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Here's my list. Pretty short considering my age and addiction to cars. What's your list?
1967 Pontiac Firebird (6 cylinder, 3 on the tree, many cans of bondo and primer)
1974 Maverick 4-door (6 cylinder, auto, no a/c, no power steering, no radio)
1977 Toyota Corolla (surprisingly fun little car -- maybe the only car I could drive to its limits)
1987 Rx7 (first brand new car after college -- felt like a space craft at the time to me)
Various other 2nd Gen Rx7's for parts and fix'n up
1985 3.2 Carrera (sure wish I kept that one)
1993 Rx7 Twin Turbo (truly a great car even by today's standards)
1896 944 (still have it, been through every inch, and will never sell it)
2000 BMW 323ci (went 225k on original clutch -- don't make them like that anymore)
2011 330is (liked it a lot, but didn't love it)
1979 450SL (my dad's old car, did a rolling restoration when I got it, will never sell it)
2016 GMC Canyon (my current daily driver)
2018 991 Turbo S (awesome)
2021 992 Turbo S (awesome-r still)
I'm sure I'm forgetting a few.... [Edit: just remembered one: I had a very-trashed 1972 Datsun pick-up for about a month. Bought it for $100 with a badly blown head gasket. Drove it home with little difference between the oil and coolant -- both a frothy mocha. Changed the head gasket and redid the valves and sold it for $500. ]
1965 Chevy Impala - hand me down
1972 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme - fast and boring
1974 Chevy Malibu
1977 BMW 320i
1981 BMW 318i - horrible car
1987 BMW 325is - fun and well built, Recaro seats, LSD
1991 BMW 535i
1997 BMW 540i
2003 Mercedes E-500
2005 Mini Cooper S - tons of bolt on mods, legal go cart
2007 BMW 335i
2009 BMW 340i M-sport - great car with Stage 1 tune
2013 Audi S4 - super fast but felt like a heavy train
2016 VW Golf R - I wish I didn’t sell this car
2019 Audi RS3 - supercar fast
2022 Porsche Cayman GTS 4.0
In order:
- 1967 (used) Chev Nova SS. 283 V8 w/ 2 barrel carbs. 2-speed Powerglide transmission. Never in the right gear, and ran about 2.5 hours per tank of gas. Let's just say range anxiety with EVs has nothing on this.
- 1989 (new) Chev Beretta GTZ. The engine was pretty impressive for its day.
- 1992 (new) Honda Civic hatch. Base model, no options. Seriously impressive gas mileage, got 960 km on a tank on a road trip.
--- skipping the minivan years ---
- ???? (used) Honda Civic hatch. This one had the variable valve timing. And, more importantly, air conditioning.
- 2004 (new) Subaru WRX. In World Rally Blue. Loved this car. OTS Cobb tune, straight pipes. Light, nimble and decent power. Blew up the first engine at the Bonneville Salt Flats. Would probably still be driving this car if someone didn't steal it.
- 2015 (new) Subaru STI. On paper, a better car than the previous WRX. Definitely more refined, and likely quicker on a track. But lacked the character and soul the WRX had.
- 2018 (used) 991.2 C4S. Finally stepped up. Great all-round car. Had everything I loved about the WRX, just amplified. And layered on top a bit of interior luxury. Only had this car for a year as an interim while I was waiting for an allocation for the car I really wanted, which was ...
-- 2023 (new) 992 C4GTS. Feels like this car is the one I've been waiting for my whole life. Lots of luxury (full Agave leather interior, e.g.) but more importantly, proper performance. Every input gets a sharp and immediate response. Still learning about her character - she's only tried to kill me once - but it is as demanding as it is deep. Looking forward to some track days.
1961 - 1954 Chevrolet Bel-Air HT. Power Glide, and power steering.My dad and I repainted this in our garage using Western Auto paint.
1962 - 1962 Corvair Monza four-door. Base engine, three speed, bucket seats. In the ever-popular that year Hondouras Maroon with black interior. I learned to drive sideways in this car, good training for some later Porsches.
