for the Audi Technical Service Bulletin. We cancelled all our test drives in Audis after reading that.)

Your forum here convinced me we could have the same joy of ownership with a Porsche that we had with an NSX. With many cars, that joy lasts only as long as you have another car for daily use, and we don't use cars that way. Of course, we live in Southern California where you are not abusing a sports car to hit the roads 360 days a year. Lots of place that would be 365, but we live in the high desert and it snows about every fourth year.<g>

Incidentally, I feel the same way about differences between models of Porsche as I do about other fine cars. Lots of ways to be good, or Mozart would have stopped with one opera and one piece of night music.

 

Jeez. I'm dense, and misunderstood you to mean the six speeds of a Porsche versus the five speeds some people associate with NSX. Took me a bit to remember this forum is in a bunch of others under 6speedonline. My apologies.

 

Nice reading Gary, congrats on your 997.2 and enjoy her in good health.