1964 - 1964 Corvair Monza Spyder, silver with black. Great little car that came to a bad end as the result of driver error. Did about a 120 degree roll to the right, then back to wings level. RIP.
1965 - Corvair Corsa 180 turbo. Dark green over black. Another great little car. Good street racer and was a giant slayer. Served me well last couple of years of college and Uncle Sam's Boy Scouts.
1969 - Porsche 356C. I got Porsche fever, found a nice one (Irish Green over Tan) and sold the Corsa to a friend of mine. I heard later someone started a Crown V-8 conversion on it, I don't know how that turned out, if it did. 356C neat little car except for the heater in the Kansas City winters. Joined PCA. Traded in on the 914-4 below. Don't I wish I hadn't done that now!
1970 - Porsche 914-4. Got "topless fever" and bought one of the first 914's in K.C. Silver over black, appearance group. Pleasant little car, great fuel economy at high speeds. Racked up a lot of miles (over 40K) in it. It was frustrating at times because of it's newness and I found myself participating in Porsches owner-managed, warranty financed R&D program. Along the line I became interested in 914-6's and set my goal on one of those. In April of 1970 I saw my first 914-6 "in the flesh" and it turned out I would end up with that very car about a year later.
1971 - Porsche 914-6. I purchased this orange over black car July 5, 1971 and would have it for eighteen (!) years. This car had been the personal street car of Bob Hindson, one of the drivers of the six 914-6's campaigned by Porsche-Audi in SCCA racing in 1970. As such my car was VERY well set-up. I sold it in 1989 as I was deep into flying by that time and couldn't afford two high-priced hobbies. I REALLY wish I hadn't done that, but such is life.
1972 - 1968 Mustang. This was acquired through my marriage. It was a POS, but to be fair it was basic transportation. Three speed, base six. LOTS of rust. As a matter of fact the trunk could have been referred to as a "side-loader."
1976 - 1974 Honda Civic. Another very good little car, although this particular example had a penchant for breaking timing belts at about 20K intervals. But since it was a non-interference engine just an annoyance, not a major issue. Put a lot of miles (over 100K) on it, some at highway speeds that had to have had it over 5K revs for hours, with no issues on the engine at all. Sold the rusty Mustang and surprisingly in spite of it's rust issues, had people lined up to buy it! Incredible.
1976 - 1959 VW beetle. This was a project car. Not sure why I bought it, probably because it had the european "Trafficator" turn signals. Lowered, de-cambered it was a fun drive. Sold it after a couple of years to a couple of guys from Indiana who drove it back home. Never heard from it again.
1982 - 1982 Honda Civic 1500. Good transportation but lackluster, no fun to drive. (It as OK during the test drive since with the 1500cc engine it had a lot more straight-line pep than the 1974 Civic. But once the novelty wore off of that it wasn't so much fun to live with after that.
1989 - 1989 Honca Civic Si hatchback. The fun with Honda returns. Fantastic little machine, particularly with Koni's installed. Unfortunately this would be our last new Honda. To us their decline started there, the end of the "Golden Age of Honda" as they began marketing to the poseurs and blue-hairs (of which my wife and I were getting to be a part of except in our tastes in cars).
1992 (more or less) - 1965 Corvair Monza Sport Sedan, 110hp four-speed with factory air. This was an interesting car. I needed some back-up transportation, 4-speed four-doors with air (that worked) were rare, and the price was OK. I did some basic mechanical work on it (bolted flywheel, new rear wheel bearings for a couple of things) and drove it quite a bit.
1995 - I found a really low-mileage 1991 Honda CRX Si, red over black (another one from the Golden Age of Honda) and bought it. Saving it from the clutches of a teeny-bopper chick that would have no doubt destroyed it. It has been my daily driver since that time and now has over 371,000 miles on it. Koni shocks, big sway bars, fun drive. Transmission has been rebuilt (rattling) and a few clutches, but other than that very low maintenance. I loved the sunroof, but don't use it anymore because I'm afraid of it getting stuck open and there are no rebuild parts for it at all. (Unlike Porsche, where you can practically build a new car from scratch.)
1999 - With Honda having abandoned us we switched to a 2000 VW GTI VR6. (I need to point out here that we need a hatchback - my wife is a harp player so a sedan isn't an option and and SUV is out of the question from an image point of view.) This was a neat little car after I put springs, bars, and Koni's under it, but it had a lot of electronic gremlins. But we kept it for 11 years and over 200K. WONDERFUL music from that VR6!
2011 - Another GTI, 2011. Better handling car than the 2000. Powertrain OK, but no cool sounds like the VR6. Marginally better fuel economy than the VR6 but not enough to offset the loss of the sound by a long shot. But it's OK, and doesn't have the SUV stigma. Still a harp car.
2012 - 1982 Porsche 911SC. Back into Porsches. This red over black sunroof coupe had been sleeping in a local garage under cover for seven or eight years (maybe more). the owner (who had been an avid autocross) just parked it and that was it, and his widow couldn't remember (or didn't want to remember) why. It is tricked out with lots of suspension goodies, and the engine had been messed with too. Since (at that time) we still had emissions testing here I had to do something about that. And it had two broken head studs. So I began going down the slippery slope with the car developing a way to use a 964 manifold with EFI (TBitz) and this is just finishing up 11 years later! But it's been fun even if I haven't had a Porsche to drive. I reconnected with my old PCA friends and go to some events car-less, but it's been worth it for that even if it never gets done under my auspices.
I think that's it for cars. Along the way I had a 1961 BMW R50S (that's correct; "S". Very rare), a 1979 BMW R65 into which I put an R100 engine, and a Kawasaki Ninja 250. The latter generally unappreciated but a great little machine. BTW the R100 engine in the R65 frame was not appreciably faster (I had expected a real rocket what with the R65's lower final drive ratio), which was a surprise. But what was different was that you could plonk around parking lots, etc. at a less than walking pace, engine idling. Odd.
Tim Current: '26 911 Carrera S - PTS Verde British Racing Green
'24 Cayenne S - Algarve Blue Metallic
'21 718 Cayman GTS - Black
'22 911 Turbo S - Carmine Red
'21 718 Cayman GT4 - White
'11 GMC 1500 Quad Cab 4x4 - Black Musik-Stadt Region
1967 Series 1.5 Jaguar XKE OTS
Fiat 128SL
Ford Pinto Cruising Wagon (no stripes)
Fiat 131 2L Brava
Lamborghini Islero
1979 Alfa Alfetta GTV Sprint Veloce
Ferrari 308 GT4
Mini 1275 Cooper S
Fiat 124 Spyder
1989 Porsche 944 Turbo
Crossle 35F FF
Numerous Nissan's as daily driver lease vehicles as I worked at Nissan for 35 years and drove many competitors as well
All had something positive to offer
75 - first car - 1967 GTO
76 - traded titles for a 1970 GTO in Black
78 - Datsun 240Z (Can't recall what year the car was)
81 - Datsun 280Z
82 - This was the year I drove a Guards Red Porsche 930 Turbo.
But couldn't afford one.
83 - Fell in love with my college roommate's Alpha Spyder
85 - 90 NO CAR - living in the City
91 - Saab 900 Turbo
94- Volvo 850 Turbo Wagon and Red Alpha Spyder Graduate Edition
96 - Added a Volvo 850 Turbo Sedan
00 - Audi A6 6sp Biturbo 6.
04 - Audi A6 4.2 V8
08 - BMW 550I
12 - BMW 550IX M Sport
17 - Added a 2004 Porche C4S
20 - BMW X5M - still have that 911.
I love my cars, love to drive, and I need a car that I am excited to get behind the wheel of. The EV's have come a long way, but I'm not ready to make that leap just yet. The longer I wait, the better they get. So maybe in a few more years.
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